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The team at Speedmooting.com have released the schedule for the Advocacy Club in 2025. 

The Advocacy Club is a friendly environment where members can take part and practise advocacy in a non-judgmental environment. The club meets on Zoom each month. Each meeting focuses on a different aspect of advocacy. During 2025, they will cover the following forms of advocacy:

• Speed mooting
• Civil submissions advocacy
• Family law advocacy – brand new for 2025!!
• Bail application
• Plea in mitigation
• Opening Speech
• Witness handling
• Closing Speech
• Public speaking 
• Debating 

Have a look at the brochure linked below for more information, or their website. Be aware however there is a monthly fee to join.

File attachment: Advocacy_Club_Brochure.pdf (0.7 MB PDF document)

Women and the Law

You are invited to write an essay of not more than 5000 words relating to the above topic. The winning entry will be awarded £250 (!!!)

About the Prize: The purpose of the annual prize is to stimulate interest in the relationship between women and the law.

About Victoria Fisher: Victoria was a lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Leicester. She was a founder member of the Women and Law group and an active trade unionist.

Entries to be received by November 29 2024

To find out more information and how to enter contact: Mrs Linda Henfrey, Victoria Fisher Memorial Prize Fund t: +44 (0)116 252 2363 e:lawreception@le.ac.uk 

You can also find further information online (external link).

Want to push on in your studies, or just starting out? City St. George’s Academic Skills Team are running a series of free webinars this term to help you do just that.

They’re on a variety of topics, including the basics you’ll need when you start here, referencing, using critical thinking to find good academic sources, and how to improve your groupwork for better presentations.

You can find the details and how to book at the link below. We hope to see you soon!

Best wishes for the new term,

The Academic Skills Team (Richard, Michelle, Katie, David, Aggie, and Sally)

You can also find further information online (external link).

Progression Pathways: accelerating your student success is a programme designed to enable Black students to engage with development training at an earlier stage in their journeys.

This project supports our Access and Participation Plan goal to “reduce completion gaps between our Black students and their White peers.” The programme will give you the chance to reflect on how you are seen and how you want to be seen, while also providing strategies and tools to help you identify and use your strengths to move forward in education and employment.

Call for Applications opens on 9th October. See document attached for full details of the programme and benefits on offer.

First event is on 9th December so best to get applications in for end of November.

File attachment: progression_pathways_-_accelerating_your_student_success_1.pdf (1.1 MB PDF document)

The team at SpeedMooting.com are running a Bail Application Competition on Saturday 7th December 2024, running from 9am to 4pm.

It will take place online on Zoom. This is a great opportunity for students to boost their CVs and gain some practical advocacy experience. Further details of the competition (including rules, schedule etc) are available at their website (link below).

Winner receives an iPad.

You can also find further information online (external link).

It's competition time! For all you budding journalists with an interest in the rise of AI in law, this one promises to be interesting.

The first article competition to be run by the SCL AI Group, open to trainees and other junior lawyers (including students). Submit your article on a topic concerning the intersection of artificial intelligence and law for a chance to be published in the SCL’s Computers & Law magazine and on the SCL’s website.

Article topics

Entrants should write an article on one of the three topics:

1. The most transformative changes in legal practice that will arise from the use of AI in the next 10 years;
2. The ability of AI to increase access to justice; and
3. The liability of autonomous systems.

The prize

• £500 of training credits to spend with SCL*

• Publication in the SCL’s Computers & Law magazine and on the SCL’s website

The judges may, in their discretion, in addition to declaring a winner, formally award one or more other articles the title ‘Highly Commended’.

Who can enter

• Trainee solicitors;
• Solicitor apprentices;
• Pupil barristers;
• Students currently undertaking, or who have completed in the last 12 months, a law degree (undergraduate or post-graduate), GDL, LPC or SQE (or any equivalent legal course/training).

Length of article

The length of your article should not exceed 1,500 words (excluding any footnotes and the title).

Deadline for submission

Submissions must be entered by 5:00pm (UK time) on Friday, 6 December 2024.

Article requirements

• Your article must be your original work and not previously published, or submitted for publication, elsewhere.
• Entrants are permitted to use AI tools, but use of AI tools must be disclosed (including the extent and nature) when submitting your entry.
• No jointly authored papers are permitted.
• You may only submit one entry.
• Your essay must be in English.

