David TEBEL is the founder and Director of the Moot Academy. He is a partner in an international dispute resolution boutique based in Frankfurt, Germany, which he co-founded after spending several years in the dispute resolution team of a magic circle law firm. After finishing his law studies in Freiburg, Germany, he joined the chair of Professor Ingeborg Schwenzer to work on his Ph.D. thesis focussing on international sales law. When Professor Schwenzer founded SiLS, the Swiss International Law School, David joined in early on and realised his long-time idea of the Moot Academy.
David has been involved with the Willem C. Vis Moot for more than a decade. He participated for the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and coached teams from Freiburg and Basel. Altogether his teams and he won six out of the eight awards in the Willem C. Vis and Willem C. Vis East Moots (and got first and second runner up in the remaining two). David wants to share the skills and knowledge he acquired in these years as participant, coach, arbitrator, academic and lawyer with current moot participants in the Moot Academy.
Ilka BEIMEL is a law clerk in Düsseldorf, Germany. Before the Moot Academy was relaunched Ilka has been engaged with the SiLS Moot Academy since 2016.
Ilka has considerable experience in international commercial and investment arbitration. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on independence and impartiality in international commercial arbitration at the University of Basel under the supervision of Professor Ingeborg Schwenzer. While pursuing her Ph.D. thesis, Ilka was a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School in New York, conducting research on international investment arbitration, and worked as a research and teaching assistant at the University of Basel, focusing on international commercial arbitration and international sales law. Besides these academic experiences, Ilka gained practical experiences as research assistant in several renowned international law firms, worked as Tribunal Secretary, and interned for the Secretariat of the ICC Court of Arbitration in Paris.
Ilka finished her law studies in 2015 at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany. She has been involved with the Willem C. Vis (East) Moot Court since 2010 as participant, coach and arbitrator. As a participant and coach Ilka won several awards and honorable mentions. Her participation in the Willem C. Vis (East) Moot Court paved her way to international arbitration. She enjoys supporting other teams in the Vis Moot through the Moot Academy in order to make their participation as fruitful as possible.
Rafaela HAID is pursuing a masters degree at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, the University of Basel and the Université Robert Schuman Strasbourg.
In 2019/2020, Rafaela participated in the 27th Willem C. Vis Moot and the 17th Vis East Moot for the University of Freiburg. Her team received awards and honourable mentions in five out of eight categories in both Hong Kong and Vienna. Ever since then, she has been keen on supporting other teams as a Moot Academy remote coach.
Rafaela has been interested in international law since attending french law classes at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. After transferring to the University of Freiburg she pursued this interest by focusing on international and European private and procedural law. Having finished her law studies, she is excited to support moot participants on their journey to a fruitful participation through the Moot Academy.
You can contact us via info@moot.academy.