CIArb’s 3rd Annual Student Open Day

On 18 February, The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) held its third Annual Student Open Day. This event has already become the Institute’s tradition: a few years ago CIArb began an initiative to improve our interaction with post-graduate law students and to increase student involvement via our free student membership. 

To that end, we held our first Student Open Day event at our Bloomsbury Square offices and invited our members to talk to graduate and undergraduate students interested in alternative dispute resolution about their experience, in particular in membership with CIArb and Young Members Group (YMG). The event was a great success and we decided to hold it annually. As before, this year the event was mostly targeted at students in Dispute Resolution programmes and courses, although not only in the UK, but around the world, and was held online.

CIArb’s 3rd Annual CIArb Student Open Day took place on 18 February. On the day we held three introductory lectures about CIArb and the benefits of CIArb student membership. Each lecture was followed by a panel discussion. Renowned practitioners from various geographical regions (Benson Lim FCIArb, Francis Xavier C.Arb FCIArb, Mahesh Rai FCIArb, Vicky Priskich FCIArb, Mercy A. Okiro MCIArb, Artem Doudko FCIArb, Richard Barnes FCIArb, Veronika Pavlovskaya, Chris Campbell MCIArb, Ben Giaretta FCIArb C.Arb, Calvin A. Hamilton C.Arb FCIArb, and Carolina da Rocha Morandi) shared their invaluable experience as members of CIArb, views and unique insights on students’ career opportunities in the world of ADR.

Clockwise from top left: Benson Lim FCIArb, Vicky Priskich FCIArb, Mahesh Rai FCIArb and Francis Xavier C.Arb FCIArb

Speakers explained what the value of CIArb’s membership is and how it benefits students, made an emphasis on networking, academic and professional development opportunities every student who wants to join CIArb is entitled to free of charge. Most importantly, a number of speakers mentioned that they extremely value the sense of community the Institute has developed: notwithstanding a great number of members (almost 17,000 people in over 140 countries), once a person joins, they become a part of our special ADR “family” and are not only able to build professional relationships, participate in exciting projects, events, and initiatives, but also make lifelong friends.

Clockwise from top left: Richard Barnes FCIArb, Veronika Pavlovskaya, Artem Doudko FCIArb and Mercy A. Okiro MCIArb.

Thanks to the speakers’ inspiring energy and significant practical experience, we managed to elaborate on numerous crucial points not only related to studies, the importance of persistence and hard work but also self-development, creativity, professional behaviour, lifestyle and mindset, ability and, sincere willingness to go the extra mile, especially when one is not expected to. 

Clockwise from top left: Calvin A. Hamilton C.Arb FCIArb, Carolina da Rocha Morandi, Ben Giaretta FCIArb C.Arb and Chris Campbell MCIArb

Speakers also shared their views on a number of matters of attendees’ interest, including the importance of legal education in ADR, especially in cases where a person is more interested in adjudication and mediation rather than arbitration; transition from student membership to associate membership and further; ways to get the first arbitral appointment as well as related diversity and self-promotion topics. 

More than 250 students joined us on the day and together with our speakers and moderators we did our best to inspire, support and guide them. We look forward to welcoming aspiring dispute resolution practitioners at our next Student Open Day.