Golden Hawks win most esteemed Canadian undergraduate moot court championship
Since 2005, the Osgoode Cup has been considered the “most esteemed undergraduate mooting championship.”
This year, the cup, which is hosted annually at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School, took place on March 9 and 10 and ended with Jonathan Kagal and Rehana Lalani returning home to Laurier as national champions.
Moot Court is a co-curricular activity where students take a court hearing case and utilize their knowledge to argue for/against it.
Kagal and Lalani’s winning case was R. v. Zacharias, 2023 SCC 30, in which they were expected to argue both sides at different times in the competition.
“This was my final moot of my undergrad. This club has played such an enormous role in my undergraduate experience, so my thoughts going into this one was to have a lot of fun,” said Lalani. Kagal echoed similar feelings and credited the role that the club’s advisor, Jeff Boich, and Tamara Djuknic, the leader of Laurier Moot Court played in helping the pair succeed.
“They’ve done a really good job preparing us. The only thought was that I was confident we could do something. I decided I was going to take it round by round and minute by minute,” he said.
While emotions were high, Lalani recalls being the second team to participate and the high she experienced during the competition after both she and Jonathan had presented their argument.
“I felt really good about the round. I knew that I had done well – I didn’t know for sure that we had won or not. But I knew that we had put a lot of effort into it,” she said.
Established in 2016, the Laurier Moot Court is free for any Laurier undergraduate student to join – whether they’re interested in pursuing law or not.
“I would say try out. Put yourself out there and make sure you try new things,” said Lalani.
“Put yourself out there and try. I only joined last year because the president at the time gave a presentation to my class about it. I had no idea what it was, and no idea if I’d be good,” echoed Kagal.
More about Laurier Moot Court can be found on Instagram @lauriermoot.