Left to right: Third-year law students Nadine Plourde, Maureen Friesen, Sydney Newman, Harlan Morris with Judge Tim Killeen (back).
Moot News: 2024 Solomon Greenberg Trial Moot kicks off law school competition season
Winners to represent Manitoba at MacIntyre Moot in February, 2025
Moot Season at Robson Hall has kicked off with the annual Solomon Greenberg Trial Moot which took place on Grey Cup weekend, Saturday, November 16, 2024 at the Winnipeg Law Courts. Winner Maria Garcia Manzano (3L) and runner-up Nadine Plourde (3L) will go on to represent Manitoba at the MacIntyre (Western) Cup to be hosted at Robson Hall in Winnipeg, on February 14 – 15, 2025.
Runner-up Nadine Plourde with first-place winner Maria Garcia Manzano.
Two trials were run this year with two sets of Crown and Defence teams consisting of third-year law students, along with two volunteer law student witnesses per team. Moot coordinator and the Faculty of Law’s Director of Clinics, Elizabeth McCandless said, “We are very grateful to our volunteers – we couldn’t run the trial without our judges, coaches, and witnesses.”
Sitting provincial court judges acting as assessors included Judge Tim Killeen (presiding), Judge Raymond Wyant, Judge Kusham Sharma, and Judge David Ireland.
Participants were as follows:
Trial #1
Crown Team 1: Maria Garcia Manzano and Danielle Rabichuk
Witnesses: Moira Kennedy (3L) and Kaitlyn Clarke (2L)
Coaches: Dayna Queau-Guzzi and Adam Gingera
Defence Team 1: Marco Imbrogono and Liam Brown
Witnesses: Alessandro Imbrogno (1L) and Keerat Bhullar (2L)
Coaches: Evan Roitenberg and Laura Robinson
Trial #2
Crown Team 2: Sydney Newman and Harlan Morris
Witnesses: Mitchell Klippenstein (2L) and Brittany Windsor-Brown (2L)
Coaches: Chantal Boutin, Amy Wood and Matthew Armstrong
Defence Team 2: Nadine Plourde and Maureen Friesen
Witnesses: Ashley Allan (2L) and Taylor Sholdice (3L)
Coaches: Carley Mahoney and Caleigh Glawson
Robson Hall’s in-house trial moot has a long and illustrious history at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law, reaching back nearly 60 years, with winners including students who have gone on to become Court of Queen’s Bench Judges, Ministers of Justice and a former Dean of Law, and Chancellor of the University of Manitoba in the example of Harvey Sector, C.M., O.M. [BComm/67, LLB/92, LLD/22].
The Solomon Greenberg Moot was named for a well-respected Winnipeg lawyer who was considered one of the best criminal defence lawyers in Western Canada. Greenberg was born in Odessa, Russia in 1894, immigrated with his family to Canada in 1911, and registered at the Manitoba Law school after graduating from St. John’s High School in 1915.
Greenberg was thought of as legendary in the legal community, and was a hero to his clients who were mostly of modest means. He died of a heart attack in 1958 while running a trial, and in 1964, his widow made a donation to the Faculty of Law to provide a prize for the student judged to be the best presenter in the annual Solomon Greenberg Moot Court Competition. The Manitoba Bar Association later contributed more funds to also support a prize for the competition’s first-runner up. More information about Greenberg’s life can be found in Norm Larsen’s book Notable People from Manitoba’s Legal History at page 133.
Read more about past winners of the Solomon Greenberg Moot in “Related Stories” below.