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Students working on real cases New Zealand law students are now working on real cases. Two universities, Canterbury and Waikato, are providing students these opportunities. The Canterbury students are helping Christchurch barrister Nigel Hampton QC and Wellington lawyer Simon Meikle with prosecutions relating to a number of alleged forestry safety violations leading to deaths. Mr Hampton is assisting pro-bono in four cases against forestry companies for safety violations and is leading Council of Trade Unions’ prosecutions against logging contractors. “It’s great to get University of Canterbury law student support,” Mr Hampton says. “They will prepare full timelines, setting out and highlighting factual issues along the
First AYL soccer tourney The New Zealand Law Society’s Auckland Young Lawyers held their first ever soccer tournament on 24 July. The AYL Futsal tournament was a great success. Six teams gathered at the University of Auckland recreation centre to play for the NZLS AYL Futsal championship. China (Fortune Manning), South Korea (Queen City Law), Italy (Metro Law), Netherlands (Chapman Tripp), Croatia (Auckland Transport) and Mexico (EMA) all competed against each other. After some close games South Korea, Italy, Netherlands and Croatia went through to the semi-final. Eventually Italy and South Korea competed for the championship. South Korea was the winning team with Italy second and South Korea third. Italy also won the prize for the best dressed team.
Top: The winning team at the inaugural AYL Futsal tournament (from left) Max Shin, Tina Hwang, Hazel Dillon, Tom Huang, John Jon, James Lee and Young Hwan Mo from Queen City Law. Bottom: The best dressed team at the AYL tournament (from left) Ryan Ainsworth, Mac Chapman, Melanie Nunns, Briar McKenna, Hugo Clark, Andy De Graaf and Jeremy Caughey from Metro Law.
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· LawTalk 848 · 15 August 2014
particular line and assisting research into relevant statute and case law. The assistance of the law students will be invaluable from my perspective.” Canterbury law students have also begun volunteering their time, as part of the programme in collaboration with national organisation Law For Change New Zealand, to help Christchurch residents take court action against the Earthquake Commission (EQC). And Waikato University students will have the chance to work on real cases as part of a new law internship programme established between the University’s Te Piringa – Faculty of Law, and the Police Prosecution Service (PPS). Third- and fourth-year law students, who
have completed the third year crimes paper, are eligible to undertake the internship programme which runs during the university’s summer school period. This programme gives students “real hands-on experience with a prosecutor, following a case, including spending time in court, and doing real work and submissions,” Wayne Rumbles, Senior Lecturer at Te Piringa – Faculty of Law says. Students in the programme spend six weeks working on a number of cases under the guidance of a mentor in a town or city within the central North Island. They then spend another six weeks writing a research paper following on from their case work.