Program Overview
Mooting and Lawyering Skills Program
The Osgoode Hall Law School offers a comprehensive and successful mooting and lawyering skills competition program. This program provides students with the opportunity to develop their oral advocacy and lawyering skills through a variety of competitions.
Program Overview
The program includes a range of mooting competitions, from a first-year criminal moot to an upper-year international commercial arbitration moot. Students face peers from Osgoode or other Canadian or international institutions in these competitions. The program also includes skills competitions that allow students to build and test their performance in various lawyering modalities, including arbitration, mediation, and negotiation.
First-Year Moots
First-year moots give students a taste of oral advocacy and help them begin to develop their skills. These moots are available to students in their first year of study, regardless of experience or ability. The Osgoode Mooting Society helps students find experiences that suit their interests and learning objectives.
Upper-Year Moots
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, including:
- Intellectual property
- Indigenous rights and Aboriginal law
- Family law
- Appellate advocacy
Lawyering Skills Competitions
The program also includes a range of lawyering skills competitions that allow students to build and test their performance in various modalities. Many competitions involve domestic law, while an increasing number raise issues of private or public international law.