Warwick Law students Toby Stacey and Stephanie Fernandes have qualified for the finals of the National Client Interviewing Competition 2019, having come second in their regional heat at Keele University last month.

After attending a training day at Oxford Brookes University, Toby and Stephanie took part in one of the Regional rounds, held at Keele University on 8 February. They came second place out of thirteen Universities and have therefore progressed to the final. The Nationals will take place on the 9 March, 2019 at The University of the West of England, Bristol.

The competition provides students with an opportunity to practice their client-interviewing skills. In advance of the competition, participants receive a one-to-two sentence ‘memo’, which provides a very basic idea of the client’s problem - the actual problem is always much more complicated and unpredictable.

At the competition, participants have a time-limit in which to interview a ‘client’ (an actor), with a focus on creating a timeline. They must ascertain their legal position and give impromptu - yet accurate - practical, legal advice. It is necessary and important to act as counsellor as well as legal advisor; the actor will have been briefed to only reveal certain information if asked, and they may be volatile or emotional. The interview is followed by a ‘self-reflection’ in which participants analyse their own performance. The whole interview and reflection is spectated by a panel of judges.

Stephanie told us, “It is difficult to prepare for a competition that provides a limited amount of information beforehand. Throughout our participation so far we have refined our roles, so that they are clear and balanced. We have focused most of our preparation on studying the relevant area of law and have met with Andrew Williams (who has been helping us to prepare) periodically to discuss our ideas.”

Information on the interview they will have to conduct has now been released, it will be concerned with the law of theft. They plan to take on-board feedback provided by the judges at the regionals and further refine their approach ready for the finals.

Toby said, “We wanted to try something new and challenging, and we see the competition as the third pillar for competitions alongside Mooting and Commercial Negotiation, in terms of the skills it helps to develop.”

“When they announced we had got through to the final we were quite surprised as we had entered this competition without a great amount of experience. Though, overall, we feel proud to represent Warwick at the Nationals and we’re looking forward to it.”

If Toby and Stephanie win the nationals, they would go on to represent England and Wales at the International Competition. This will take place in Dublin, Ireland. They are currently studying on our three year LLB degree, which they say has given them a solid foundation on which to develop their legal knowledge and the competition has been essential in helping them put this knowledge into practice.

“We strongly believe that this has been an invaluable experience for us. We want to formally introduce an internal competition for students of all years, next year, which would determine the team that represents Warwick University at the next Client Interview Competition and the runner ups would be the reserve team. According to the rules of the competition, students may only represent their University once, so we think this would be a fair way to select the students, and generally increase the opportunities to practice client interviewing.”

We wish them both the best of luck at the competition.