Client Interviewing Competition 2014
Regional round Sheffield/ London/ Cardiff
Interview 1: Alistair/ Alison Munro
Office Memorandum
From:
To:
Re:
Date:
Secretary
Solicitor
New Client
Alistair/Alison Munro telephoned for an appointment. S/he says s/he has an urgent problem
with a contract. S/he says s/he is a director of Munro Climbs Ltd. The only contact detail
given is an email address: amunro@munroclimbs.com.
Client Interviewing Competition 2014
Regional round Sheffield/ London/ Cardiff
Interview 2: Joe/ Joanna Smith
Office Memorandum
To:
From:
Date:
Re:
Solicitor
Secretary
Yesterday
Joe/Joanna Smith
I have made an appointment for you to see the above. S/he runs a restaurant and is
having difficulties with a contract, and this is affecting business.
Client Interviewing Competition 2014
Regional round Sheffield/ London/ Cardiff
Interview 2: Joe/ Joanna Smith
Office Memorandum
Confidential Client Instructions
Please read these instructions carefully and do not discuss with anyone before the
Competition. If you have any queries, please email the competition co-chair,
Graham Robson at grahamrobson@clientinterviewing.com.
Make sure that you learn the details of the client's situation and wishes before the interview.
Do not give all the information at once; respond to all the questions you are asked but make
the solicitors prompt you for details. Try and play the role in the same way for each team of
solicitors while responding in character to how you are treated.
Please invent appropriate addresses/ telephone numbers for your town in advance.
If necessary, you may have to improvise to fill gaps in these instructions. Do not, however,
invent facts which are inconsistent with these instructions.
General notes:
You will be interviewed as a client by a team of two law students who are playing the part of
solicitors/trainees, and you will do this three or four times for different law school teams.
Each interview will be in the presence of a judging panel of three people who are there to
judge the teams’ performance –not yours- against set criteria. You will not know which
university the team represents until all interviews have finished.
For the purposes of this interview, please try to forget that you have any legal knowledge.
Instead, please try to get into the mind-set of a lay client, and try to play the role consistently
between all the interviews, but obviously each will be conducted by different “solicitors” so
will be different. There may be one or two observers watching the interview, which is
permitted within Competition rules. The interviews will not be recorded. The students will
explain their charges to you, and costs won’t be an issue for you.
At the end of each interview, the teams will show you out, so please return to your client
“base” room. It is important that you do not talk to any of the teams until you have finished all
your interviews. The judges will want to hear your opinion of the interviews but only after you
have finished them all. If you can make brief notes after each interview to remind you that
might be helpful, but is not essential as the judges will mark the performances independently
of your views. At the end of the interviews, your informal feedback to the teams would be
appreciated over a glass of wine at the Reception.
On the day of the Competition, there will be a client “briefing” which will give you the chance
to discuss with other “clients” how you will play the role, and also whether you have any
questions on the day.
General information about the Competition is at www.clientinterviewing.com
YOUR DETAILS
Client Profile:
You are Joe/ Joanna Smith. You own a restaurant, Simply Organics, in Church Street,
Cardiff/ Sheffield/ North London (make up an address). You were lucky enough to inherit the
premises and the business in 2010 from your grandmother who ran it as a “greasy spoon”
cafe for many years. You know you are young to be the owner of a restaurant, but the
catering business is in your family’s blood so you learned a lot even while you were at
school. Since you’ve taken it over, you’ve developed a reputation for the purity of your
ingredients, and you think this is an important selling point because you will not compromise
on quality.
You run the business with your brother Sam who has given you permission to seek legal
advice. He’s a great people person and is excellent at front of house work in the restaurant,
whereas you take responsibility for the business side –ordering, finances, and overseeing
the quality of meals produced. You managed to recruit a young chef who trained at one of
Jamie Oliver’s restaurants and he has been brilliant. The restaurant seats 50 people in total,
but there is room to extend the buildings into the garden at the rear. You haven’t explored
this yet because you want to take one step at a time to see how much extra business you
can create without extending the buildings.
