The first mooting contest of the academic year occurred in late January. Our Labour Arbitration Team, Allyson Lee and Leora Jackson argued whether more than one administrative channel can be used to resolve a matter, and if so the what justification was required by the second channel. They made it to the finals of the competition but were narrowly defeated there. The student coaches, Akosua Mathews and Andrew Max, were central to the success of the team. Their Faculty Mooting Advisor, Laura Trachuk, said, “the school should be very proud of all of them. I know that I am.”
Congratulations are also due to Adam Sproat, Thomas Wagner, Haran Viswanathan and Lara Guest for their phenomenal performance at the Wilson Moot this year. The problem concerned assisted suicide for persons with mental illnesses. Our team won First Place Factum and Second Place Team overall. Lara earned a nod as Second Place Oralist. Adam and Thomas argued brilliantly in the final round before a distinguished panel including Justice Saunders of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, Justice Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal, and Justice Cromwell of the Supreme Court of Canada. Our team was ably coached by students Hayley Peglar and Jeremy Nemers, and Faculty Mooting Advisors Lorraine Weinrib and Cheryl Milne.
Steven Aylward, Meghan Bridges, Anu Koshal, and Louis Tsilivis represented U of T Law in the Gale Moot the weekend of February 23-24. The problem concerned a young woman with mental disabilities who had allegedly been sexually assaulted. The case considered the requirement under 16(3) of the Canada Evidence Act that a witness whose capacity to testify has been challenged must be able to communicate the evidence and promise to tell the truth. The central issue was whether “promise to tell the truth” included an implicit requirement that the witness understand to some degree the nature of a promise, and be able to demonstrate that understanding. According to student coach Josh Stark, “Our teams gave excellent performances. … Both teams worked incredibly hard, and many of the lawyers who judged their run-throughs said that they were some of the best mooters they had ever seen.” Student coach, Christine Wadsworth adds, “they all performed very well.” We are grateful to their faculty advisors, Karen Bellinger and Michael Dineen.
The same weekend, Kiran Arora, Alexis Beale, Abbas Kassam, and Kevin Siu appeared in the Fox Intellectual Property Moot. They addressed a problem about the subsistence of copyright in a sound recording that had been included in a film. The problem drew heavily from the pentalogy of copyright cases that were decided by the Supreme Court last year. Kevin and Kiran made the finals, and were, by all accounts, phenomenal. Kevin Siu brought home the Donald F. Sim Award for the best oral advocate and the Dimock Stratton LLP award for the best mooter in a non-graduating year. The team was assisted by student coach, Christopher Langan. Their proud faculty advisors, Peter Wilcox and Andrew Shaughnessy were delighted with the great team results, noting that they were “proud to have witnessed [their] journeys.”
U of T Law’s first ever Julius Alexander Isaac Diversity Moot team, Jonathan Chan, Noemi Chanda, Joan Kasozi, and Brandon Walker deserves our highest commendations. The Diversity Moot focuses on areas of law involving equity and diversity issues. This year’s problem focused on the importance of race in the adoption context, and concerned the best interests of a child of Mi'kmaq/African-Canadian heritage as well as the safeguards of procedural fairness. Jonathan and Noemi won the moot, and the team brought home significant honours: Best Responding Factum and Best Oralist (Jonathan). Arleen Huggins, who described all four mooters as awesome, confident, persuasive, and great at fielding questions, coached the team with Professor Simon Stern.
Warm congratulations and chaleureuses félicitations, also, to our Laskin Memorial Moot Competition team, Liam Churchill, Max Laskin, Penny Garnsworthy, and Ljiljana Stanic. The team argued an appeal on a problem involving re-litigation of a human rights issue that had already been decided by a labour arbitrator. They received the third place prize for their factum and finished as the fourth place team overall. Student coaches Sylvie Rougerie and Nadia Sayed, and Mooting Advisors Sarah Corman and William McLarkey coached the team.
In March U of T competed in - and won! - the Davies Corporate/Securities Moot. Twelve schools from across the country competed and the U of T team of Jordan Katz, Hani Migally, Aaron SanFilippo, and Michael Warfe performed exceptionally, going undefeated in four preliminary rounds. Hani and Jordan then won a tight final, which was judged two judges from the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Chair and Vice-Chair of the OSC. The problem centred on a hostile takeover bid and addressed whether the directors' defensive tactics breached their fiduciary duties, the validity of the specific defensive tactics and whether the bidder and another shareholder were acting jointly. The team also won the First Place Factum Award, capping off an incredibly successful weekend.
