Kristina Cendic, the coach of the 2012/13 team from the University of Sarajevo, has shared her experience at the Price Moot Regional and International Rounds and how it brought her to collaborate with a British law firm and attend hearings at the Royal Court of Justice.

Dear reader,

As you are looking over these pages, you must be considering taking part in the Price Moot Court Competition. If you haven’t made up your mind yet, I hope my experience will put another tick in your ‘pro’ column and make you apply for this educational and fun program which carries numerous benefits because even if your team doesn’t win in final rounds, you still win something. And here is what I won:

As I was involved in preparations of team of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, I participated with four of my students firstly in the competition in Belgrade, Serbia, and then in Oxford. And as preparations go on, you keep learning new things and somehow the case grows on you and you keep reading and discovering the field of media law over and over again. So by the time you reach the final rounds, this area of research becomes your primary interest and more and more interesting. You’ll come across various documents and judgments, you’ll know more about defamation, privacy, new technologies, etc. and you’ll meet some new people which may bring wonderful things to you.

You usually read about the rules of competition, the case, and similar, but there is an important “human” component of the Moot Court. This component turned out to be extremely useful for me and thanks to it, I gained new knowledge, new friends and new experiences. It is not just the other participants that you get to know, you also get to know the judges. And they are all very friendly, their comments are helpful and there is a lot you can learn from them. This is how I approached one of them, exchanged contacts and finally got an opportunity to go to London for a short visit to a law firm. I helped a little with a case they were working on, I went to the Royal Court of Justice and attended hearings, at the office I had access to excellent books on media law (one of them I even got as a present) and I met very nice people willing to introduce me into their work and teach me about media law. Going to the Royal Court of Justice can be even a type of sightseeing for foreigners, because it’s a fantastic building where you can see and learn from the moment you enter, and for a foreigner, it could be very interesting seeing barristers actually wearing a wig and a robe argue, witnesses going through cross examinations, etc. Again, as most participants are not from the UK, here you can see what the procedures in the UK are like, how the law works in this country, and not to mention that you can improve your legal terminology in English. In addition, the people at the office were incredibly helpful, ready to explain everything and answer your questions, and for all this I am incredibly grateful to them because what they have done means a lot to me and it will be useful for my future career.

And so, I think that participating in this competition has many advantages and perhaps you could have similar nice stories about it, too. The Price Media Law Moot Court Competition is more than worth applying for, preparing and trying, because regardless of the ranking of your team but depending on your motivation and interest, there is always some award that you may take home with you.