News

Congratulations to our National Labour Arbitration Competition moot team! The Schulich School of Law placed first among eight Canadian law schools at the national competition held at the end of January, which was sponsored by the Toronto law firm Mathews Dinsdale. Second-year law students Andrew Mercier and Will McLennan triumphed over the U of T team.

Andrew and Will spent 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.

Their coaches, Professors Lorraine Lafferty and Eric Slone, helped them by challenging their arguments for each side. Andrew credits their gruelling coaching sessions for readying them to compete.

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 – I didn’t think the panel was buying my argument – so we were pleasantly surprised to make it to the final,” says Andrew.

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.

“The competitive moots give you a better taste for what ‘real law’ will be like.” – Will McLennan

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.”

Like Andrew, Will gives much of the credit to the great coaching. “Our coaches were beyond helpful,” he says. “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. “Our students represented the Schulich School of Law superbly,” says Lafferty. “They were confident and professional in their presentations and undaunted by the rigorous questions put to them. 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.” (Our law school previously won this competition in 2001, 2002, and 2008; we’re tied with U of T for most wins in competition history.)

“The competition was a ton of fun. We had a super team, including our coaches, and it’s all about the people you do it with.” – Andrew Mercier

“The competition was a ton of fun. We had a super team, including our coaches, and it’s all about the people you do it with,” says Andrew. “It was also nice to win it for Dal.” Will agrees: “It was an experience I won’t soon forget. 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.”

We’d like to extend our best wishes to Andrew, Will, and coaches Lafferty and Slone, who would like to thank those who helped with practice rounds, especially the labour lawyers from Pink Larkin and McInnes Cooper and Professor Bruce Archibald.