Prizes for exceptional law students

From educating young people on domestic and sexual abuse to excelling as a mature student, award-winning law students at Solent are flying the flag for succeeding at university on their own terms.

Sponsored prizes have been handed out to four exceptional LLB (Hons) Law Degree graduates. These are:

• The OUP Prize, awarded for best overall performing student, went to Alicia Connolly, who is originally from Essex.
• The Paris Smith Dissertation Award, celebrating the best dissertation of the year, went to joint winners, Nathanael Scott and Alicia Connolly.
• The Stowe Family Law Prize, recognising the best-performing family law student, went to Charlotte Jarrett, from Southampton.
• The Mark Wing Memorial Prize, celebrating a student who has worked hard for their learning community, went to Olivia Rodrigues. 

Alicia, a mature student who was the first in her family to attend university, won two awards during this year's Solent Law School graduation. Praised for being an exceptional student during her time at the University, Alicia was president of the Student Law Society, organising workshops for students, supporting various events, and excelling academically. Following graduation, Alicia has gone straight into work on a sought-after training contract at the renowned Clifford Chance, a 'magic circle' law firm.

Charlotte, who is local to Southampton, has shown an incredible commitment to family law. During her final year, she worked on placement with Yellow Door, supporting the charity's essential work with young people when it comes to healthy relationships.

Both Nathanael and Olivia have shown inspiring dedication to their study and community respectively, thriving in higher education and showing others they can too.

Brad Kershaw, Course Leader Law, says: "Solent Law School works hard to ensure our students receive an authentic, professional, and functional legal education. A facet of that is the University's efforts to incorporate the legal industry into our course. 

"We're supported by a plethora of generous industry partners who deliver masterclasses, workshops, mentoring and beyond to students. The fact that both Paris Smith and Stow so kindly sponsor graduation prizes for our law graduates really is an indicator of the fact industry incorporation pervades our delivery from the very start to the very finish.

"At Solent, we strive to ensure our law graduates are among the most professionally developed and well networked nationwide. But we couldn't achieve that without the incredible support of our legal partners."