I do enjoy coaching. It is worth it to begin this journey and I can only praise all the brave teams that did not wait until the conditions were perfect to begin their Vis Moot journey. Women and men that were not afraid to open the door for other students to follow and trust me in their learning journey.
To date, I have had the privilege of switching on lights in the learning journey of lawyers in the making. It has also been a big responsibility to coach 24 students. I enjoy starting from scratch, taking care of the onboarding, and setting up the foundations of newcomers’ teams.
My dual background (civil and common law), legal trilingual skills, and professional experience allow me to build a bridge each time that I coach a team. Working remotely during the pandemic was familiar to me. I always made technology work to my advantage. So, I drew on my experience at Jiggslaw, where I coordinate, motivate, and lead multicultural teams remotely. Without knowing it, my arbitration coaching journey was steadily taking shape.
Coaching students properly takes time (nearly 900 hours last year in 5 months). Although it is enriching to share the magic of mutual learning, commitment, and support while you head towards a common goal.
➡️I make time to listen to their concerns, expectations, last-minute rehearsals, doubts, and dreams.
➡️I guide them in their drafting, questioning their analysis and arguments.
➡️I admire their eagerness to keep learning.
➡️I prepare them to handle questions, communicate, and develop confidence and the capability to connect with an arbitral tribunal through the camera lens. It is priceless to see how they become self-aware of their potential.
➡️I show them how to use silence, words, and time to their advantage in advocacy, while I see their tenacity, optimism, and ambition to excel.
Bidirectional communication and giving students a sense of control and autonomy are crucial to building healthier and stronger teams, not just a gathering of individuals. Trust is the key to physical distance. Input must be acknowledged equally, without any difference according to gender, title, or position. Humility is essential.
As an arbitration coach, I made time even when I did not.
Each time I become a proud and privileged witness to their evolution as individuals and future professionals while:
➡️I challenge them to overcome their fears.
➡️I urge them to trust their abilities and open the door to their potential.
➡️I acknowledge the value of their opinions and respect their decisions.
➡️I make time to get to know each student and look back, with fond memories, on each of the moments I shared with them.
➡️I allocate time to celebrate milestones and failures as part of our learning process.
➡️I believe in the importance of encouraging students to reframe their concept of failure, prompting them to analyse what could be improved while focusing on the positive outcome they have learnt.
➡️I have felt that once you start the journey, it is rewarding to share your passion for arbitration and treat each team member equally and respectfully from the beginning to the end. It makes it worth it to be there with them no matter the bumps.
I have also experienced that you open eyes, minds, hearts, and even souls to unexpected worlds when you teach what you love and share what you know genuinely.
There are many positive outcomes. I have learnt with each of the students and from them.
It is rewarding to receive their generous, loving, and valuable feedback after each milestone or time dedicated to them. In the same way, their trust and gratitude towards the knowledge, experience, effort, and time that I give them have deeply touched me. Generosity and time are not things to take for granted. Gratitude is an underrated skill.
That’s why I am always happy to sweep into students’ lives to bring them this opportunity and to work with universities to help them stand out by providing meaningful practical opportunities to their students.
them.
Everything has an end, although it is the middle that counts the most.
