A Western Australian law student took out honours at Thursday night's inaugural 2010 Lawyers Weekly Icon Awards, with Clare McKay from the University of Western Australia named the 2010 College of Law - Law Student of the Year.

The judges recognised McKay's dedication including participation in numerous mooting competitions and her presentation of a number of significant papers, as well as undertaking four vacation clerkships in leading commercial law firms, stints as a barrister's research assistant, while also regularly volunteering with non-legal community work, particularly through the Starlight Children's Foundation. In 2012, McKay will commence as an associate to Justice Susan Crennan of the High Court of Australia.

The judges also highly commended the Arjuna Dibley from the Australian National University, for work focusing on relations between Indonesia and Australia in the field of law, including internships with the International Development Law Organisation and the Aurora Native Title Internship Program, and drafting a significant report for an Australian Research Council project.

Other finalists in the category also included Russell Boulton, a second-year law student from Murdoch University who balances full-time study with running his own business, editing a law journal and establishing a not-for-profit association promoting criminal justice and human rights, and Louise Dargan from Clayton Utz, who has worked as a legal intern at the International Criminal Court and International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and as a research assistant for barrister Shaun McCarthy and Clayton Utz partner, Doug Jones.

The 2010 Lawyers Weekly Icon Awards, recognising excellence, innovation and leadership in the Australian legal profession were held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Sydney.

Click here to read the full report on all the 2010 Icon Award winners, and don't miss full coverage of the event in the special Lawyers Weekly 500^th edition, on desks on 27 August, 2010.

More the of latest news and features affecting law students, check out Lawyers Weekly's dedicated site for legal students Lawyer2b!