On July 8-9, 2022 the final rounds of the IV Russian Law Tournament - a national student competition in the field of legal disciplines, traditionally conducted by the Russian-European International Centre for Legal Studies and Legal Education Programs of the Institute of Law and National Security (IPNB) RANEPA together with the law firm "Gofstein and Partners", were held.
The Russian Law Tournament is recognized as the largest national competition in the field of law, which brings together teams of universities from many Russian cities - from Moscow to Vladivostok. The tournament is held in the format of a moot court case and consists of two stages - the teams prepare written positions on the competitive case and appear at the in-person hearings. The topics of the contest case change every year - this year the participants were offered the case on criminal law and procedure.
139 teams took part in the external stage of the tournament, the 12 strongest of which were selected to participate in the internal rounds of the competition, held in the walls of RANEPA campus in Moscow.
According to the results of the verbal rounds the semi-finals were reached by the following teams:
- Far Eastern Federal University (Vladivostok),
- Tomsk State University,
- National Research University Higher School of Economics (St. Petersburg),
- Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow).
The arbitrators of the internal stage included leading lawyers and partners of law firms such as "Gofstein & Partners", "Sotheby", "Feoktistov & Partners", "Romanov & Partners Law Firm", "Case", "BGP Litigation" and "Golenev & Partners".
The final round of the competition featured teams from RANEPA (Moscow) and HSE (St. Petersburg). The arbitrators of the final round were Denis Saushkin, attorney, senior partner of "ZKS", Nadezhda Moiseeva, lawyer at "Pen and papers", and Pavel Khlyustov, attorney, managing partner of "Pavel Khlyustov and Partners".
The winner of the Russian Legal Tournament in 2022 was the team of the HSE (St. Petersburg). The second place went to the RANEPA team, which was represented by the 3rd year students of IPNB RANEPA: Daniil Osipov, Polina Kholopova and Maria Sovetkina.
The referee of the final round Denis Saushkin expressed his dissenting opinion, supporting the team RANEPA. Thus, according to the arbitrator, the legal positions of the defense and prosecution were equal, while the prosecution (team RANEPA) showed a special skill of rapid response to unexpected situations in the process, flexibility of thought and showed a decent performance in the finals.
At the closing ceremony the tournament referees also awarded the teams in additional categories:
- Best Prosecution Memorandum - the team from S. Y. Witte University in Moscow,
- Best Defense Memorandum - Tomsk State University,
- Best Public Speech - Vyacheslav Yurtayev, team of Far Eastern Federal University,
- Excellent teamwork - the team of Far Eastern Federal University.
The partners of the tournament were the law firm "Gofstein & Partners", the law firm "Sotheby's", the publishing house "Yustitsinform", the Moscow branch of the Russian Lawyers Association, as well as the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University of M.V. Lomonosov.
The team of the Tournament expresses special gratitude to Andrei Kozlov, the managing partner of Gofshtein & Partners law firm, Anastasia Ivenskaya, the specialist of the Russian-European International Center for Legal Studies and Legal Education Programs at the IPNB RANEPA, and Tatiana Ivanova, the Director of the Russian Legal Tournament, PhD in law, associate professor at the M. M. Speransky Law Department of the IPNB RANEPA.
The Russian-European International Center for Legal Studies and Legal Education Programs of the Institute of Law and Legal Education of RANEPA provides organization of the Russian Legal Tournament and preparation of RANEPA teams for participation in national and international legal student competitions.