“The greatest experience I have had as a student”

This participant was 24-year-old eight semester law student Frederik Kold Galsgaard, who won the prize for best individual oralist among the approximately 2,500 participants from 365 universities from all over the world. In the eyes of Professor Kim Sommer Jensen, the Vis Moot course coordinator from the Department of Law at Aarhus BSS, this performance is entirely on the same level as the collective team victory of last year.

“The team passed the initial rounds of the competition and once again secured a spot among the 64 best teams in the world. This is an achievement in itself. But the most outstanding thing was that one of our participants won the prize as the best individual oralist of the competition. It does not get much better than that,” says Kim Sommer.

Frederik Kold Galsgaard says the decision to submit an application for the Aarhus University Vis Moot team is “the best decision I have made during my time as a student.”

"I was told that the course had a steep learning curve. That is an understatement. The first few months of the course were quite possibly the most frustrating months I have experienced during my studies. The writing coaches on the course demand that you abandon your own writing style and idea of ‘the perfect exam paper’, as the goal is to tell the story that will place the client in the best position and convince the judges. This process is at times frustrating, but the result is that you learn to read everything, analyse the most important aspects and communicate the essential parts. With this set of skills, you can get straight to the point,” says Frederik Kold Galsgaard, who does not hesitate to conclude:

“Vis Moot has been the greatest experience I have had as a student.”

With almost 400 participating universities, the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (commonly referred to as Vis Moot) is one of the largest mooting competitions for law students in the world. The competition covers international arbitration and international commercial law and has an oral as well as written part. After seven months of regular work on a fictional case, during which the students had to prepare a subpoena and respond to a subpoena from another team, this year’s competition finally culminated with oral presentations from 8-14 April 2022.

For the second time in a row, the law firm Gorrissen Federspiel acted as Aarhus University’s collaboration partner, and coaches from the firm have supported and supervised the students during the entire course and came along on the trip to Vienna.

“It takes a major and dedicated effort from everyone involved to get this far in the competition, so naturally, we are very happy that this effort is rewarded with good results, and we are proud of the students and their excellence,” says partner in Gorrissen Federspiel Lotte Eskesen.

Torsten Iversen, head of the Department of Law at Aarhus BSS, is pleased as well.

“This is the 17th time that AU secures a spot among the 64 best teams. To my knowledge, this is something that no other university has achieved. We are proud of this achievement, and it is evidence of how extremely skilled our students, lecturers and collaboration partners are. Which is exactly what it takes to maintain such a high level of performance for so many years,” says Torsten Iversen.