Students to battle it out in first replica courtroom

THE Chief Justice John Murray has opened a replica courtroom at the University of Limerick.

Law students will use the courtroom for virtual trials and civil hearings to help develop their skills.

Costing €130,000, it has all the trappings of the traditional courtroom – a judge’s bench, prosecution and defence stands, 12-seat jury area, witness stand and a public gallery.

It is the first time Irish law students will get hands-on courtroom experience in college.

And to enable each student assess their performance in court, the facility will have five strategically placed CCTV cameras.

Head of the School of Law at UL, Ray Friel, said: “It is a standard courtroom and we call it a moot courtroom.

“Law schools in the US have these moot courtrooms, but UL is the first law school to have one.

“Everything is recorded on cameras and the students can look at the way they deal with a case in the court setting. It will show how individual jury members react if a witness says something and what the judge says,” he said.

Mr Friel said the simulated cases will give the students invaluable experience.

“It will bridge the teaching and what happens in court and integrate theory with the practical,” said Mr Friel, who also teaches law at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Kansas in the US.

The 550 law students at UL commenced doing cases at the moot courtroom from the start of the new academic year in September and it is intended to invite members of the judiciary to preside at some of the student trials.