The team is grateful for the invaluable assistance of Andrew Matheson (faculty advisor), and student coaches Michael Portner Gartke, Paul Davis, and Jonathan Bright.
We are very pleased to announce the results of the 2012 Callaghan Memorial Moot. Students submitted written and oral arguments concerning whether evidence obtained pursuant to a warrantless search of a work-issued laptop was admissible and whether a reasonable expectation of privacy existed on the information in the laptop. The overall winners were Laura Cardiff and Maya Ollek. They competed against Khrystina McMillan and Nick Rolfe in the finals. Khyrstina and Nick also won best Appellants’ factum, while Annie Tayyab and Jennifer Bernardo won Best Respondents’ Factum. Maya won third oralist, Laura won second oralist, and Vlad Calina was named first oralist. This moot is organised by U of T students, with the support of Professor Hamish Stewart and a group of dedicated members of the Bench. This year’s committee was expertly headed by Meagan Jemmet and Azeezah Kanji who express their warmest congratulations to all the mooters.
On March 1st – 3rd, U of T performed in the 2013 Kawaskimhon (translated as “speaking with knowledge”) Moot. Twenty-one teams of students from 16 law schools across Canada travelled to participate in the only national law school moot that focuses exclusively on Aboriginal legal issues. This year’s fact pattern asked students to come together to discuss the possible adoption of a proposal to permit First Nations to designate portions of their reserves as fee simple lands. Emilie Lahaie, Rebecca Sutton, and Aislin Stott were coached by Professor Douglas Sanderson and Kate Kempton. Additional support was provided by the Faculty’s Aboriginal Law Program Coordinator, Lisa Del Col. The University of Toronto team made superb presentations and soundly answered very tough questions from the facilitator, and the team made very important contributions to the negotiation sessions. Although you can’t actually win a non-competitive moot, you can impress the facilitators and other teams with your knowledge, skill and mastery of the subject matter, and this year, the U of T’s presence and acumen was duly noted by facilitators, students and Elders attending the moot.
The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is the world's largest moot court competition, with participants from over 550 law schools in more than 80 countries. This year’s problem explored the factual and legal consequences of climate change on statehood, migration, and foreign sovereign debt. Danielle Glatt, Robin MacNamara, Ashvin Singh, and Alice Tsier performed exceptionally well in this year’s Jessup Moot, with the strong support of student coaches Sarah Yun and Anisah Hassan. Upon watching the team in Kingston, Lane Krainyk reports “it was clear that they had developed a deep understanding of the very complicated issues presented by this year's problem. They all … received consistent accolades for their preparation and oral advocacy. It was an absolute joy to watch.”
Finally, kudos to Ryann Atkins and Anna Cooper, who won the Arnup Cup this year, thrilling their coaches Rob Centa and Jonathan Shime.
U of T performed exceptionally well at the Bowman Tax Moot. Ten schools from across Canada debated the question of whether the $5.5 million dollars won by two brothers through the persistent playing of sports lotteries over a four year period constituted business income. U of T’s team of Christie Campbell, Peter Flynn, Liam Oster, and Bhuvana Sankaranarayanan impressed judges with their confident and persuasive arguments. Liam and Bhuvana made it to the semi-finals where they argued before a judge of Federal Court of Appeal and two judges from the Tax Court of Canada. Peter and Christie won best respondent factum. U of T's successful performance is exemplified by the fact that they were the only team to make it past the preliminary rounds of oral arguments while also winning a factum award.
The Bowman team and its student coaches Leo Elias and Sameer Nurmohamed are grateful to the incalculable guidance offered by their two practitioner coaches Martha MacDonald and Amanda Heale (Osler).
The Willms & Shier Environmental Law Moot was held at the Court of Appeal on March 9, 2013. Sean Tyler, Sara Elcombe and Paul Mitassov made up the UoT team with faculty advisors Laura Zizzo, Travis Allan and student coach Lee Webb.
The moot problem was an appeal of Smith v. Inco Ltd., 2011 ONCA 628 in which Port Colborne residents challenged Inco in private nuisance and strict liability after historic nickel emission's caused local property values to decline. Mooters were also asked to come up with novel causes of action that could provide remedies to the residents of Port Colborne.
UoT did not pass the round robin but mooted well against Windsor and a team from Osgoode Hall that ended up coming second in the competition. The team learned a lot throughout the experience and represented the school with grace and good cheer.
