Pro Bono Sports Arbitration: Canadian Boxer seeks KO in sex discrimination case

In this episode of Friends Who Argue, Gowling WLG partner Erin Farrell interviews Sylvie Rodrigue and Sarah Whitmore of Torys LLP. Sylvie and Sarah recently represented decorated Canadian boxer, Mandy Bujold, in her fight to attend the Tokyo Olympic Summer Games (scheduled for 2020 and subsequently held in 2021) after a pandemic-driven rule change resulted in her potential disqualification as a result of a maternity leave. Erin Farrell also speaks with Mandy Bujold about her perspective on sport arbitration proceedings. 

Erin Farrell is a lawyer at the Gowling WLG Toronto office and chair of the firm's pro bono programs. Her practice focuses on a variety of commercial litigation matters, including class actions, product liability, and municipal liability. She is also an active member of The Advocates' Society, including serving on the 10+ Standing Committee, a committee dedicated to advancing the interests of mid-career advocates.

Sylvie Rodrigue, Ad. E.  is a partner at Torys who divides her time between the Toronto and Montreal offices. Sylvie leads Torys’ Class Action and Product Liability practices. Sylvie has a broad litigation practice and extensive experience defending class actions in all provinces across Canada both pre-certification and at trial. Sylvie has been involved in a wide range of multi-jurisdictional class actions. She has been awarded the designation of  Advocatus Emeritus by the Québec Bar, a distinction awarded to a limited number of lawyers to honour an outstanding legal career. Sylvie sits on the Board of Directors of The Advocates' Society. Most recently, Sylvie was named Litigator of the Year at the 2021 Canadian Law Awards.

Sarah Whitmore is also a partner at Torys and maintains an active disputes practice with an emphasis on class actions, employment law, commercial litigation, public law and constitutional litigation. Sarah is counsel to the defendants in a number of leading and precedent-setting employment national class actions. She also assists clients in resolving claims involving allegations of discrimination, sexual harassment and related allegations of wrongful and constructive dismissal. Sarah is also frequently involved in complex contract disputes, and in addition, maintains a robust defamation practice.


Land Acknowledgement
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While The Advocates’ Society is based in Toronto, we are a national organization with Directors and members located across Canada in the treaty and traditional territories of many Indigenous Peoples. We encourage our members to reflect upon their relationships with the Indigenous Peoples in these territories, and the history of the land on which they live and work.

We acknowledge the devastating impacts of colonization, including the history of residential schools, for many Indigenous peoples, families, and communities and commit to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in an informed legal profession in Canada and within The Advocates’ Society.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

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Speaker 2: 0:08

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Speaker 1: 0:19

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Speaker 3: 0:30

I'm delighted to be joined today by Sylvie rod re and Sarah Whitmore of to they recently represented Canadian boxer, Mandy BJO in her fight to attend the 20, 20 Olympic big summer games in Tokyo, which of course, because of the pandemic took place in July, 2021. This fascinating case has it all a sympathetic client, a novel discrimination issue, massive time pressure, and a far away tribunal in Switzerland. Let me first introduce our guests. SIL R is one of the most respected litigation lawyers in the country. She is managing partner of Tori's Montreal office and head of its national class action and product liability practice groups. She's on the board of directors of the advocate society and is the past chair of the society's regional advisory committee for Quebec. She was called to the Byron 1993 in both Ontario and Quebec, and has been her time between Toronto and Montreal for over 16 years. Sylvie has too many awards to mention, but she was recently named Canadian lawyers, 2021 litigator of the year. Sarah Whitmore is also here with us today. She is also a partner at Tori in the Toronto office and has been an active member of the advocate society. Since she began practicing in 2011, she has a practice focusing on class actions, public law, and commercial litigation. She's been ranked in the legal 500 as a rising star in dispute resolution. And she is chair of the board of the directors for the Barbara Schleifer commemorative clinic. So welcome Sylvia and Sarah. What a, don't you start by telling us a little bit about Mandy and her predicament.

