Osgoode has one of the most comprehensive and successful mooting and lawyering skills competition programs in Canada. Students from our Law School face peers from Osgoode or from other Canadian or international institutions in a wide variety of mooting competitions: from a first-year criminal moot to an upper year international commercial arbitration moot. Distinct from the mooting program, our skills competitions allow students to build and test their performance in a variety of lawyering modalities, including arbitration, mediation, and negotiation.
First-year moots give students a taste of oral advocacy and help them begin to develop their skills. Students in their first year of study can access a range of mooting opportunities, regardless of experience or ability. The Osgoode Mooting Society helps students find experiences that suit their interests and learning objectives.
Upper year moots are more competitive than those open to first-year students. They involve a try-out and selection process, and students earn credit for participating in these more intensive competitions. Students chosen to compete are coached by leading faculty and practitioners in the relevant legal fields; they receive extensive training in legal research, drafting, and oral advocacy in preparation for competition against opponents from Canadian and international law schools. These moots focus on many different areas of law – examples include intellectual property, Indigenous rights and Aboriginal law, family law, and appellate advocacy, to name a few.
Building on the success of the mooting program, Osgoode has developed one of the strongest lawyering skills competition programs in Canada. Many competitions involve domestic law, while an increasing number raise issues of private or public international law.
A full listing of all moots and skills competitions is available to current students on MyOsgoode.