After a year long hiatus, I am so excited to be writing for our blog once again. It has been a busy year, but that means I have lots of unsolicited advice to give and experiences to talk about. For my big return, I wanted to share my experience mooting in my third year, and hopefully inspire you to try it out at least once during your law school career. Let’s start with the basics- what is a moot? A moot is a competition (usually in the context of an appeal) that simulates a court hearing. Each mooter is invited to present submissions or arguments on behalf of their client and a panel of judges ask questions of the mooters. In most competitions, there are two sides, each represented by two oralists. A moot problem can be set in numerous areas of law but usually is concerned with contentious legal issues or an unsettled area of law so it may require a bit of creativity and some research. Depending on the moot, there may also be a written component, requiring you to submit a factum, also known as your written submissions. My experience with mooting My experience goes way back to my first year in law school, when Veena convinced me to do the Frozen Open Osgoode Moot. Big shoutout to Veena– without her I probably would have never been brave enough to participate in any moot competition. I found the experience to be super fun and it sparked my interest in mooting, and litigation generally. This year I was fortunate to participate in the BLSA Canada’s Julius Alexander Isaac Moot. By way of background, the competition is named after the late Chief Justice of the Federal Court, Julius Alexander Isaac, who was the first Black judge to sit on the Federal Court of Canada. The Isaac Moot is focused on issues of equity and diversity, often incorporating elements of critical race theory into the problem, a subject area that I found to be incredibly eye opening and I would encourage anyone, especially those that want to pursue a career in the legal field, to take the time to explore the issues raised by critical race theorists. (I would recommend the work of Desmond Cole, a Canadian journalist and author, who has written extensively about the oppression of Black Canadians through the lens of critical race theory). While in the past the moot often dealt with constitutional questions, this year’s problem revolved around the Canadian Judicial Council’s decision to not sanction Justice David Spiro for his intervention in the hiring process of Dr. Valentina Azarova at the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program, due to her prior scholarship examining the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories. Not only was this a complex problem, but it truly prompted me and my teammates to question our understanding of the role that judges play within our community and grapple with the racial underpinnings of this case. The best part about this moot is that we are not constrained to pure legal doctrine and arguments based on case law. Rather, we were able to engage with theory and advance arguments that pulled from the lived experiences of racialized minorities. My teammate, Priyanka Sharma, summed up the problem perfectly: The biggest challenge for me was advocating for a position that I frankly did not believe in when I first started the moot. In some ways, I am grateful that I was assigned to a position that I initially opposed because it challenged my personal opinions and pushed me to think outside of the box. With the help of my incredibly talented teammates and coaches, I was able to develop creative ways and strategies to advocate for our position, skills that I hope to carry with me as I move forward. This was such a rewarding experience for so many reasons and I am beyond grateful for my team and coaches who made the experience a memorable one. So, why should you participate in a moot?
Lucinda Chitapain Life came full circle this September as I finally achieved a long-time goal I had - to be a Teaching Assistant (“TA”). That too for Introduction to Business (MGMT 1000), a course that I took in my first year at Schulich as an undergraduate student in the iBBA program - many many moons ago (circa 2015).
I remember when I was taking the course, my TA was a JD/MBA in his third year who I looked up to and aspired to be. His laid-back nature, telling the class how it is, and reminding us that this is only the beginning stuck with me throughout my time as an undergraduate student. Teaching at 8 am was something I looked forward to because I was very impressed by the caliber of students. The two sections I taught were a sample for me to see that the class of 2025 is very intelligent! Whether it be through the effort they put into their projects, or the class discussion analysis. A very hardworking bunch who was resilient since they began their university journey completely remotely! What I learned as a TA - Improved communication through giving feedback to students and holding office hours. As a student, I always strive for the best grades and feedback matters to me in all my classes. Now being a TA, I needed to ensure that students understood the assignment, expectations and how they could further improve their end products. That required me to take a step back and articulate what the expectations were and communicate it accordingly. - Improved my time management skills to make time in my schedule to teach, grade, and be available for students! I chose to take on the role of a TA, thus it’s vital that I provide students with ways to contact me. I made it work as much as I could and tried to reply to all emails within the 24-hour mark to ensure that they feel supported during this online environment. - Encourage thinking outside the box! This is something I did not do as an undergraduate student. I had a 10-year life plan and I followed it to the T (until COVID-19 hit and then I changed my course a little bit). A huge portion of this year’s curriculum was teaching students how to network and reflecting on what they would like to do beyond Schulich. This thinking outside the box included networking, attending different club events, and not shutting out any possibilities before trying it! - BEING GRATEFUL for how far I’ve come in my journey over the last six years. I think while I was too preoccupied in my current academic venture, I forgot that there was a point in time where I didn’t think it would be possible to begin with. It really helped me be more appreciative and take things a little easier than usual because I knew that I’m on track for what I wanted. Conclusion I would like to take the time to thank all the professionals who signed up to speak with students from my sections for their networking assignment. I had 65 individuals sign up across different industries, which really helped students gain a varied perspective about what life after undergrad looks like and what career opportunities are available to them! If presented with the opportunity to teach again and be involved in a similar role, I would accept it in a heartbeat! It was quite enjoyable for myself, meeting the students and TAs who shared a similar interest with business and mentorship. By: Karen Randhawa As we are approaching the end of our time in law school, we all agree that mentorship has been fundamental to the growth we have had in the past few years - not only as law students, but as individuals. We are proud to announce our long awaited Mentorship Program! Mentees please click here to sign up! Mentors please click here to sign up! Lets build a community! Fall 2021, after my brief hiatus, I came back to law school. This time around, law school was slightly different than what I was accustomed to. Since I began law school in August 2019, I would commute to school, the old-fashioned, pre-pandemic way. I knew everyone in my classes since it was the same people in every class. Now, I just knew people by their Zoom names and occasionally when people turned on their cameras. This semester, I was doing a combination of JD and MBA courses since it is my third year in the program.