Speaker 4: 2:07

So it's a little difficult to describe Mandy in just a few seconds. Uh, she is, uh, the most decorated female boxer in Canada. She's an elephant time national champion. Uh, she represented, uh, Canada and VO in 2016. She's a two time gold medalist at the PanAm Pan-American games, uh, which including 2011, which was the first Pan-American game where female boxing was, um, accepted. And she won a game in 2015. She was a bronze medalist again at the first Commonwealth games where female boxing was an event. Uh, and she, uh, is very special for other reason than her accomplishment in boxing because she's a, she's a planner and she wanted to have a family. So after the R Olympic in 2016, she got married and became pregnant immediately because she wanted to attend the 20, 20 Tokyo Olympic. So she had to plan her pregnancy according to the Olympic cycle. And of course it worked to the dot and she gave a birth to her daughter, uh, in November, 2018. So she just three Kate Olympia, K O are the initials. And, uh, the goal was for her to resume training after a postpartum slowly getting back into shape, losing the weight and being able to attend the Canadian Olympic qualifier in 2019. And then the conne, the continental qualifier in this spring of 2020. And, uh, everything was going according to China. And of course, because of the pandemic, the Olympic were postpone to 21, Mindy, uh, attended the qualifier in Canada, of course, won and down I was there<laugh>, there was no doubt she won immediately. Uh, and then she planning to attend the continental qualifier in May, 2020, because in boxing, uh, it doesn't suffice for you to be the Canadian champion. You then need to be top four in on the continent, the Americas to, uh, qualify for the Olympic and of, uh, or pregnant. And she was ranked, uh, second in the America. So the content and so qualifier we're talking about and eight in the world. Yeah. So

Speaker 3: 4:27

How did you become aware of Mandy's situation?

Speaker 5: 4:32

So I think lucky for us and lucky for Mandy Mandy is Sylvie's daughter's boxing coach. She's still her coach to this day. Um, and so I think like S said in the introduction, Mandy is very much a planner and kind of an, a type personality. So when she realized that the qualification criteria for north American boxers was changing as a result of COVID and the change being, um, for women that rather than holding this qualifying event for north American athletes, the IOC decided to do a look back to events for an 11 month period in 2018 and 2019. And they said, however, you ranked in those events is what we're going to use to determine whether you will qualify for Tokyo 2021. Mandy immediately knew that obviously that was gonna be problematic for her. That was exactly when she gave birth to her daughter and also was on her maternity leave. Um, and she also knew instinctively that it was unfair and that there was something about this that was just kind of inherent, discriminatory. She reached out to Sylvie as, you know, a lawyer that she knew and someone who's close to her and Sylvie kind of did immediately what, what we would do if we were trying to solve any urgent problems, she checked, you know, what's the legal framework? What, what are the rules that apply here? She came across the Olympic charter, which clearly provides that the IOC or any designated body by the IOC that is responsible for rule setting and responsible for setting qualification criteria cannot set criteria that discriminate against athletes on the basis of a number of grounds, including sex. And so, um, Sylvie had made this conclusion pretty early on that this, these new qualification criteria appeared to expressly violate that guarantee in the Olympic charter. She reached out to me and another of our colleagues Han Kara and said, this looks like a situation that's right for, you know, a, a strongly worded lawyer letter and will correct a situation that is probably an inadvertence. We had approval from our pro bono committee and we were kind of off to the races.

Speaker 3: 6:52

So that's really interesting. The retroactive application is really what, what was the trigger in this case, or at least the trigger that there was a problem on your end and on Manny's. Um, can I ask if, you know, so what were other sports doing? So obviously dealing with maternity leaves and women taking time out from competition to start families is a tricky issue. Do you have any sense for what other sports, uh, do in these instances? It

Speaker 4: 7:16

Doesn't appear that many of, uh, maternity policy and we, after extensive research in multiple sports all over the world, we were quite surprised to see that there was nothing, it, it was looking at rules from the 1950s, uh, very, very far beyond. And the only sport that had done something about this was the world tennis as a, for Sarah Williams. So big name because when she had her daughter before pregnancy, she was ranked number one. And when she came back, she had fallen to in the 400 or something. And of course in tennis, she was then not, uh, offered the big tournament after her pregnancy because of her low, low ranking. So the world tennis as a, had adopted a policy at the time that, uh, athletes can keep their pre-pregnancy ranking for a period of 12 months. So that was our precedent in terms of accommodation, dealing with rankings, which if you applied it to Mandy, would've main keeping or second in the America's pre-pregnancy ranking, uh, which should have been recognized. So she's not penalized cause of the, uh, of the, the pregnancy end of postpartum period, of course, um, boxing not being, uh, uh, like running, for example, you can get punch in the stomach once you're pregnant and it takes more time for you to get back in the ring. It's, it's a sports that requires, uh, a good 12 month postpartum.

