Kirby Moot
The Annual Michael Kirby Contract Law Moot Competition is hosted by Victoria Law School at Victoria University (VU).
About the competition
Mooting is the oldest form of legal training for law advocates. At many universities, mooting competitions can be selected as an elective unit in your undergraduate law degree.
The Kirby Moot demonstrates VU’s strong industry connections. It is a fixture in the legal calendar and has strong support from the County Court of Victoria, members of the Victorian Bar, various law firms and practical legal training institutions. Law professionals are invited to judge the rounds and provide feedback to students.
2025 competition
We are pleased to announce that the 13th Annual Kirby Contract Law Moot will run Monday 22—Thursday 25 September 2025.
Location
This year's competition will be conducted in-person at Victoria Law School, 295 Queen Street, City Campus with the Grand Final appearing at the Federal Court of Australia.
Registration
Registration costs $850 (incl. GST) per team. Only one team per university will be eligible to register.
Key dates
Event sponsors
Past competitions
Past winners
Michael Kirby Justice Oration
Established in 2010, the annual Michael Kirby Justice Oration provides a platform for leaders within our community to share their experiences, deep understanding, knowledge and reflections on issues of justice.
2025 oration - Tilman Ruff AO
Topic – Human rights, justice and turning back the Doomsday Clock: Eighty years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Tilman Ruff AO, a physician, was co-founder and founding chair of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which in 2017 became the first Australian-born Nobel Peace Laureate "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons". The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) negotiated at the UN that year entered into legal force in 2021 and now includes half the world's nations as signatories. He is a member of the TPNW Scientific Network.
He is also immediate past co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Nobel Peace Prize 1985) and Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.
A past president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), he was director of travel medicine at Royal Melbourne Hospital, worked with the Burnet Institute on hepatitis B control, immunisation and maternal and child health in Indonesia and Pacific island countries, and documented the link between nuclear tests and outbreaks of ciguatera fish poisoning in the Pacific. He was Australian Red Cross international medical advisor 1996-2019, inaugural clinical R&D and medical affairs director for GSK Biologicals for Australia/NZ/Oceania and a founding member of WHO's Western Pacific Expert Resource Panel on Hepatitis B Control.
Tilman was born in Adelaide to German Christians expelled from their homes in Palestine in 1939 and detained in military camps there and then from 1941 till 1947 in Australia. He studied medicine at Monash University.
