MY LCA-YAN EXPERIENCE FROM THE VICE-PRESIDENT’S DESK-OLADAPO MARE

So Mare agreed to give us a stint of how exactly the moot went. Enjoy!

Last year, the LCA-YAN moot competition was organised for law firms where students got to research for them and then a student advocate also got to speak for the law firm to promote oral advocacy and participation for the students. Banwo & Ighodalo won the 2017 LCA-YAN competition alongside University of Lagos students who faced Lagos State University students competing with STRACAN Partners.

This year, the 2018 LCA-YAN Arbitration Moot Competition was organised purely like the J Vis Moot Competition which holds yearly in Vienna, Austria. The winning school will be considered first hand for students to be put forward as the counsels and for the competition. Upon qualifying for the moot on Friday 20th July 2018, the semi-finals and finals were on 26th and 27th of July 2018 respectively, leaving only 7 days to prepare for the oral advocacy. Arbitration oral advocacy is purely and distinctively different from the moot adversarial advocacy. The following students who showed interest were gathered in time to prepare for the oral advocacy; Mare Oladapo, Dosumnu Mubarak, Ayodeji Busuyi, Amarachi Ego-Osuala, Alao Omeiza and Ojo Stephen.

Due to the technical nature of the arbitration and the stakes, the team underwent intensive training at the Lagos Court of Arbitration, Lekki. The training spanned from Monday to Wednesday where they got a chance to discuss, argue and restructure their arguments, and deal with questions that arose. This gave the team a chance to moot alongside law firms like Templars, and other schools such as LASU. It also gave the team a chance to network with people from various universities and firms. After intensive training and try outs, Amarachi Ego-Osuala and Mare Oladapo were selected as the counsels for the semi-final against University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN). The semi-final kicked off with top arbitrators from top law firms like Babtunde Fagbohunlu, (SAN) from Aluko & Oyebode as the presiding arbitrator. After a fantastic round of questions and answers and smooth advocacy from the team, though UNN came with a fighting spirit, the team emerged winner of the semi-final, qualifying them to face the determined Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU).

Ojo Stephen and Alao Omeiza, whom were the counsels for UNILAG at the finals, did remarkably well to defeat the students from OAU with Alao Omeiza emerging as the Best Student Oral advocate for the competition. All this happened alongside the law firm’s category where Aelex Legal were crowned winner of the law firm category. In essence, we brought home the Gold.

This was followed by a long networking session between schools, law firms and the moot coaches from Germany and Netherlands. No participant in the moot went back the same way they came. However, the ADR Society, UNILAG with assurance from the faculty, will be looking forward to the competition in Austria with high hopes.

Mare is an enthusiastic and ardent UNILAG Adr Society member, he is also a passionate public speaker and a smart nigga. 

#unilag #LagosCourtofArbitration #moot #Vismoot #arbitration #adrsociety