Southampton team participates in the UK Mediation Competition

Second year LLB student Charlie Welman and final year LLB student Lavan Thasarathakumar represented Southampton Law School at the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators' Annual National Mediation Competition on 17-19 January, 2014.

The team marginally lost their first round match against a team of BPTC students from the University of the West of England, but proceeded to win their second round match against a team of LLM students from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Their coach Mateusz Bek, a Senior Research Assistant with the Institute of Maritime Law, commented on the fantastic effort the Southampton team put in: "Winning the second round after taking feedback on board shows improvement - the team was fantastic and looked like winners. Mediation is an elusive skill, but essential to practising lawyers already now and even more so in the future". The judges commented that Charlie and Lavan had submitted an "excellent mediation plan" and that they were "both outstanding".

Before the competition, the team received a private tour of the offices of the magic circle law firm sponsoring the event and had a chat over coffee with a Managing Associate and a Trainee.

There was also strong involvement in the competition by Southampton Law School as Jennifer Lavelle was a member of the organising committe and Dingjing Huang assisted by acting as one of the timekeepers in the competition.

This was Southampton Law School's third appearance in the annual competition. The next competition takes place in November 2014.