Candidates selected for 13 competitive moots
Mooting season is officially open. Between September 10 and 12, 2L and 3L students tried out for 13 competitive moots. Approximately 100 students signed up to compete for 62 positions on the various moots.
Candidates ranked their moot preferences according to their interests. They then argued an imaginary case before three-judge panels. This year, the case to argue came from the 2014 Wilson Moot. It was a section 15 Charter challenge to an imaginary British Columbia adoption statute. The legislature drafted the imaginary section 17(5) of the Adoption Act to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in foster care. The section was also meant to address the challenges and isolation that transracial, Indigenous adoptees faced in adoptive families outside of their respective communities.
The statute required that parents of Indigenous children consent to their children’s adoption. Pursuant to s. 17(5) of the statute, a court could disregard that consent in two cases: (1) if there were a risk of serious harm to the child in the custody of the child’s biological parent and (2) if a suitable placement with an extended or different Indigenous family were not possible.
In this case, the child in question was Indigenous but his prospective adoptive parents, the respondents, were not. However, the four-year-old child had lived happily with the respondents, his foster parents, for most of his life. The child’s biological father, who had not previously shown an interest in the child, refused to consent to the adoption and threatened to separate an already happy family to create his own. For the purposes of the try-outs, prospective mooters argued three main points, for the respondents:
- s. 17(5) of the Adoption Act draws a distinction on the enumerated ground of race, contrary to s. 15(1) of the Charter;
- s. 17(5) of the Adoption Act is not protected as an ameliorative program under s. 15(2) of the Charter.
- s. 17(5) of the Adoption Act causes a disadvantage by perpetuating prejudice and stereotyping without regard to the actual circumstances of the respondents.
The judges were mostly 3Ls who had mooted competitively the previous year, while faculty members joined the panels for the second round of tryouts. Judges gauged the quality of candidates’ analyses, their ability to respond to questions, and their speaking style and presentation.
Below are the final results. The male-to-female ratio is 46 per cent men to 54 per cent women.
Bowman Tax Moot
Paul Hildebrandt (2L)
Jae Won Hur (2L)
Nikhil Mukherjee (3L)
RJ Reid (2L)
Callaghan Moot
Emily Baron (2L)
Leah Brockie (2L)
Labiba Chowdhury (2L)
Ryan Deshpande (2L)
Lilly Gates (2L)
Isaac Gazendam (2L)
Cori Goldberger (2L)
Keely Kinley (2L)
Zachary Kroll (2L)
Lauren Lam (2L)
Adrian Ling (2L)
Genevieve Madill (2L)
Sarah Nematallah (2L)
Ashley Qian (2L)
William Rooney (2L)
Jeffrey Wang (2L)
Class Actions Moot
Amanda Cutinha (2L)
Sherry-Maria Ghaly (2L)
Renuka Koilpillai (2L)
Tabir Malik (2L)
Competition
Annette Latoszewka (2L)
Justin Mayne (2L)
Cody Miller (3L)
Jacob Webster (2L)
Davies Corporate/Securities Moot
Brian Huang (2L)
Gregory Ringkamp (3L)
Scott Wodhams (2L)
Alina Yu (2L)
Fox Intellectual Property Moot
Sara Bolourchian (2L)
Sam Hargreaves (2L)
Paul Jeronimo (2L)
Amanda Wolczanski (2L)
Gale Cup Moot
Olivia Eng (2L)
Saambavi Mano (2L)
William Mazurek (2L)
Teodora Pasca (2L)
Isaac Diversity Moot
Elizabeth Chan (2L)
Kristen Kephalas (2L)
Liam Thompson (3L)
Daniel Yang (2L)
Jessup Moot
Hana Awwad Eidda (2L)
Spencer Nestico-Semianiw (2L)
Alex Smith (2L)
Emily Tsui (2L)
Labour Arbitration Moot
Samantha Nault (2L)
Luka Ryder-Bunting (2L)
Laskin Moot
Ryan Dorsman (3L)
Hanna Goddard-Rebstein (2L)
Katelyn Johnstone (2L)
Lauren Scott (2L)
Walsh Family Moot
Ryan Chan (2L)
Rory Smith (3L)
Lauren Wildgoose (3L)
Hanna Yakymova (2L)
Wilson Moot
Geri Angelova (2L)
Karen Chen (3L)
Ahmed Elahi (2L)
Zoe Sebastien (2L)
