Last weekend, SMU’s mooting team comprising Nicholas Liu, Qabir Sandhu, Nanthini Vijayakumar, Patrick Tay and Victoria Leong beat the NUS team to emerge champs at the national round of the 2015 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.  With the team winning the Best Memorial and Nicholas winning the Best Oralist award as well, SMU swept all prizes at the national round to gain a definitive victory.

This is the third successive year that SMU has won the national round of the international moot competition.  Having defended the national title, the team will go on to represent Singapore at the international round in April.

This year, principal coaching duties were assumed by SMU alumni Daniel Liu (who was in the 2013 Jessup team) and Kenny Lau (who was in the 2014 Jessup team).  The duo had also coached the Asia Cup team to championship in Tokyo in September last year.

“Having reached the international championship round in the last two years, SMU is proud once again to represent Singapore in the world's biggest moot competition,” said Assistant Professor of Law Chen Siyuan, who heads the SMU Faculty Mooting Committee and oversees the training and development of all SMU moot court teams.

Grateful for the strong support from the SMU community which contributed to the good showing, he added, “This win is a total team effort, with great support received from the deanery, faculty, support staff and our international moot alumni.” 

Last year, some 600 schools around the world took part in the competition and more than 100 teams landed in the international rounds.  The SMU team had triumphed over many teams from top institutions such as Oxford University and King's College London to emerge runner-up, for the second year running.

We can be sure that this team, bound for Washington D.C. in April 2015, will be gearing up to give its 100% at its international showing.

And when they do, SMU will be behind them all the way.

[Featured photo (L-R): ​Daniel Liu (Coach), Qabir Sandhu, Nanthini Vijayakumar, Patrick Tay, Nicholas Liu, Victoria Leong, Kenny Lau (Coach)]