National competition success for Victoria students
Victoria University of Wellington has won the national final of the Russell McVeagh Client Interviewing competition for the second year in a row.
Eve Bain and Fayez Shahbaz represented Victoria at the New Zealand Law Students’ Association (NZLSA) Conference at the end of August, where they won four out of five of the preliminary rounds before progressing to the finals.
The pair were up against the University of Canterbury in the final—the topic of which was described by one of the Russel McVeagh partners, who judged the competition, as the hardest and most complicated problem she had read.
The topic of the final was about a woman who ran her own company that specialised in crafting water sculptures. She had built water features for two parties—one in her personal capacity and the other in her company capacity. She also had issues with her supplier giving her the wrong sized pipes. An earthquake struck, causing the two features to burst and cause extensive damage. The woman wanted advice about what to do.
Fayez says the problem raised issues relating to company law, breach of contract, tort law (negligence, and the tort of Rylands v Fletcher in particular) and conflicts of interest (can only represent her in one capacity—as the company or personally).
Eve and Fayez will represent New Zealand at the Louis M Brown and Forrest S Mosten International Client Consultation Competition next year.
Two other Victoria student teams reached the final stage of their competition as part of the NZLSA Conference—Sean Brennan and Teja Kandarpa in Mooting and Lucy Kenner and Kayla Polamalu in Junior Mooting.