DICTAcommittee
The Hunt
Cup
Debating Competition
Hannah Larsen, Chair of the Debate 2012/13, revisits this year’s Hunt Cup.
H
ave you ever thought of our legal system as a house
with a leaky roof ? Perhaps not, but as we have seen
this year, an eloquent debater can persuade you that even far
removed analogies make sense. Once again, the Hunt Cup
debating competition has provided exciting, thought-provoking debate, and even quite a few humorous moments.
The competition is a long established tradition in the
UBLC extra-curricular calendar, founded in the name of
Lord David Hunt of Wirral, himself a Bristol law graduate
and partner of DAC Beachcroft LLP. The firm has offered
continuous support for the competition, as lawyers from
across the firm come to each debate to provide debaters
with valuable individual feedback and decide who will proceed to the next round. The competition began with 64
debaters from across the law school, arranged into pairs to
support or oppose the motion. Debaters battled their way
through a spectrum of motions from “legal aid should be
replaced with a legal insurance scheme” to “terrorist groups
receive too much publicity.” A range of techniques and approaches emerged as each pair set out to confound their
opponents. In addition, post debate questioning often provided them with the opportunity to shine and shoe horn in
extra research that they had not managed to cram into their
7 minutes.
The year culminated in a stellar performance from our
finalists: Richard Collier, Harris Kaufman, Rachel Innes,
and Ned Smith, as they argued the motion “this house believes that our legal system is designed to convict the innocent.” The motion proved popular with both debaters and
audience members who drew on their own experiences of
the legal system or criminal law unit grades. This also exemplified that, to the audience’s amusement, gaining a first or
lower second did not affect a student’s ability to persuade.
The floor debate lasted almost as long as the debate itself,
subjecting debaters to intense questioning from the large
audience. The judges from DAC Beachcroft, Helen Staines
(partner), Patrick Firebrace (finance director) and Leon
Smith (solicitor), remarked at how impressed they had been
with competitors throughout the entire competition. However, after a long period of deliberation and having awarded
the worthy finalists very close scores, they announced Richard as the winner and Harris as runner up.
I must thank Saiff Akbar (the UBLC’s Third Year Representative) for his assistance throughout the year and DAC
Beachcroft for their ongoing sponsorship. Finally, I would
like to introduce my successor Aaron Lee, whom I am sure
will enjoy his year as Chair of the Debate as much as I have.
DICTA
2013 | 77