Two Scots law students are off to the land of dust, dirty money and air-conditioned insanity to represent the legal profession in a battle of international wits. Follow our two intrepid travellers as they progress through the International Client Counselling competition in Scotland's name, trying their best to sidestep martinis, mobsters and madness (or possibly embrace all three) in their quest for glory.

Day 5: Thursday 2nd April

So after a day to acclimatise the competition started in earnest. I must admit that in the Aberdeen competition and then the Scottish National Competition I did not feel any kind of nerves (although I do believe Ms Grier was somewhat nervous before our Scottish competition). How this changed on the International stage.

Stomach churning, sweaty palms and any other cliché that you can think of enveloped me. I cannot explain why as we were well versed and practiced in how the interview would unfold, but unfortunately it carried on into the start of our first preliminary round. We did not start off well, and we both knew it. One of our main assets though has been to be able to ‘read’ one another during an interview without actually saying anything to one another. Therefore the interview did improve and we started to gain the information from our client that we needed to provide some sort of relevant advice.

The problem we encountered involved a multi-million pound offshore wealth management and investment company. The son of the boss, employed by the company, had taken on a deal to lend a large sum of money to a property tycoon in Cyprus with the loan being secured over the property of the business. The client had received financial statements about the Cyprus based company from a firm of local accountants which ultimately turned out to be wrong and the illicit businessman had disappeared with the money. Ultimately the client wished to know if he had any remedy against the accountant.

Although the advice we gave seemed to be appropriate the feedback we received from the judges was mixed to say the least. They did not like the way the format of the interview had unfolded. This was fair comment as I said we were nervous at the start and this followed through into the interview room. We also learned from the judges that it seems they expect a certain format to be followed fairly stringently. It was probably naivete on our part that thought we could adapt our own style, but you live and learn as they say. That is probably the single most important thing that I will take from the competition – there really is so much to learn when entering the profession; and it seems for the most part it is not all purely legal. Everyone has a different style for engaging with clients and there is no single one that is perfect. You have to adapt to each given situation.

It was then fair to say that we were extremely disappointed with our first round effort. Luckily we had the next day to recoup and show the judges what we had to offer. After a disappointment like our first interview (in footballing terms, similar to say a 3-0 loss) our coach, Sarah Arnell unlike a certain other Scottish coach did not see it prudent for us to have a drink (or was that kegs Messrs Ferguson and McGregor?) that night ahead of such an important qualifier. Not that she had to impose such a ban as we were both disappointed enough with our performance that we wanted to drastically improve the next day. If only our footballers shared such a passion for the cause, eh? Not that I can take the moral high ground, as news of Scotland’s win against Iceland certainly improved my mood that day! So early to bed it was after a quick bite to eat with the Irish, Hong Kong and Australian teams who we were now becoming great friends with.

Day 6: Friday 3rd April

An early rise from both of us saw some last minute study on Wills and Executries which got us both in the correct frame of mind on how to approach our second interview. The client in this interview was looking for a remedy after being written out of a will, where the testator was in a coma and terminally ill. This situation suited our strengths more as it was far more hands on in the counselling sense. Compared to the previous day, the interview went very well, and the feedback we received from the judges reflected this. It was definitely a great relief as we now felt that no matter what, we had shown off what we believed to be our strengths and in a sense had done ourselves justice. It would have been a great disappointment if we had gone all that way and then have come away feeling we had not performed to our potential. At the end of the day, no matter how much fun we had in Vegas we knew we were there to do our best as Scottish representatives at an International competition.

Later that evening the semi-finalists for the following day were announced. Out of the 18 teams taking part, 9 would go through to 3 semi-final heats, with the winner of each of those heats going through to a 3-way final. Unfortunately we were not one of the 9 semi-finalists. This was a disappointment and was probably due to our poor performance on the first day. It was always going to be difficult to score highly enough on the second interview to make up for the deficiencies of the first day. It really was true a true Scottish performance; valiantly fighting back from a poor start only to just miss out on progressing from the group stages (oh how it brought back memories from Euro ’96 and France ’98!).

That evening it was again refreshing to see all the teams mixing, with again ourselves at the forefront of the social organising. After news of our first day “gathering” at the Monte Carlo, I now found myself hearing the question, “so Keith what we doing tonight?” on a regular basis. We managed to get roughly half the teams together for a meal at a local steak house where all the teams mixed superbly and the banter flowed like wine! Unfortunately mild food poisoning also followed too. Despite this, that night was probably the highlight of the week as all of the initial nerves of meeting new people were long gone and everyone was happily chatting away; both the teams who were through to the semi-finals and the knocked out teams. There was never a hint of animosity or obvious disappointment from anyone which I feel said a lot for everyone taking part and indeed continued on the excellent spirit the whole experience of the competition had been played out in. It was also pleasing to see the teams we had spent the most time with, the Australians, Irish, Northern Irish and Americans, all proceeding and if Vic and I were to be honest we were rooting for them and hoping they all did well.

So we had fallen at the initial hurdle. The semis and finals though could be viewed by anyone so I was looking forward to seeing how the other teams perform and the differing styles they employ.