Moot Committee

Marc McAree is a Partner at Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP and certified as a Specialist in Environmental Law by the Law Society of Ontario. He practices environmental, land use planning and municipal law, and civil litigation.  Marc is also a trained mediator.  He holds a Masters in Environmental Studies degree.  Marc is named in the 2024 Lexpert™®/American Lawyer Guide To The Leading 500 Lawyers in Canada.  He is peer selected annually for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in Canada^© for environmental law.  Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers is named "Law Firm of the Year" for environmental law in the 2021 edition.  Marc is also ranked “Most Frequently Recommended” by The Canadian Legal Lexpert directory and ranked “AV® Preeminent™” by peers in Martindale-Hubbell.  He is also named annually in both the international Who’s Who Legal—Environment and Who’s Who Legal—Canada.  A civil litigator, Marc has appeared at all levels of Ontario Courts including the Ontario Court of Appeal, and before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on actions, applications, judicial reviews and appeals.  Marc also regularly challenges Ministry of the Environment decisions before Ontario’s Environmental Review Tribunal, and appears on environmental related matters before other Tribunals.

Stepan Wood is a Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Law, Society and Sustainability, directs the Centre for Law and the Environment and coordinates the Specialization in Environmental and Natural Resource Law.  From 1997 to 2017 he was a member of the full time faculty of Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, where he held various positions including Director of Moot Court Programs, faculty coach of numerous competitive moot court teams, founding co-director of the Osgoode Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic, York Research Chair in Environmental Law and Justice, Editor in Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, coordinator of the JD/Master in Environmental Studies joint degree program, and Acting Director of the York Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability.  He teaches and conducts research on environmental law, climate change, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, voluntary environmental standards and property law.  He graduated from Osgoode as Gold Medalist and clerked for the late Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada, before practising commercial litigation and international arbitration with White & Case in New York City.  He is vice-chair of Canada’s national committee on environmental management system standards and a lead Canadian negotiator of the ISO 14001 standard.  He co-created the Willms & Shier Environmental Law Moot with his Osgoode classmate Marc McAree and his other friends at Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers, Canada’s foremost environmental law firm. 

Joanna Vince is a Partner at Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP and certified as a Specialist in Environmental Law by the Law Society of Ontario. Joanna helps clients navigate the environmental regulatory process. Joanna regularly engages with environmental regulators on behalf of clients where there are concerns about spills, contaminant migration, and environmental non-compliances. Joanna defends clients from environmental prosecutions under provincial and federal laws. She has appeared before environmental tribunals and boards on behalf of clients to obtain, confirm or dispute environmental orders, and environmental permits and approvals. Joanna regularly advises clients about their potential environmental liabilities, both civil and regulatory, and prepares strategies for managing those liabilities. Joanna is called to the Bars of Ontario, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon.

Stuart is a partner at McLennan Ross practicing in the areas of energy, environmental & regulatory and commercial litigation, focusing on environmental and occupational health and safety regulatory law, and class actions.

Stuart has extensive experience advising oilsands and other industrial operators in relation to environmental and health and safety law issues, in particular in preparation for and responding to regulatory investigations and prosecutions.

Stuart has a wide range of experience in commercial litigation matters, including contractual disputes, recovery of funds and class actions.

While Stuart has extensive experience in complex multiparty litigation, he is equally comfortable in finding efficient solutions for smaller disputes. He utilizes alternative dispute resolution methods including mediation and arbitration to resolve issues and has significant experience acting as both plaintiff and defendant counsel in class actions in Alberta and in British Columbia.

Stuart advises organizations on contract interpretation, drafting and policy issues and has advised government and administrative tribunals on policy and adjudicative matters. 

Prof. Sébastien Jodoin is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law of McGill University, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Human Rights, Health, and the Environment. Drawing on his lived experience with multiple sclerosis, Dr. Jodoin co-founded and directs the Disability-Inclusive Climate Action Research Programme, a pioneering initiative to generate, co-produce, and translate knowledge at the intersections of disability and climate justice. His research in this area has been cited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and has been covered by media outlets around the world. In 2023, McGill University awarded him its Changemaker Prize, which is awarded to scholars whose dedication to sharing their knowledge with the media and the public has had a major impact on society.

Heather McLeod-Kilmurray is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Environmental Law and Global Sustainability (CELGS) at the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa.  She was the founding Director of CELGS and is a past Director of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law.  Her research deals with toxic torts,  environmental ethics, the Canadian oil sands, environmental justice, and food law including GMOs and Industrial Factory Farming.  She is co-author of The Canadian Law of Toxic Torts (Canada Law Book) with Prof. Lynda Collins.  She has co-edited several books in the IUCN Academy Environmental Law Series (Edward Elgar) such as Climate Law and Developing Countries; Biodiversity and Climate Change; and The Law and Policy of Biofuels.  She teaches Environmental Law, Climate Change and Legal Change, Law and Sustainability, Torts and Legal Writing, and Administrative Law.  She is also a part-time member of the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal.

Ramani Nadarajah is counsel with the Canadian Environmental Law Association (CELA).  She holds an LL.B. (1987) and an LL.M. (2007) from Osgoode Hall Law School and is certified by the Law Society of Ontario as a Specialist in Environmental Law. 

From 2022 to 2023, Ramani was on secondment as Policy Counsel with the Law Commission of Ontario, where she led the Environmental Accountability: Rights, Responsibilities and Access to Justice project. Prior to joining CELA in 1994, Ramani was Crown Counsel with the Ontario Ministry of Environment. Ramani has appeared before the courts and administrative tribunals on cases involving contaminated sites, waste, air pollution, pesticides, water-takings and environmental land-use planning.  She was co-counsel for over five hundred residents at both phases of the Walkerton Inquiry.

Ramani has served on federal and provincial government advisory bodies on a range of issues including environmental penalties, brownfields and modernizing environmental approvals.  Ramani is a co-editor of Carswell’s Canadian Environmental Law Reports and has published articles in Canadian and international law journals on environmental law and policy issues, with a focus on regulatory compliance and enforcement.

Chris Tollefson has degrees from Queen’s, University of Victoria and Osgoode Hall Law School, and clerked at the BC Court of Appeal.  He combines teaching and research on environmental issues with counsel work for various public interest environmental clients.   This counsel work has included appearances before all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada, and various  regulatory boards and tribunals.  Chris was counsel to BC Nature and Nature Canada during both the Enbridge Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline hearing processes.  He has won various awards for his teaching and research, and in 2014 was the recipient of Nature Canada’s Conservation Partner Award for his work leading their pro bono legal team during the Northern Gateway pipeline hearings.  He is co-author (with Meinhard Doelle) of a leading environmental law textbook.  Chris is a former President of Ecojustice, served for two decades as executive director of the UVic Environmental Law Centre, and is the founding executive director of Canada’s newest public interest environmental law non-profit, the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation (“CELL”): see http://www.pacificcell.ca/.