First semester I tried to take as much as I could to take advantage of the virtual environment since my MBA classes were held late, 7 pm to 9 pm. I knew that if it was in person classes, I wouldn’t want to be on campus that late three times a week when my days started as early as 8 am on Thursdays! My MBA courses were: BSUS 6500: Business Strategies for Sustainability MBAN 6200: Realizing Value from AI and Analytics in Organizations MGMT 6800: Innovation Through Technology and Design These courses helped me explore different fields of business and explore my creative side a lot more. Through BSUS 6500, I even landed a Research Assistant position relating to Sustainability Accounting, a field I was not aware of prior to attending that class. At Osgoode, I took Taxation Law and Indigenous Peoples and Canadian Law. In addition, at Osgoode, I’m a student Caseworker at the Investor Protection Clinic. At Schulich, I’m enrolled in the 601, which is the capstone project for the MBA. Both of these obligations are year-long. I may have gone a little overboard because I did tack on an extra credit at Schulich to fast-track because at the time I was gung-ho on going on exchange in my final year, thinking that COVID-19 will not be a barrier in 2022 to international travel. Now this is TBD :( What I wish I had considered: While at face value, it seems like I had everything under control. A big takeaway from concurrently doing the dual degree is to consider the timeline for evaluations. At Osgoode, the exam schedule is posted over the summer when course selection occurs, that way there are no surprises and we can plan which courses to take based on the proximity of exams. Since I did not think of that as much as I should have, I had Schulich classes in the same week as my Osgoode exams and 601 deliverables. These Schulich classes mainly had at least a project per class due in that final week, so that first week of December was a little bit of a challenge to say the least. As for fast-tracking, would I do it again? Probably, because now that I know I handled it last semester, if the opportunity presented itself I would do that again because that’s just me. However, the reality is that starting mid-October (after Thanksgiving) to the first week of December, there was a lot going on at school with different deliverables, team meetings, etc. It does become a little bit of a higher pressure schedule and little downtime so make sure you have your trusty agenda by your side to help you navigate that patch. But if I could do it, you could do it too! Just requires some fortitude and a lot of planning :) By: Karen Randhawa This time of year is the busiest. Apart from the holiday spirit, law students are currently writing high-stake final exams. For most of my courses at law school, my exams are worth 100% of my final grade. I made a TikTok to share how I am currently preparing for my Taxation Law exam. In addition to this video, I would highly recommend forming study groups with people in your classes! It's always nice to discuss tax policies with my peers, I know I can count on a few people in my class. Contact your professor for office hours for questions that you have. Do practice problems/ practice exams as well - since law exams are generally about applying principles, statutes and case law. Getting into these habits will help structure your studying! Good luck everyone! Group work is meant to prepare you for "the real world." With people going back-to-the-office, it was only a matter of time until I would need to return to campus. Did I imagine that being 20 months since I last stepped foot on campus? Perhaps. But what I didn't think would happen would be that I would be going to campus on a Sunday afternoon to meet with my group to discuss our next steps. All this to say, that not every Sunday is like this, but there have been more than one in this semester alone to get the team together across a table to figure out what course of action to take next in our Capstone project for the MBA. In order to enjoy reading week, I went on a short trip across the country to Vancouver with two of my law school besties. When planning this trip, we made sure to come back in time giving us the opportunity to using reading week to READ! However, this reading actually began on the flight back home to make sure that we were setting the right habits. This just goes to show that you can work hard and play hard! It all comes down to effective time management. Starting the TikTok series at Legally Brown with a Day in the Life video! I summarized my busiest day of the week this semester, Thursdays. Mind you, when I first found out that I had 8 hours of lectures (two at Osgoode and 1 at Schulich), 3 hours of work I was a little bit worried on how to optimize my day since it is easier to lose sight of what is important when you're in virtual school. But within the first three weeks, I was able to figure out a way to prioritize and gauge what I absolutely need to fulfill on Thursdays. To be adaptive, we are rolling out our TikToks! TikTok allows for people, such as myself, who are audio-visual learner to absorb information in a "fun" way.
To follow my journey as a ✨law student ✨ please click here! We wanted to highlight the milestones we achieved in the last year in the form of an annual report. Looking forward to another fantastic year and a growing community. Click here to view the report.
|
Legally BrownThree Osgoode Hall Law students sharing their lived experiences and providing *unsolicited* advice. Archives
December 2021
Categories
All
|