On Monday the 26th of October, the Law Clinic Street Law team hosted a session in our moot room with sixth year pupils from schools such as All Saints RC Secondary, Springburn Academy, St Mungos Academy and St Andrews RC Secondary who are interested in undertaking a LLB degree. The pupils were spending a day shadowing first year LLB students at GCU to get insight into university life. As part of the day, the pupils took part in a speed moot session with us which allowed them to spend time preparing and participating in the moots and create an ethical argument on whether or not someone should be entitled to life saving treatment.
The pupils were split into senior appellants and respondents, junior appellants and respondents and judges. At this stage, the judges were taken into the Law Clinics office and briefed on the scenario and their role. The respondents and appellants were separated and given fifteen minutes to form arguments for the party they were defending.
Once the fifteen minutes was up, the pupils were set up in their teams consisting of a senior and junior respondent, a senior and junior appellant and a judge. Each counsel had 6 minutes split between the junior and senior to persuade the judge in their favour. Some of the arguments put across for the appellants were; everyone should be entitled to the same treatment, right to life and for the respondents; costs of treatment, draining resources which could be used to save many more lives and that one life cannot be prioritised over another.
After the judges had heard both parties argument, they were brought to the front and asked to state who they were in favour of and on what grounds. The judges unanimously found in favour of the respondents who were acting on behalf of the NHS.
The interactive session with the school pupils was a great success with many saying it was the favourite part of their day at GCU. Rachel Campbell (Outreach Manager) was delighted that 100% of the pupils rated the experience as good or excellent.
The experience was described as excellent by a pupil from Springburn Academy who said “it gave me an insight [into] what it’s like to be a student at GCU and I’ve gained some skills from it too”. Another pupil from St Andrews RC Secondary ranked everything about the Street Law experience as excellent and commented that “being able to take part practically rather than being shown made me want to learn”.
Ian Laing (Student Director) was thrilled that all the pupils who participated would be keen to take part in Street Law again.