You have not yet set up a limited company under which to run the business because it’s
always been a small but successful family-run cafe, but you are in discussion with your
accountant about this. The turnover of the restaurant is about £400,000 a year. After paying
the overheads, you and your brother split the profits equally – it translates into you each
taking a “salary” from the profits of about £20,000 a year. You both share a small flat on the
second floor of the premises, and again you think you are lucky to live there because it
saves you a lot of money. But you think that you haven’t even started to tap into the full
potential of the restaurant to increase its takings substantially.
So, in order to update and improve business, which has been rather quiet recently, you
decided to redesign and refit your restaurant, to properly mark its transition from a cafe to a
modern restaurant. You hired Nouvelle Cuisine Ltd, a company that specialises in restaurant
and bar designing and refurbishment, to redesign the restaurant and deal with the various
contractors to ensure the work was finished in time and within your agreed price. It was their
job to arrange for the local authority to inspect the work to ensure it had building regulation
approval, but you know that separate planning permission was not needed.
You found them on the net and talked through the redesign with Sharon Wilshere. She is the
main person you have been in contact with at Nouvelle Cuisine. Usually you email her but
you have phoned the office number a few times. She wouldn’t give you a mobile number
because she said she always picked up emails promptly. Work was started on 1st September
2013. Nouvelle Cuisine is a small company with a main office in Norwich, although they tend
to use local contractors. With hindsight you wish you’d chosen a more local company.
Quite a lot of the work was done during the periods of the week and days when the
restaurant was not open for business, for example you don’t open the restaurant on
Mondays. You could not afford to close for any length of time because you would lose too
much custom, particularly from your business clients. The restaurant is very close to a large
insurance call centre (Claims Unlimited) and their management team gives you a lot of
business as they often book your restaurant for dinner after their training events. Typically,
that company alone accounts for about takings of about £3,000 a month.
You did, however, close from 1-8th November 2013. This is recognised as a low period in the
trade, and is just before the hoped-for Christmas rush. It was agreed that the work would be
all finished by 15th November 2013.
It was not finished. In fact, the work is continuing on a rather ad hoc basis. Quite a lot of the
rewiring for the lighting has not been completed, which means that the plasterers cannot
finish their work nor the decorators theirs. You managed to talk to the electrician when he
appeared yesterday, but he says that Nouvelle Cuisine have not paid him for the last 2 jobs
that he has done for them and so, no matter how sympathetic he is to you, if other work
comes along that he knows he will get paid for he takes it and you will just have to wait. He
only took your job on because he hoped that Nouvelle Cuisine would be able to pay him with
your money. You have tried ringing Nouvelle Cuisine a number of times but there is only an
answer machine and nobody seems to want to respond to your messages. Your emails to
Sharon Wilshere are bouncing back.
You are worried sick. The restaurant still looks like a building site. It’s not the sort of place
where anyone would want to spend time relaxing and eating because there are bare wires,
unplastered walls and a damp smell. With hindsight, you should perhaps have closed
completely but you have to stand by that decision to remain open because you can’t change
the past.
You have an overdraft to finance these changes and have already paid £60,000 to Nouvelle
Cuisine, out of a total contract price of £80,000 plus VAT. They invoiced you for this interim
payment in early October and you paid it immediately. With reduced takings because of the
state of the restaurant, you will soon struggle to pay your monthly overdraft payments, which
are currently £1,000 a month. The work is not finished and you are losing business – you are
able to operate only out of a small part of the restaurant, which is unaffected by the work.
Your current takings average only about £5,000 a month, instead of the previous £33,000 or
so a month (annual turnover £400,000) so by the time you pay for your supplies, the chef’s
salary, and your outgoings you are actually making a loss, which is not sustainable. You had
to phone several of your regular clients and cancel their reservations because of the delay in
the completion of the work. They were all very understanding but you think that they may
change their allegiance to other restaurants. In particular, Claims Unlimited’s Chief
Operations Officer, who is your main contact there, has told you that there is a limit to what
they can put up with. They want to continue to give you their business, but he has pointed
out to you that other restaurants have opened several streets away that are not so nearby,
but which are keen to have his business and are offering him all sorts of freebies to tempt
him there.
