Swansea University enjoys close links with several leading international law firms. One of these is HFW; a global law firm employing over 600 lawyers in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
HFW specialises in the aerospace, commodities, construction, energy, insurance and shipping sectors. Recognising the prominent role Swansea plays in educating the new generation of commercial and maritime lawyers, HFW set up several prizes for Swansea LLM students six years ago.
In the academic year of 2021/22, the winners of the HFW prizes were:
- Omkar Joshi (HFW Prize in Admiralty Law);
- Ece Birinci (HFW Prize in Oil and Gas Law), and
- Chimaobi Umezuruike (HFW Carriage of Goods Prize).
Omkar worked in the shipping sector and is a qualified master. He attended Swansea University with the intention of moving to shore and has already attracted the attention of several employers.
Ece has experience in the legal sector and worked as a lawyer in a well-known law firm in Turkey before coming to Swansea.
Chimaobi is a graduate of University of Nigeria and has worked as a researcher and in practice prior to coming to Swansea.
The prizes were presented by Richard Neylon, Partner at HFW, who is also a Swansea graduate himself, at an event held in London.
He congratulated the students for their success and expressed delight at the fact that Swansea LLM degrees are enjoying such a global reputation. Another Swansea graduate, Florian Shacker, who is an associate at HFW, was also present at the award ceremony.
Speaking after the event, Professor Soyer, who accompanied students with Dr Kurtz-Shefford and Professor Tettenborn, congratulated all the award-winning students and expressed Swansea’s gratitude to HFW for their continuing support of Swansea’s LLM degrees.
Professor Soyer also stressed that Swansea LLM has continued to expand in recent years not only in terms of breath of coverage but also in terms of number of students applying to study a postgraduate course at Swansea. This is a tribute to the staff dedicated to enhance student experience and the wealth of their knowledge in various aspects of commercial and maritime law.