Two law students from the University of Notre Dame Australia will travel to Croatia this month to represent Australia in an international competition following an outstanding win at the national level.
Final-year Bachelor of Laws students Eva Medenis and Claudia Turner will represent Australia in the Brown-Mosten International Client Consulting Competition in Zagreb.
The annual event brings together the winners of competitions from around the world, giving them an opportunity to practice interviewing, legal advice and counselling skills while networking with global peers.
Eva and Claudia earned their place on the global stage after winning the Australian Law Students’ Association Client Interview Competition, competing against teams from 15 Australian universities.
Their success built on an impressive performance in Notre Dame’s Senior Client Interview Competition in Fremantle, which is designed to help students develop core skills including client interviewing, building client rapport and managing client relations.
Eva and Claudia will compete against teams from 40 countries in Croatia, consulting with clients on legal issues related to land use. They will have 30 minutes to interview the client and identify legal and factual issues before giving preliminary advice.
Angela Babic, an academic in the School of Law and Business, will travel with the team as coach.
Eva said the client interviewing competitions had provided an exciting opportunity to apply what she had learned in the classroom to a real-world scenario.
“In our previous competitions we were given a lot of different topics such as administrative law and constitutional law, which are topics we have studied throughout our degrees, so it’s been really exciting to put that theoretical learning into a practical setting,” she said.
“We are grateful for the University’s support because without that we would not be able to travel to Croatia and take part in this experience.”
Judges in the national competition praised Eva and Claudia for their ability to build rapport and positively impact their clients.
“They were particularly strong from an ethical and social perspective and had a good sense of the ethical positions of their clients,” the judges commented.
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, Law and Business, Professor Martin Drum, said the judge’s feedback spoke to the strengths of Notre Dame’s graduates.
He said the qualities exhibited by Eva and Claudia were the same attributes the University aimed to instil in its graduates, including excellence in knowledge, ethical responsibility and a strong commitment to care for others.