This year is off to a very good start for the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section. Many of our teams have already taken part in moots and each team — or team members — has one or more victories to its credit.
In February, Common Law students took part in three moots. First off, let’s mention our success at the Tort Law Moot, which focuses on tort liability. Coached by Jennifer Arrigo and Emily McMurtry, the duos of Wiliston Mason and Mariana Llanos (2L), respondents, and Julie Huber (2L) and Bethany Keeshan (3L), appellants, represented uOttawa. The award for best team went to the uOttawa respondents. The judges highlighted the mooters’ excellence, deep understanding of the issues and ability to answer the judges’ questions thoughtfully.
For the first time in nearly 15 years, our French Common Law program team took the Guy Guérin cup. The team, made up of François Bélanger and Nicolas Besner, second- and third-year students, respectively, was coached in preparation for the competition by three Crown attorneys, Anya Kortenaar, François Dulude and Tanya Roy. In addition to winning the team competition, the French Common Law team also took three of the five individual awards:
- Nicolas Besner for best opening statement
- François Bélanger for best direct examination and the Assad-Sklar Award for best oral advocate
A team made up of Zanab Chaudhry, Veronica Cesario, Julia Kafato, Ana Nizharadze and Jessica Rollins, coached this time by David Fewer and Christian Clavette, was runner-up at the Harold G. Fox Moot finals, as well as in the respondent factum category. Nizharadze received two awards: the DLA Piper (Canada) LLP award for best second-year mooter and runner-up for the Donald F. Sim award for best oral advocate.
Brandon Orct, Jason Bagnall, Laura Abrioux and Andréa Morin worked on a hypothetical problem related to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. They represented our faculty skillfully, with the duo of Morin and Abrioux finishing third. The four team members also received an award for third-best faculty.
But the winning didn’t stop there. On March 5, our negotiations team returned in triumph after finishing first in every category at the Ontario-wide Walsh Family Law Negotiation Competition. The team’s accomplishments included the following:
- First place (best team and winners of the Walsh Cup): Jeremy Cooney and Emma Runzer-Boucher
- First and second place (best individual student): Jeremy Cooney and Kendal Lander, respectively
- First place (best written negotiation plan): Kendal Lander and Samantha Savage
We shouldn’t forget to congratulate the uOttawa securities team, which took three awards at the Davies moot . Thomas Boyd (2L), Keenan MacNeal (2L), Tommy Friedlich (3L) and Mona Shadid (3L) took the award for best factum. As for individual performances, Tommy Friedlich crushed it as best orator! Moreover, our team took second place at the moot.
Lastly, let’s turn the spotlight on a women-only team made up of Chauntae De Gannes, Kaitlyn Margison and Alessandra Puopolo, coached by David Fewer and Christian Clavette. After being one of 60 teams selected from around the world, our Common Law Section students made it to the quarter-finals of the 2022 Oxford Intellectual Property Moot.
Congratulations to all our teams!