Superivising coaches
Marius Gehler (research assistant, Phd-candidate, head coach since 2019)
Since 2019, Marius Gehler has been leading and mentoring the Vis Moot Team as Head Coach, continuing a connection to the Vis Moot community that spans more than a decade. He first participated in the 21st Willem C. Vis Moot as a member of the JLU team (where his team received an Honorable Mention for Best Oralist in Vienna). Following the competition, he remained actively involved as a student coach alongside Dr. Deborah Salomao, beginning a long-standing commitment to supporting and developing future teams.
Arbitration and private international law have shaped his academic and professional work for many years. During his studies, he focused primarily on commercial law and arbitration. Through internships in the dispute resolution departments of leading law firms, he gained valuable practical insight into arbitration from a practitioner’s perspective. As part of his work at Prof. Benicke’s chair, Marius is actively involved in both research and teaching with a particular focus on private (international) law. In addition, he has served for several years as an arbitrator at various Vis Moot pre-moots in Germany and abroad, allowing him to contribute to the competition from yet another perspective.
An important part of his coaching philosophy is combining legal precision with practical understanding. He expects the teams to develop deep command of the case file, to argue with clarity and structure, and to engage seriously with the commercial and technical realities underlying each dispute. Whether dealing with pumped-storage power plants, vaccines, or drone technology, he believes effective advocacy requires understanding not only the legal issues, but also the real-world context from which they arise. A particularly and recent proud moment for Marius was the team being awarded an Honorable Mention for its Memorandum for Respondent in the 33rd Vis Moot (Vienna), reflecting the commitment, discipline, and collaborative effort of the JLU Vis Moot Team.
Outside academia and arbitration, Marius is passionate about endurance sports. Having raced professionally as a cyclist in his early teens, he later discovered long-distance running while preparing for his state examinations. After completing his studies, he took up swimming, thereby completing the disciplines of triathlon. For the past several years, he has been dedicated to training for and competing in long-distance triathlon events, including Ironman races.
Natalie Suchocki (research assistant, PhD-Candidate, Co-Head Coach since 2022)
Since 2022, Natalie has been serving as Co-Head Coach of the Vis Moot Team together with Marius. Her connection to the Vis Moot developed from a different starting point than most: she never participated in the competition as a student (which she deeply regrets after being involved in the Moot for so many years), but encountered it through her academic work in private international law. From there, she gradually grew into the coaching context and became part of the team environment in a way that is shaped by an external, academic perspective rather than a former participant’s experience. This perspective is closely linked to her academic profile. Since 2019, she has been a research assistant and doctoral candidate at Prof. Benicke’s chair, teaching and researching in private international law and private law. Her publications as well as her doctoral thesis lie in the field of private (international) law. Besides, Natalie is assisting Prof. Benicke in his seminars on CISG - a field that forms 50% of the Vis Moot problem. Together, Marius and Natalie bring complementary perspectives to the coaching team, with Marius contributing a strong background in arbitration and Natalie focusing on private international law and the CISG. In this way, their work reflects the dual nature of the Vis Moot, combining procedural arbitration practice with substantive contract law problems.
Within the Vis Moot, what she values most is the development process of the students themselves — seeing how they grow not only in their legal reasoning, but also in confidence, structure, and clarity of thought over the course of the competition. One of the most rewarding aspects of the work is accompanying that progression over time. A particular highlight of the past years has been the team’s preparation period in New York, which has become a central part of the annual cycle. Together with Marius, she has accompanied the team to a series of pre-moots at institutions such as Fordham, ICC, ICDR, NYU, and the New York City Bar Association, where the students are exposed to a wide range of advocacy styles while preparing for the final oral rounds in Vienna. Most recently, the team’s work was recognized with an Honorable Mention for its Memorandum for Respondent in the 33rd Vis Moot — a result that reflects the commitment and development of the students throughout the preparation process.
In her coaching work, Natalie’s approach is grounded in doctrinal precision as well as in formal and legal clarity. Due to her Private International Law focus in research she places particular importance on structured legal reasoning and a careful engagement with the Private International Law issues raised in the case materials.
Outside academia, Natalie has a strong interest in the arts, particularly classical piano, photography, and painting. She also enjoys practicing yoga and going to the gym.