Speaker 3: 8:42

So where is this fight paired upon going to take place? What's the forum here?

Speaker 5: 8:48

The forum for this dispute was the court of arbitration for sport in Switzerland. And this is a specialized arbitration tribunal. It's locally referred to as past in English. And it's a specialized tribunal that deals exclusively with disputes between athletes, athletes, and their governing bodies athletes, and the organizers of events, such as the Olympics or FIFA tournaments or other world class sporting events. And they have a specific tribunal or a specific division that deals with doping. So a lot of the jurisprudence that we see relates to doping, but of course they deal with qualification disputes or disputes relating to judging or other sorts of matters.<affirmative> they, they are typically, um, they typically hold hearings in person and the seat is in Switzerland, as I mentioned. So the hearings often takes place in Switzerland, but luckily for us, because of the pandemic, the hearings were all being held virtually. So it made it quite a bit more accessible for the Canadian lawyer and our witnesses and clients.

Speaker 3: 10:01

So tell us a little bit about the timing of all this. So how much of a time crunch was Mandy in with the Olympics first postponed and then set for July, 2021?

Speaker 4: 10:10

It was a bit of a inhumane<laugh> timeline, uh, both for the lawyers, but especially from Andy, um, lawyers who, who appear regularly before the court of arbitration for sports had warned us that up. And until we get our panel, we were gonna suffer a little bit because this, the court is, uh, slow to respond, uh, slow to appoint the panel. And, and of course, uh, we had a gun on our head, so to speak because Mandy had to know if she was leaving for Tokyo. What was

Speaker 3: 10:45

The core legal issue here, Sarah?

Speaker 5: 10:49

So essentially what we said and what we raised as the issue was that these retroactively chosen qualification criteria discriminated against any athlete who was pregnant or postpartum during that 11 month time period that was selected for the qualification criteria because the athlete was then being penalized and treated differently as a result of that pregnancy at a time that the athlete would not have known that there'd be any implications to the qualifications. And, um, we, you know, we made this argument on the basis of the Olympic charter, which as I mentioned, expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of basis of sex. Our argument was that treating a pregnant per differently or penalizing a pregnant person is discrimination on the basis of sex. That question is very clearly resolved in Canada. For example, as early as you know, the late nineties, our Supreme court was considering and making decisions on pregnancy leave and employment policies in the workplace, including a seminal case in Brooks and Canada Safeway limited where chief justice Dixon relied on a report written by justice Abella who surveyed and, um, wrote extensively on equality and systemic discrimination issues in the workplace. Um, of course Canadian law was not gonna be so persuasive at CA at the court of arbitration sport where our arbitration would be held if we ever had to get there. So we also had to consider and think about Swiss law, which would apply because the IOC is, is based in Switzerland. And it turns out that this concept is also well developed in Swiss law, in the employment law context. And, you know, we became experts and this is something that Sylvia ended up arguing before cast. But, you know, I feel like we now know more about Swiss law, the Swiss employment law and the pregnancy, um, law that's developed than I don't think we would ever expected to have known. So that was essentially the argument that we were putting forward. The other thing that we had to think about was, um, that it's not that there has been jurisprudence developed at CA in the context of transgendered athletes who have challenged testosterone limits, for example. And so we had to think about not just the first question of are these qualification criteria discriminatory and do they violate the Olympic charter, but we also had to think about a second question of whether or not the discrimination was justified.

Speaker 3: 13:29

So, so it sounds like you didn't have a real roadmap or precedent to go by. So what did you do first? How did

Speaker 4: 13:34

To start? So initially we thought that, uh, the, the IOC is likely not aware that what appears to be an objective rule on its face has a discriminatory. And we figured given that Tokyo was heavily advertised as the gender equal Olympics in the history of time. And the IOC had just fired, um, the, um, the president of the Tokyo Olympic, who was a man for making sexist comment and replaced it by a woman. We figured surely if we just called them and let them know our, our thinking was, let's just alert them. Um, and I had a couple of, uh, contacts with direct access to the sports director of the IOC. Uh, some people who were members of the IOC, um, that I, uh, called and, uh, them make phone calls. So we really tried to go through the back channels to, to alert them of that, and it didn't go anywhere. And then we tried to, uh, to write a, a, this time it was a to letter to, to let them know, and once the back channels didn't work and that remained, uh, unanswered. So we were now, uh, in may and we have essentially a month and a half to, to, uh, to move forward. We were asking for a panel to be, to be constituted as fast as possible. And this is where it was getting a little stressful because we, we, uh, we had to weigh for, for a while before we got her panel. Meanwhile, Mandy has to stay focused on her training. She has to continue to spar. She has to continue to fundraise, uh, because, uh, court of arbitration for sport is not cheap and I'm not talking, we were, we were working pro bonos, but there's fees associated with going to the court that quite quite expensive.

