Law Society rugby team tackles lawyers world cup
The Cayman Islands Law Society rugby team
(CNS): For the first time, the Cayman Islands Law Society (CILS) was invited to participate in the Lawyers Rugby World Cup. The event is held every four years to coincide with the Rugby World Cup and, in addition to taking part in competition on the pitch, law societies worldwide get the opportunity to develop professional relationships.
This year, the Law Society of England & Wales hosted the competition, which was held at the Richmond Athletic Ground in London.
CILS president Alasdair Robertson spoke of the significance of the society’s participation. “It is a gratifying honour for the Cayman Islands to be selected to play in this tournament alongside significantly larger jurisdictions such as England and the USA, and reflects in large part the international recognition of the jurisdiction and the role its lawyers play on the global legal stage. I am glad to say that our boys played hard, worked as a team and did us proud.”
The Cayman Islands rugby committee, comprising Anthony Akiwume, Paul Murphy, Jacob MacAdam and Paul Parker, set to work recruiting a suitable squad and developing a fundraising brochure for the event to increase the profile of the Cayman Islands Law Society.
Parker, who is the coach and manager of the team, said, “A huge thanks goes out to all our sponsors who took advertising in the brochure, which helped to ensure that the Cayman Islands Law Society team could both participate and have the best possible platform on which to perform.”
The CILS rugby team included a lawyers from firms in the Cayman Islands, as well as Caymanian law students at university in the UK, who spent many hours training for this event.
In addition to the CILS and the Law Society of England, there were teams representing the Scottish Law Society, the Irish Law Society, the US, Australia, Italy and France.
In the first match for the Cayman Islands team they dominated in the scrums and lineouts and ultimately scored an impressive 48-3 win against the US. In the next match, the team faced the defending champions, Scotland, in a hard-fought game. The Scots outplayed the Cayman group to continue their winning streak. The final game against the English proved a close and physical game with Cayman losing by seven points.
At the end of the week, Cayman took part in a playoff game against the US team in the Shield Final, winning 33-8, and earning a crystal trophy, accepted by Akiwume, president of the CILS rugby team. The Irish lawyers won the tournament as they fought hard against the English in the final.
The president of the English Law Society praised the CILS team, thanking them for the “magnificent contribution to the Lawyers Rugby World Cup, both on and off the field”.
Parker of the CILS team said it was a great event. “The Cayman team worked tirelessly together on the field showing professionalism, strategic teamwork and patriotism. The event was well organised with a good measure of fun thrown in,” he said.
“It was great for our boys to interact with the other law societies, and we have already had interest from the Law Societies of England, the USA and Italy in visiting the Cayman Islands”
The Cayman Islands Law Society hopes to host the next tournament in 2019 and will be reaching out to other national teams to gauge interest.