You think that Nouvelle Cuisine are in breach of their agreement with you and want the
solicitors to do something now before things get worse.
Don’t volunteer a copy of the contract unless the lawyers ask you for it, in which case give it
to them. You haven’t brought a copy of the agreed schedule of works that is referred to in
the contract, but the bulk of the major building work has been completed. What is
outstanding are the plastering, covering up the electrical wiring, installation of two new
windows, and full re-decoration.
After the original contract, there has been nothing in writing between you other than your
emails which have bounced back, which are simply you pleading with Sharon Wilshere to let
you know what is happening.
Only if pressed, say that your main concern is to try to keep the business of Claims
Unlimited as your main customer, and not to lose the reputation you have for excellent food
and ambience. You have lost patience with Nouvelle Cuisine although you have not lost faith
in the quality of their work. With hindsight you would never have entered into this contract
with them, but you didn’t really do your homework beforehand because other people have
told you they are “very slow”, even though their work is of a good standard. Your priority is to
get this work finished as soon as possible – it doesn’t matter who does it as long as it is
done quickly and to a high standard - and to relaunch the new-look restaurant, and
hopefully get a piece written about your food in the local newspaper.
Make up any facts that are consistent with the above broad scenario, if the solicitors ask
you. If the solicitors ask you how much you think it would cost for the remaining work to be
completed, say that your brother’s friend is a builder and he thinks that there is still about
£40,000 of work (including VAT, labour and materials) left to be done.
The lawyers may well ask you questions about refinancing your overdraft, in an attempt to
discuss non-legal options with you – just go along with their suggestions if they make sense
to you, and make up facts that are consistent with your overall position.
REPAIRS, MAINTENANCE AND IMPROVEMENTS CONTRACT
1. Between Simply Organics Limited (the employer ) of Church Street, Cardiff and Nouvelle
Cuisine Ltd (the contractor) of Unit 6B, Norwich Business Park, Norwich NR8 4BW
2. The contractor will carry out and complete the following work for the fixed sum of:
£ 80,000 plus VAT (if this applies) to a total of £ 96,000:
Redesign, repair and refit the Church Street premises of Simply Organics Limited in
accordance with agreed schedule of work dated 1st August 2013
3. The work will start on 01/09/2013 and will be completed by 15/11/2013 The contractor will
not leave the site for more than 5 days in a row without a reasonable explanation and will
carry out the work using reasonable skill, care and progress. The contractor will tell the
employer straight away of the cause and extent of any delay. If the contractor cannot meet
the original completion date because of things outside their control, such as bad weather or
sudden illness, they will agree extra time with the employer for carrying out the work.
4. The contractor will provide everything necessary for, and be responsible for, carrying out the
work properly and efficiently, including labour, materials and equipment, unless the
employer says otherwise in writing. All materials will be fit for their purpose, and will be new
unless the employer has agreed otherwise in writing.
5. The following person is responsible for getting any necessary planning permission and
building regulations consent and must make all notifications, arrange inspections and pay
any application fees in connection with the work:
___the employer
____the contractor
6. The employer will, where practical, make sure there are no obstructions on the site, such as
blocked paths or driveways, and remove all furniture, fixtures and fittings that are necessary
for the contractor to carry out the work. The employer will provide the necessary facilities
(for example, power and water) as long as the contractor gives them plenty of notice.
7. The contractor will only carry out variations to the work (for example, extra or different
work) if they have written instruction from the employer, including agreement to extra costs
and time for completing the contract.
8. The contractor will take responsibility for the work, including any work carried out by his
subcontractors. He will put right, at his own expense, any loss or damage caused either by
himself or his subcontractors. The contractor will also insure against any loss or damage to
the work or materials under a contractor’s ‘all-risks’ policy. The contractor will give the
employer appropriate evidence of insurance if they ask for it.
