Moot point: Schulich School of Law students win national competition

Earlier this term, Dal’s Schulich School of Law placed first among eight Canadian law schools at the National Labour Arbitration Competition in Toronto.

Held at the end of January, and sponsored by the Toronto law firm Mathews Dinsdale, the competition saw second-year Law students Andrew Mercier and Will McLennan triumph over second-place University of Toronto.

The two students three months preparing an argument for a problem involving a pension-plan grievance and two disciplinary grievances between a union and its employer. The students were responsible for researching the applicable law and structuring arguments for both the employer and the union.

For Will, participating in the competition was a valuable learning experience.

“It was by far the best decision I’ve made in law school,” he says. “The competitive moots give you a better taste for what ‘real law’ will be like.”

A confident performance

Although the students felt confident during their first moot against UBC, they found their questions in their second moot against Queen’s much tougher.

“I walked out of that thinking that we had lost,” said Andrew. “I didn’t think the panel was buying my argument — so we were pleasantly surprised to make it to the final.”

And what a panel to have to face in the final round of competition: the adjudicators were Supreme Court of Canada Justice Thomas Cromwell, Ontario Labour Relations board chair Bernard Fishbein, and Canada Industrial Relations board chair Ginette Brazeau.

So how were the Dal students able to prevail? The students credit, in no small part, their coaches, professors Lorraine Lafferty and Eric Slone, who helped them prepare by challenging their arguments for each side.

“Our coaches were beyond helpful,” says Will. “They helped me improve my oral advocacy skills a huge amount. I was terrified of speaking ‘in court’ before, which was part of the reason I did the moot, to force myself to get over that. Their encouragement and advice helped me through it.”

The coaches, in turn, are proud of Will and Andrew’s performance.

“They were confident and professional in their presentations and undaunted by the rigorous questions put to them,” says Prof. Lafferty. “Innis Christie, a prominent labour arbitrator and former dean of the law school, was a great supporter of this moot. He would be delighted to know that the competition trophy is returning to Dalhousie for a fourth time.” (Dal previously won this competition in 2001, 2002, and 2008; this year’s win ties Dal with Toronto tied for the most wins in competition history.)

Bringing it home

Also helping the students were those who assisted with practice rounds, including labour lawyers from Pink Larkin and McInnis Cooper and Professor Bruce Archibald.

“The competition was a ton of fun,” says Andrew. “We had a super team, including our coaches, and it’s all about the people you do it with. It was also nice to win it for Dal.”

“It was an experience I won’t soon forget,” adds Will. “Plus, bringing home a win for Dal and the law school was a huge bonus! It’s always nice to make your classmates and professors proud.”