UCT team runs amok at competition

13 October 2008 | Story by Newsroom

UCT team
The UCT team of Stacey Hendricks and Jacob Wiese were the overall points winners of the national Mock Trial Intervarsity held at the University of Pretoria in September. In picture with Hendricks and Wiese is, centre, Law Clinic director, Bev Bird.

The UCT team of Stacey Hendricks and Jacob Wiese were the overall points winners of the national Mock Trial Intervarsity held at the University of Pretoria in September.

UCT scored 85% in the first round, some 17% ahead of their nearest rivals. "This caused such an air of despondency amongst the other teams, that I suggested that marks of the subsequent rounds not be made public," comments UCT Law Clinic director Bev Bird.

Hendricks and Wiese were a team to be reckoned with, noted Bird. "Even being presented with the facts of the case only minutes before the hearing didn't phase them."

For their part, Stacey and Jacob thanked Bev and the staff of the UCT Law Clinic for the excellent grounding they'd given them. There was nothing that anyone could throw at them which UCT hadn't prepared them to handle, said the students.

This would seem to be a consensus view. The Law Clinic runs the Legal Practice course in which the numbers have climbed from the 20s in 2005 to a capacity of 75 in the past two years. Students talk about the excitement of putting their hard-earned theory into practice for the first time and about the job satisfaction of working with underprivileged communities of Cape Town.

The final round of the competition was adjudicated by a High Court judge, with a magistrate and an advocate acting as the two assessors.


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