9. The contractor will meet legal insurance requirements for their employees and provide
suitable cover against injury to their parties or damage to third party property under public
liability insurance, to a minimum of £2 million. The contractor will give the employer
appropriate evidence of insurance if they ask for it.
10. The contractor will tell the employer if they plan to subcontract the work or any part of the
contract and will make sure that any subcontractors meet the standards of the quality mark.
11. The contractor will be responsible for maintaining safety on the site, in accordance with
legal requirements and keeping the site tidy while work is in progress, including removing
rubbish as necessary. When they have completed the work, they will leave the site clean and
tidy and remove all rubbish. The contractor will meet any legal requirements for removing
waste products (including hazardous waste).
12. For short-term projects or projects under £5,000 in value. When the contractor has
completed the work to the satisfaction of the employer, the employer will pay the
contractor the full amount within 14 days of receiving the final invoice.
13. For long-term projects or projects over £5,000 in value. The employer and contractor may
agree that the employer will pay in instalments as certain stages of the work are completed
to the employer’s satisfaction. The contractors will give the employer an invoice at each
stage with details of the work they have carried out as set out on a separate payment
schedule (to be attached). The employer should make all payments within 14 days of the
invoice date.
14. When the contractor starts the work, they will give the employer a warranty or guarantee
which will include cover in case they do not complete the work or in case poor workmanship
leads to faults or major damage. The warranty is in addition to any legal rights relating to
faulty services provided. Nothing in these conditions will reduce these rights. If the employer
has any doubts about their legal right, they should contact their local Citizens Advice Bureau
or take independent legal advice.
15. The employer may end the contract by sending the contractor a written notice if the
contractor:
 does not carry out the work with reasonable skill, care and progress, or stops the work
before it is finished without reasonable cause; or
 does not follow the employer’s instructions without reasonable cause for 14 days after
receiving a written notice specifying the failure; or
 goes into liquidation or is wound up.
In any such case the contractor must stop working and another contractor may be employed
to complete the agreed works. The cost of doing this will be deducted from any amount due
to be paid to the contactor.
16. The contractor may end the contract by sending the employer written notice if the
employer:
 delays the work for four weeks or longer without reasonable cause, except by previous
agreement or
 does not make the agreed stage payments for work that has been completed to their
satisfaction for 14 days after receiving a written notice that the payment period is over
or
 goes into liquidation or is wound up.
In any such case the employer must pay for the work already carried out, as well as for
goods and materials legitimately purchased for the work.
17. The contractor will co-operate with advice agencies and local authorities acting on the
employer’s behalf.
The employer’s signature ………
J Smith
The contractor’s signature………S
……………… Date …
Wilshere………… Date…
01/08/2013…
02/08/2013…
Client Interviewing Competition 2014
Regional round Sheffield/ London/ Cardiff
Interview 1
Confidential Client Instructions
Please read these instructions carefully and do not discuss with anyone before the
Competition. If you have any queries, please email the competition co-chair,
Graham Robson at grahamrobson@clientinterviewing.com.
Make sure that you learn the details of the client's situation and wishes before the
interview. Do not give all the information at once; respond to all the questions you
are asked but make the solicitors prompt you for details. Try and play the role in the
same way for each team of solicitors while responding in character to how you are
treated.
Please invent appropriate addresses/ telephone numbers for your city in advance.
If necessary, you may have to improvise to fill gaps in these instructions. Do not,
however, invent facts which are inconsistent with these instructions.
General notes:
You will be interviewed as a client by a team of two law students who are playing the
part of solicitors/trainees, and you will do this three or four times for different law
school teams. Each interview will be in the presence of a judging panel of three
people,who are there to judge the teams’ performance –not yours- against set
criteria . You will not know which university the team represents until all interviews
have finished.
For the purposes of this interview, please try to forget that you have any legal
knowledge. Instead, please try to get into the mind-set of a lay client, and try to play
the role consistently between all the interviews, but obviously each will be conducted
by different “solicitors” so will be different. There may be one or two observers
watching the interview, which is permitted within Competition rules. The interviews
will not be recorded.
