Canadian National Mediation Advocacy Competition (CNMAC)

The Canadian National Mediation Advocacy Competition (CNMAC) was recently created to recognize the growing significance of alternative dispute resolution in both legal education and the legal profession.   This competition affords students a unique opportunity to develop their advocacy skills in a mediation setting.

In the fall of 2008, law students from across Canada met in Toronto to take part in the inaugural CNMAC competition.  UBC sent two teams, and the both the performance of the teams and the competition as a whole was a great success.  To ready themselves, the UBC team members engaged in intensive weekly practice sessions and received advice and coaching from Professors John Kleefeld and Sharon Sutherland.  Mediators drawn from the Vancouver mediation community (Karen Bondi, Neil Hain, John Kleefeld, Hugh McCall and Colleen Cattell, QC) acted as mediators in the practice sessions.