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News and Events
A Year in Review 2022: Student Highlights
As we bid farewell to another year, we reflect on some of 2022’s highlights at the UCC School of Law.
Now is the turn of Key Student Highlights.
Law Society
The Law Society had a busy and successful 2022.
One of the highlights of the year was the Intervarsity Law Summit, spearheaded and hosted by the UCC Law Society. The largest ever Irish student-empowered law event, the inaugural Summit, held in February in Cork, brought together all seven university law schools and law societies in the country, as well as thirteen of Ireland’s leading law firms, and embraced the theme of “Breaking Barriers: Let the Law Unite”.
The Society welcomed musician and activist, Sir Bob Geldof and musician and mental health advocate, Niall Breslin, ‘Bressie’ to campus this year, awarding them with the ‘Mutatio Factorem Award’ for their significant contributions to society.
The 22nd Law Conference was held in November, titled 'Surrogacy in Ireland' and sponsored by William Fry. The Society's charity partner for this year's conference was LGBT Ireland.
Mooting, Debates and Competitions
This year, students participated in numerous debated and mooting competitions – in person and online.
The prestigious UCC School of Law Annual Gala Moot, incorporating the James D Donegan Memorial Prize, was held both in person and online for the first time in June, with students presenting and defending legal submissions before Her Honour Judge Helen Boyle. Congratulations to Anne Marie O’Mahony who was this year’s recipient of this prestigious prize.
Final year Law and Business student (and auditor of UCC Law Society), Melissa Ferris represented UCC School of Law at the Justice Week Intervarsity Debate, hosted by the Bar of Ireland in March.
The Centre for Criminal Justice and Human Rights, School of Law were delighted to host the 6th Annual Irish Red Cross International Humanitarian Law Competition, the Corn Adomnáin. UCC students undertaking the LLM in International Human Rights & Public Policy were awarded Second Place in the competition.
Congratulations to two BCL Law & Business Students who won awards for Entrepreneurship this year. Nick Cotter, BCL Law & Business Student, has recently been named this year’s grand champion of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA). Following a year-long nomination, application and pitch process, Nick was announced as the winner during the finale of a YouTube mini-series, ‘Start It Up’, and has received a US$400,000 prize to invest in his company. Annie Madden, Law & Business Student, was recently awarded Student Entrepreneur of the Year at the Enterprise Ireland Awards. As well as the €10,000 Student Entrepreneur of the Year prize fund, Annie will now receive mentoring from Enterprise Ireland to further develop the company.
The annual College of Business & Law's Scholarships and Prizes award ceremony was held on campus in April 2022. These awards acknowledge the achievement of over 150 students in the college, presenting them with various scholarships and prizes awarded by the generosity of our many sponsors, partners, and donors for which we are grateful for their support.
International Conferences
We are so proud of our students who represented the UCC School of Law on the world stage this year.
Alison Hardiman and Rhoda Jennings (PhD Researchers at the School of Law) presented at the 9th European Environmental Law Forum (EELF) Annual Conference hosted in Tarragona by the University Rovira I Virgili on 21-23 September 2022.The conference theme was Rethinking environmental law: Connectivity, Intersections, and Conflicts in the Global Environmental Crisis.
Four UCC School of Law PhD researchers took part in the inaugural All-Ireland PhD Law Conference organised by colleagues at University of Galway School of Law. The Conference took place over two days and brought together PhD researchers from different universities across Ireland. In the order in which they presented at the Conference, the participants from UCC School of Law were Alison Hardiman, Rhoda Jennings, Michael James Boland, and Luke Noonan.
BCL Clinical student and UCC Student Union's Environmental & Sustainability Representative, Natasha Sutton, attended the United Nations COP27 conference in Egypt as part of the university's delegation.