At the end of each interview, the teams will show you out, so please return to your
client “base” room. It is important that you do not talk to any of the teams until you
have finished all your interviews. The judges will want to hear your opinion of the
interviews but only after you have finished them all. If you can make brief notes after
each interview to remind you that might be helpful, but is not essential as the judges
will mark the performances independently of your views. At the end of the
interviews, your informal feedback to the teams would be appreciated over a glass of
wine at the Reception.
On the day of the Competition, there will be a client “briefing” which will give you the
chance to discuss with other “clients” how you will play the role, and also whether
you have any questions on the day.
General information about the Competition is at www.clientinterviewing.com
A. YOUR DETAILS
NAME:
Alistair or Alison Munro
AGE:
If possible you need to give the impression of being in at least
your late 20's.
CONTACT DETAILS:
You live at 14 Highlands Court, Scotland Place (Sheffield/
Cardiff/ London, add appropriate postcode and telephone
number). You rent a flat. You have only given the lawyers your
email address so far (amunro@munroclimbs.com). Have a
mobile number ready if asked.
MARITAL STATUS:
Single
B. YOUR REASONS FOR COMING TO SEE A SOLICITOR TODAY (try not to give
all the information at once – just give a bit at a time, and wait for the solicitors
to prompt you)
Your name is Alistair/Alison Munro. You are a young but very successful and quite well-known
mountaineer. You were very keen on climbing as a youth. After starting at a local climbing centre,
you graduated to serious outdoor climbing. You wrote a book about climbing and subsequently set
up a company called Munro Climbs Ltd (Munro Climbs). You are the owner of this company: you are
sole director and shareholder. Your company was established about three years ago, when you
started to make money out of your climbing following sales of your book, and it makes a decent
profit to give you a comfortable living but there’s always room for more!
In January 2013, you were approached by Peter Wall, the Managing Director of Global Hiking
Research Ltd (Global). Global is an outward bound science research company. Wall told you that the
company’s focus was the research of hiking and trekking equipment. The company has been
operating for thirty years.
Whilst one part of the company was researching a potential cure for a medical condition, one of
their scientists discovered that a by-product of the serum produced was to mildly thicken the oxygen
content of blood. This had some scientific interest but when it was considered by the recreational
team, they realised that it had the potential to assist with one of the major challenges for
professional trekkers: the climbing of high mountains without oxygen assistance. Global are hoping
to market the product under the brand name of OxyPlus.
You have been told that the company was able to receive conditional approval for OxyPlus backed
by the British Pharmaceutical Society, limited to one experiment with full consent. As far as you
know, all relevant permissions are in place for the testing, and there have been no issues. The
company has asked you to organise a small team of climbers to climb Mont Blanc to test the serum,
which at the moment has to be administered intravenously via a daily injection, but the company
hopes that in time it can be converted into tablet form.
Munro Climbs entered an agreement with Global under which a team of 3 would attempt to climb
Mont Blanc. You don’t have a copy of the contract, but can get one if it’s needed. Basically, what was
agreed was fairly straightforward as far as you are concerned. One climber would use OxyPlus, one
would use oxygen and not OxyPlus. The third member would be a camera operative who would also
just use oxygen. You personally agreed to use OxyPlus and personally signed all the medical consent
forms. The trip was scheduled to take place in July 2013.
Global agreed to cover the costs of the preparation and of the actual climb. Munro Climbs agreed to
record a daily video diary comparing the experiences of the two climbers. It was also agreed that
upon the return of the mountaineers, they would co-operate with specific publicity events
afterwards. These were clearly set out and specifically required. Amongst other things, you would
attend a dinner in your honour where investors In Global would be able to meet you. You would also
give a 15 minute speech discussing the merits of OxyPlus.
