Spaces to inspire out students

The Wigoder Law Building on our Canterbury campus shows in bricks and mortar the ambition of our supporters.

The state-of-the-art space is home to the awardwinning Kent Law Clinic, staffed by law students working under the guidance of qualified lawyers and gives the local community free access to legal advice and representation. Students take responsibility for real cases, and act as advocates for clients in court or at a tribunal. The building’s design complements the friendly and professional approach taken by staff and students and to ensure the Clinic retains its leading role in clinical legal education.

The upper floor features a dedicated Moot Court built in the style of a courtroom with features drawn from the UK Supreme Court. Named in honour of Hong Kong Supreme Court solicitor Kennedy Wong, a major benefactor of the Kent Law Campaign, this space allows students to hone their advocacy skills in an ultra-realistic setting.

Mooting is one of the most important extracurricular activities with employers in the field looking for more than just a good law degree; students with mooting experience have considerable advantage over those without. The Kent Law School has a longstanding reputation for high-quality legal research and education with real life impact on its students through its mooting programme. Our students get to: practice their craft in research, writing and advocacy; learn to work in teams; learn to be a successful advocate; handle legal materials and put them to effective use and work under considerable pressure and deliver within tight time frames.

Kent was the first university in England and Wales to hold a paperless moot after being given to access to CaseLines, a computerised evidence and courtroom presentation system.

Court systems and processes have not kept pace with the world around us – the systems and processes are labour-intensive, counter-intuitive and heavily reliant on paper and legacy systems that need a lot of re-keying, maintenance and workarounds, which produce error, duplication, inefficiency and overstretch. We are at the forefront of the HM Courts and Tribunal Services’ programme of court reform, which aims to bring new technology and modern ways of working to what is, and will remain, the best justice system in the world.

Law student, and aspiring barrister, Mark Nagy-Miticzky says his mooting experiences at Kent were “critical” in helping him secure scholarships from Inner Temple and BPP.

I think my mooting experiences were critical in my interview. Really the three things scholarship providers and chambers look for the most (I think) are good grades, and involvement in mini-pupillages and mooting.

During his four-year International Legal Studies degree, Mark took part in a Landmark Property Moot and reached the quarter-final of an Inner Temple Moot. He was also awarded ‘Best Mooter’ for his performance in a Kent Law School Evidence Moot. Mark said: “Having these competitions on my CV makes it easy to check the box for mooting experiences, but the public speaking skills also meant I was somewhat more comfortable selling myself in my answers.”