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It's a triple-crown for Osgoode's mooting teams

Osgoode moot team

Osgoode's victorious 2007 Gale Cup Moot team, (from left) coach Frank Au, Crown counsel, Public Prosecution Service of Canada; Will Hutcheson; Chris Tucker; Jason Reynar; Geoff Grove and coach Ngai On Young, Cooper, Sandler & West, Barristers & Solicitors

Students from York’s Osgoode Hall Law School won a triple crown of mooting with victories in three of this season’s competitions. In addition to winning the Arnup Cup, Osgoode teams won two more major mooting competitions: the Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP Gale Cup Moot and the Wilson Moot (March 3-4).

"These are really fantastic accomplishments that speak volumes about the talent and dedication of our students and their coaches," said Osgoode Dean Patrick Monahan. "It’s cause for real celebration." The law school will mark the Gale, Wilson and Arnup Cup wins with the unveiling of victory banners in its Moot Court Room in September, Monahan said.

Gale Cup
The four-member Osgoode Gale Cup team of Geoff Grove, Will Hutcheson, Jason Reynar and Chris Tucker beat 18 other Canadian law schools to win the FMC Gale Cup Moot on the weekend of Feb. 24, and advance to the Commonwealth Moot in Nairobi, Kenya, this September.

Osgoode's Gale Cup team was ably coached by Toronto-based alumni Ngai On Young (LLB ’04), a criminal defence lawyer, with Cooper, Sandler & West, and Frank Au (LLB ’00), Crown counsel with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Sylvia Seo, a member of the Kawaskimhon Aboriginal Law Moot team, and Laskin Moot team members Rebecca Studin and Jean-Claude Killey also lent a helping hand by translating the Labaye trial decision and opponent's factum into English for our Gale Cup team.

It is the third time Osgoode has won the Gale Cup, having claimed victories in 1994 and 2000, but this is the first time that Osgoode will represent Canada in the Commonwealth Moot, a biannual competition organized by the Commonwealth Legal Education Association.

In the closely matched Gale Cup Moot final, the Osgoode team edged out the Queen’s University team. Jason Reynar, president of Osgoode’s Legal & Literary Society, received the Dickson Medal as the top oralist for his spectacular advocacy in the final round.

The Gale Cup is a bilingual moot competition, and was based on the infamous R. v. Labaye decision of 2005, in which the Supreme Court of Canada held that a private “swingers’ club” in Montreal was not a “common bawdy house.”

Wilson Cup
The Osgoode Wilson Moot team of appellants Kevin Nash and Jen Fehr and respondents Deanna Gilbert and Julie Lanz went up against 10 other law school teams from across Canada, March 3-4, and walked away with the Wilson Cup for the second consecutive year.

The students were coached by Matthew Horner of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General’s Constitutional Law Branch and Charlotte Kanya-Forstner of Blake, Cassels and Graydon LLP.

This is Osgoode's fifth Wilson victory, with Osgoode taking top honours in 1994, 1995, 2000 and 2006.

Arnup Cup
Third-year Osgoode students Karin McCaig and Donna Polgar placed first in the Arnup Cup, the regional trial advocacy competition between Ontario law schools, that was held in Toronto, Feb. 10-11.

The Osgoode team defeated teams from the University of Western Ontario and the University of Ottawa faculties of law who placed second and third, respectively. All three teams now proceed to the Sopinka Cup national competition in Ottawa, March 16-17.

McCaig and Polgar were coached in the Arnup Cup by Sandra Barton of Heenan Blaikie LLP, and alums Jonathan Rosenthal (LLB '87), a Toronto criminal defence lawyer who has his own practice, and Moiz Rahman (LLB '96) of the Canadian Department of Justice.