How to submit your essay

You must send your submissions as a PDF file by email to hello@scl.org to be received by 5:00pm (UK time) on Friday, 6 December 2024. Your covering email must set out your name, contact details, and a brief explanation of the basis on which you are entitled to enter the competition, e.g. ‘current LPC student’.

Copyright and publicity

You retain copyright ownership in your article. You agree to your work being compared against electronic sources by automatic means, and other plagiarism checks the SCL considers appropriate. If you win, you grant to the SCL the non-exclusive right to publish the article, in print and electronically, in SCL publications, and you agree not to publish your article elsewhere before 1 March 2025. You agree to make any pre-publication editorial modifications to the winning entry that are required by the editor of Computers & Law for this purpose.

If you are the winner or your article is “Highly Commended”, you grant SCL the right to publish your name, the basis for your entry into the competition and the details of your article.

How and when will the result be announced

The result of the competition will be announced in early 2025 and on the SCL’s website. The prize will be awarded only if, in the opinion of the judges, the standard of entries merits the award.

The judges

The judging panel will consist of members of the SCL’s AI Group Committee, in addition to David Chaplin, Editor of Computers & Law.

The winning submission(s) will be selected from a shortlist by SCL President, Professor Richard Susskind OBE KC (Hon).

All entries will be anonymised before submission to the judges. The decision of SCL as to the interpretation of these rules and the awarding of the prize (and as to whether any prize is to be awarded) is final and no correspondence or discussions regarding its decision will be entered into.

*No cash equivalent available if the credits are not spent on training

You can also find further information online (external link).

The Annual National Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics is an annual competition held in the Spring. It is open to all Undergraduate and Post Graduate Students enrolled in UK universities.

Students are invited to enter by submitting an essay of up to 2000 words on any topic relevant to practical ethics.

Practical ethics is concerned with what we should do in any given situation. It reflects on personal, professional, policy, and social choices and structures and holds them up to scrutiny. It may balance or prioritise different values and interests.

Two undergraduate papers and two graduate papers will be shortlisted from those submitted to go forward to a public presentation and discussion, where the winner of each category will be selected.  

The winner from each category will receive a prize of £500, and the runner up £200. Revised versions of the two winning essays will be considered for publication in the Journal of Practical Ethics.

How to take part

Stage 1: The Essay

Your essay of up to 2000 words may cover any topic relevant to practical ethics. The question to be addressed should be stated clearly in bold at the outset. References are permitted but not required.  The essay can draw upon existing published work but must be sufficiently original for it to be eligible for consideration for publication in the Journal of Practical Ethics. The focus of the marking will be on the quality and originality of your argument.

How to submit your entry:

• Pre-prepare your submission for blind review by removing any identifying information from your manuscript.
• Provide a separate title sheet with the title of your essay, your name and contact details, email address and a word count.
• Please note that essays exceeding 2000 words may not be considered.
• Footnotes and references are not included in the word count, however footnotes should be kept to a minimum.
• Email both a pdf and Word version of your anonymised manuscript, plus the title sheet, to admin@uehiro.ox.ac.uk by the closing date. 

Essays will be assessed based on quality and originality of argument, including:

• Persuasiveness of argument
• Critical acumen
• Clarity of structure and content
• Intelligent use of literature
• Understanding of the topic
• Originality
• Potential for impact beyond the academy

Scores and feedback will not be generally provided. Feedback will be provided to the winners if their papers are invited to be submitted to the Journal of Practical Ethics. Anti-plagiarism software will be employed by the assessors.

Stage 2: Presentation Event
Shortlisted authors will be invited to the public presentation event. Before a panel of judges and the audience, they will each be asked to give a presentation of 15 minutes (maximum), explaining the key ideas of their paper. This will be followed by a 5 minute Q&A with the audience. Each finalist will be allowed a strict maximum of 20 minutes overall.

The panel will make a final judgement on each presentation, based on the same criteria as those used to assess the original essays, taking also into account the presenter’s capacity for communication with the audience.

After the presentation we invite the audience to join the finalists and judges at a drinks reception, during which the panel will announce the winners. Following which the finalists are invited to join the judging panel at a celebration dinner to be held in one of the Oxford colleges.

Finalists from outside of Oxford may have their travel and accommodation provided to allow them to attend this event in person, to be confirmed upon application.

You can also find further information online (external link).