Competition weekend started—as one might expect in late February in Canada—with a snowstorm. We took the train from Ottawa to Montreal, which meant most of Friday was spent staring out a frosted window, delayed and disoriented, wondering if VIA Rail was ever legally obligated to be on time.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, things already felt a little overwhelming. The lobby was full of law students—and some of them were really going all in with matching neon tracksuits and team t-shirts with Justice Laskin’s face on them. Our welcome event followed, where we met other mooters from across the country (from UBC to UNB—truly coast to coast). We were collectively disappointed to find out that this year’s Laskin wasn’t on an open bar system, and we were each given six drink tickets to last the entire weekend. Not that it mattered because we didn’t use ours—we went back to our hotel rooms to practice.

By 1AM, we decided to call it a night. We were tired; the kind of tired where you know more questions won’t help and you start mumbling your submissions to the ceiling like a bedtime story. We left it to the universe and went to sleep.

Both our appellant team and respondent team had to get up at the break of dawn to go to Montreal’s Federal Court building. The appellants were going first, at 8AM, and the respondents followed at 10. The actual rounds generally went well—we had great arguments, we answered all the questions, we didn’t speak too fast, and we didn’t say “obviously” to the judges. We did it all over again the next day.

Semifinalists were announced by 3PM on day 2. If you haven’t guessed yet, we weren’t on the list.

The thing about moot competitions is that scores aren’t always a clean reflection of performance. Different judges score different teams, and each judge has their own vision of what a “good oral advocate” looks and sounds like. It’s not always about the strength of the legal argument—it’s style, clarity, courtroom presence. And those preferences vary wildly. So in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t a big deal.

Obviously it still really sucked.8 By the awards ceremony that night, we had a feeling we wouldn’t win anything. But when we actually didn’t win anything—not even the fourth best factum prize—the feeling hit different. It made us question our oral and written advocacy skills. 

By the awards ceremony that night, we had a feeling we wouldn’t win anything. But when we actually didn’t win anything—not even the fourth best factum prize—the feeling hit different. It made us question our oral and written advocacy skills. Were our arguments incoherent? Did we completely misunderstand the problem? Was our research completely irrelevant to what the judges were looking for? Our rational brains said no—but the heart isn’t always rational.

It felt even worse knowing that last year’s uOttawa team swept. They won top school, top oralist, and top pair. And here we were, breaking our coaches’ winning streak. We knew that they put in a lot of after-work hours for us, despite leading very busy lives outside of the law.

But our coaches were incredible throughout the whole process—including when the competition was over. They were present, kind, and unwaveringly supportive. When we didn’t place, they told us they were proud and that they’d seen how hard we worked. That we gave our best performances during the competition.

And that meant more than any trophy. Maybe it’s because most law students are hardwired people-pleasers—or maybe just because it seemed like they actually meant it.