McMaster’s third win, Keynote speaker Lisa Johnson shares lessons on protecting innocent defendants
For the first time since 2020, the Osgoode Cup was back in person, and it was exciting!
This year’s competition made sure we lived up to our name as the largest national undergraduate moot! After 114 teams registered, hundreds of esteemed lawyers, judges, paralegals and law students from across the country volunteered their time as judges. We welcomed the likes of Omar Ha-Radeye; Spencer Thompson, a lawyer at Gowling WLG; Jessica Jakubowski, a lawyer at Dentons; Anil Singh, Assistant Crown Attorney and Katrina Crocker, a lawyer at Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP. Our judges’ bench also welcomed some of Canada’s brightest law students – many of them Osgoode Cup alumni – from schools including the University of Toronto, Osgoode Hall Law School, Queen’s University, McGill University, and the University of Windsor.
Our competitors mooted R v Tessier, which grappled with the issues of the role police warnings should play in the investigative process and where the appropriate balance lies between the rights of the accused and the legitimate law enforcement objectives of the state.
The tournament’s Keynote speaker was Lisa Johnson, the director of the Innocence Project at Osgoode Hall. She offered her expertise as the 2023 Osgoode Cup’s Keynote Speaker and as one of the judges on the final panel.
Special guests of the tournament included Professor Bhabha from Osgoode Hall, who presided over our final panel as Chief Justice, and our competitors heard from Osgoode Cup winner, Marcel Malfitano about the importance of mooting in as an undergraduate student and where you may find yourself after graduation.
On Saturday March 11th, 101 teams (202 individual mooters) competed in four preliminary rounds with the top 16 teams moving on to Sunday’s knockout round. The quality of competition was exceptional, with McMaster University’s Navya Sheth and Lesha Shah taking home the school’s 3rd straight Osgoode Cup national championship in a hard-fought final against York Univerity’s Monqiue Ingram and Elizabeth Hamilton.
Rounding out the semifinals were University of Toronto and Wilfred Laurier University teams, while teams from York University, McMaster University, and Western University all made it to the quarter-finals. In the Round of 16, University of Toronto, Guelph-Humber, Wilfred Laurier, McMaster, and Carleton University all made it through and fought hard on Day 2!
The 2023 Osgoode Cup would like to thank our Organizing Team, tournament convenor and sponsor, Andrew Monkhouse, and the hundreds of students and judges who volunteered their time this weekend.
Now that we’ve gotten a taste of in-person mooting, we can’t wait to welcome all of you back at Osgoode Hall Law School for our 20th annual Osgoode Cup in 2024!
Round of 16