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A final-year Law student at The University of Western Australia has been named Law Student of the Year at the inaugural 2010 Lawyers Weekly Icon Awards.

Clare McKay, of Shenton Park, who is studying Law and Arts, was recognised for her participation in several mooting competitions and presentation of many significant papers as well as four vacation clerkships in leading commercial law firms, stints as a barrister's research assistant and volunteer community work.

Ms McKay will complete her Honours thesis in Law next year before taking up a graduate position with Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Melbourne in February 2012 and then as associate to High Court Justice Susan Crennan in October 2012.

She is Education Vice-President of the Blackstone Society, UWA Law Students' Society, where she has established a students' academic mentoring program for first-year law students.

A former head girl at Shenton College, Ms McKay has won several prizes during her studies at UWA, including John Norman Barker Prize in Law, Thomson Reuters Prize in Evidence and LexisNexis Prize in Law in 2009, Zoe Boyer Memorial Prize in French in 2008 and Blackstone Society First Year Mooting Competition in 2007.

In 2008, she spent six months studying international law as an exchange student at the Université Paul Cézanne in Aix en Provence and also worked as a translator for an article to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

Ms McKay was presented with her prize at the Lawyers Weekly Icon Awards ceremony in Sydney last Thursday. The awards recognise excellence, innovation and leadership in the Australian legal profession.

UWA Law students have also excelled in the nation's most prestigious essay contest for tertiary students - the Governor-General's Undergraduate Essay Competition.  Peter Congdon, of Bicton, won first prize for his essay discussing the role of the Crown in today's working Australian Constitution while Virginia Gogan, of Coogee, won second prize for her essay on whether Chinese investment in Australia is a threat or an opportunity for our nation.

Media references

Clare McKay  (+61 4) 21 630 403
Katherine Edhouse (UWA Law School)  (+61 8)  6488 2995
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716