The climb was a success. Wall contacted you on your return and told you that the climb would make
OxyPlus the hottest thing on the market. With a successful advertising campaign, it would become as
standard for mountaineers as nutritional bars, energy drinks and temperature guaranteed sleeping
bags.
The pinnacle of the advertising campaign was the contracted dinner. This is all set up for next Friday,
31st January 2014 at the Ritz Hotel London. However, you are now feeling unwell and you got your
secretary to phone Wall yesterday to tell him that you were unwell and would not be able to attend
the dinner.
Wall apparently started shouting and said he would “sue the ass off Munro” unless he “got his act
together and got to the dinner”.
You sent Wall an email saying that you were very sorry but you had flu and could not attend. You
then received the attached email in response to yours (which you will show the lawyers if
requested). This has frightened you and led you to see these lawyers today.
If the lawyers ask about a medical certificate, you should say that you know a friendly doctor who
could probably write a medical certificate for you. If then asked, you should say that you do feel a bit
better now but really don’t want to go to the dinner.
Unless you are pressed and assured that this information will remain confidential, you will not tell
the lawyers the real reason why you do not want to attend the dinner: you also have an ongoing
contract to do adverts for Four, a mobile phone company. They want you to fly to Nepal from next
Wednesday for a week to film a new advert. They have offered you £500,000. They want you to
promote their mobile phones as the new face of intrepid mountaineering and you think this is too
good an offer to refuse as it will set you up financially for years. You know that as an outdoors active
person this interest in you would end abruptly if you were to become injured, so you can’t really
turn down such a good offer.
C. THE ADVICE YOU ARE SEEKING



You should initially complain about Wall’s unacceptable rudeness – how dare he call you an
idiot? Why should you go to the dinner if he is going to be rude like this?
Can Global really make you attend the dinner when you are ill?
What would be the implications of you sticking to your line and not attending the dinner?
Surely this £10 million stuff is just scare tactics?



If the information about the Four mobile deal has come out, you can then say you want to
break the contract with Global if it makes financial sense.
Do not present the lawyers with options –see what they come up with.
It is impossible to predict in advance what advice or options the lawyers will give you, so you
will just need to react to whatever they say in accordance with how they have explained
things to your satisfaction or otherwise. As a very last resort, and only if there are no other
options, you will attend the dinner, but you really want to avoid this because of the money
you could make from the other deal.
From: A. Munro [mailto:amunro@munroclimbs.com]
Sent: 24 January 2014 11:21
To: Peter Wall
Subject: OxyPlus Dinner
Dear Peter
I am really sorry that I am unwell but obviously this is not a matter of choice on my part. I am sorry you
seemed to take this so personally but perhaps you could rearrange the event so that I can attend.
I have good availability after the first week of February.
Best wishes
A
Director
Munro Climbs Ltd
From: Peter Wall [mailto:pdwall@globalhikingresearch.co.uk]
Sent: 24 January 2014 14:15
To: amunro@munroclimbs.com
Subject: OxyPlus Dinner
Dear Munro
You seem to have no idea of the implications of your actions, which leads me to think that you are a
bit of an idiot. The pinnacle of our advertising campaign is the contracted dinner. Our 10 top
contributors, together with prospective sponsors, potential clients and wealthy supporters, totalling
125 people, are scheduled to attend the dinner.
Your behaviour is entirely unacceptable. It will be impossible to get these people to agree to a
mutually convenient date in the next month and this is when we need to launch the product.
Our product is good, a great drug, but if it could easily be seen that its star part is not supporting it, the
market would be destroyed. We anticipate sales, advertising revenue and licence revenue over 10
years of over £10 million and that could be lost if this doesn't go ahead.
It goes without saying that we would treat your non-attendance as a fundamental breach of contract
and hold you liable for these losses. Please confirm you will be attending the dinner by 10am on
Monday 27th January at the latest. If we do not have a positive response from you by then, we will put
this matter in the hands of our solicitors,
BW
P. Wall
Peter Wall
Managing Director
Global Hiking Research Ltd
Global Hiking Research Limited is registered in England No. 56392735
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