Boffin + Wonk

Four University of Ottawa students participated: Adrian Howard and Sherif Foda argued for the appellant, and Matthew Paik and Tavengwa Runyowa argued for the respondent. After two preliminary rounds, Adrian and Sherif advanced to the semi-finals along with only 3 other pairs out of the 16 pairs participating. They argued their case valiantly before Justices Sharlow (FCA), Sharpe (Ont CA) and Blair (Ont CA) and received excellent feedback on their mastery of the material and their presentation.

For their efforts, Tavengwa and Matt won the Gordon F. Henderson Award for the best factum writers, and Adrian won the Donald F. Sim Award for the best oral advocate. Adrian acknowledged the efforts and accomplishments of the rest of team, noting in his acceptance speech, "This is an individual award for a group effort". The final round was McGill (Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse coaching) and Western (Margaret Ann Wilkinson coaching), and Western's team won the cup.

  The University of Ottawa team did very well with a complex problem (PDF) on copyright and trade-marks. As their coach, I am very proud of the team. I am extremely impressed with their research and writing skills and their ability to internalize the case law in order to construct new arguments in each round of the moot as they encountered new teams with novel approaches to the problem.

  Adrian Howard is the VP of the Law & Technology Student Society, a third year law student, and a future articling student at Gowlings in Ottawa. Sherif Foda is a second year droit civil student. Tavengwa Runyowa is a second year common law student who is taking online WIPO IP courses in his spare time. Matthew Paik is a third year droit civil student in the LL.L/DVM (international development and globalization) program. Congratulations to each and all!