Mallal Moot Competition 2015 is officially over! Mallal Moot Competition is one of the most prestigious and oldest mooting competitions, organized by NUS Law’s very own Mooting and Debating Club, proudly sponsored by Allen & Gledhill LLP.
The preliminaries for this Moot Competition started as early as 28 August, when the Moot Problem was released to 116 participants and these participants mooted against one another in front of a panel of two judges on 5 September.
From the Preliminary Rounds, Allen & Gledhill has selected 8 participants to advance into the Semi-Final rounds. In no order of merit, they are:
- Grace Teo Pei Rong
- Liew Dominic Junior
- Mok Zi Cong
- Yeow Yuet Cheong
- Ephraim Tan Hui Rong
- Valencia Soh
- Joel Zhang Yi
- Nicholas Lee
Following which, the Semi Finals took place on 18 September where the 8 Semi-Finalists mooted against each other, pair by pair, for 4 spots for the Finals!
With that, let’s hear from Yuet Cheong, one of the semi finalists, on his experience as a Semi Finalist:
‘It was a great honour to go before two highly accomplished partners from A&G and Prof Elaine Chew. It has definitely been a valuable learning experience for me and I hope to work on the judges’ feedback so as to improve as a speaker and mooter’.
Pavithra (Yuet Cheong’s supporter and audience of the Semi Finals):
‘Yuet Cheong was cool and unflappable, and defended his case the best he could’.
Featuring Yuet Chong, Pavithra and Yuet Chong’s supporters
AND COMING TO THE FINALS THAT JUST TOOK PLACE LAST FRIDAY (2 October)!!!!
During the intense few hours last Friday, the appellants — Grace Teo and Mok Zi Cong — took to the stand to battle it out with the respondents — Joel Zhang and Ephraim Tan — on the issue of confidentiality in a mediation setting.
Let’s take a look at the mooters ‘live in action’!!
Grace Teo
Mok Zi Cong
Joel Zhang
Ephraim Tan
And not forgetting to mention, the judges presiding over this moot were the Honourable Judicial Commissioner Kannan Ramesh, Mr Edwin Tong SC, partner of Allen and Gledhill LLP, and Associate Professor Eleanor Wong.
Honourable Judicial Commissioner Kannan Ramesh
Associate Professor Eleanor Wong
Throughout the moots, the participants stayed composed whilst facing tough questions from the judges and were able to deliver their speeches eloquently and fluently. It was a really exciting experience for the audience watching and hearing the finalists moot against each other! 🙂
After an evening of presenting, debating, and rebutting, Joel Zhang was announced as the Champion, followed by Grace Teo as 1st Runner-up as well as Ephraim Tan and Mok Zi Cong for 2nd Runner-up. Congratulations to all the Finalists! (:
Finale Shot! (:
To end off, here’s what the organisers Yi Jie (Year 1) and Renee (Year 2) have to say:
“Ultimately, the bench advised all that the spirit of mooting much more about having a discussion with the judges rather than making a speech. In that vein, all future participants were encourage to interact more with the bench and, more importantly, not fear the questions from the judges.
All in all, it was a great night of cutting wit and intellect from some of law school’s best and brightest. As another year of Mallal Moots draw to a close, we will be looking forward to the event next year.”
Article by: Jesslyn (Year 2)
Photo Credits for Mallal Moots 2015 Finals: Zhi Hao (Year 1)
*Author would like to thank the NUS Mooting and Debating Club, Yi Jie (Year 1), Renee (Year 2) and Ian (Year 2) in particular for organising the event and support for this article in terms of clarification of the information for the finals.