Speaker 6: 15:35

So, so after your letters failed, um, what did you do next?

Speaker 5: 15:42

So one of the things we immediately wanted to do was to guard against a possible argument that there might be other athletes out there who are going to experience unfairness if an accommodation was made for pregnant athletes. So what we did was immediately along with our materials where we actually filed the appeal, we sought an injunction.

Speaker 6: 16:08

So we wanted to prevent the IOC from releasing the quota spots, meaning the list of qualified athletes, who would be obtaining a quota to compete in the Olympics as a north American athlete or a north American female athlete in boxing. And what we did to achieve that was ask the past to make an order. This is something that's provided for in the rules. It's something that the rules actually contemplate. And when we filed those materials, the cast accepted them, like Sylvie said, we didn't have a panel yet. So we're still dealing with, um, someone at the court of arbitration for sport, who's making decisions and kind of directing the hearing, which is again in accordance with the rules. And they said, okay, thank you for this application for an injunction IOC over to you, you have two days to respond, given the urgency. And the IOC immediately wrote a letter. And this is one of the first times that I think we had heard from them. And they kind of out of the gate say, we understand Ms. Bo's position. Of course we will not do anything to prejudice her. We do need additional time to respond, given the complexity of the issues. So we undertake not do anything that would prejudice miss Bojo, um, in the interim, if you do give us this extension. So the injunction was really critical for us, and we relied on the IOCs undertaking. It turned out, um, and we learned this through social media, but it turned out that the IOC actually did release the list in the intervening time. And during the time period where they had asked for extension, which made the injunction request, we had asked for totally moot. And in the end, um, the injunction was not granted, but it really didn't matter because the prejudice we were trying to prevent had been caused

Speaker 3: 18:05

Sounds like the horse had left the burn.

Speaker 6: 18:07

That's exactly right. So,

Speaker 3: 18:09

So what happened next? When, when the list was announced and Mandy wasn't on it,

Speaker 4: 18:12

So that we finally got our panel of three international on may 15, and once the panel was appointed, things started to really go, uh, according to what we wanted, I E quick<laugh>. So we got, uh, a hearing date two, two days, June 20, the panel agreed with us that they were gonna release a decision by, uh, June 30th, uh, given the July 5th deadline for the COC to register its athlete, uh, their athlete on the team. So it was a very intense two days cuz we had, uh, witness statements from, uh, six witnesses, Mandy or doctor or GYN, uh, sports psychologist, or trainer, the sports director of the Canadian Olympic committee, the past president and current president of boxing Canada. So we feel that we had to do in 10 days, what we usually have almost a year to do in the regular proceedings. It was not only the fact, um, with the legal arguments, with Swiss law and international law in it, but also of our, all of our evidence.

Speaker 3: 19:19

So let me be the devil's advocate for just a moment, but isn't there a potential unfairness here to those who were able to attend those tournaments that, that Mandy wasn't able to attend.

Speaker 6: 19:29

And of course that was what we wanted to guard against with the injunction we wanted to protect, whether it's, you know, just subconscious bias or unconscious bias or some concern about unfairness that the panel might have and some sympathy they might have for other athletes. But when it comes to the legal argument that we were gonna be making and the argument about discrimination, we felt very confident that we had a very good response that unfairness to one group is not a basis to, um, reject a claim of discrimination and that unfairness to one group doesn't Trump, the discrimination that some other person is experiencing on a protected ground. That's why we have protected grounds, whether it's the charter or it's the Olympic charter, that's what our law protects. It doesn't protect against unfairness. It protects against discrimination. So

Speaker 3: 20:25

You've got your hearing dates, June 24th and 25th. Uh, how did it go and how did it conclude?

Speaker 4: 20:31

Um, so obviously like everyone else in Ontario will have to conduct, uh, hearings, uh, virtually it's not the same as being in person, but I gotta say we were quite lucky from a technology point of view because we had, um, people in Tokyo, they were people, uh, there was an arbitrator in Switzerland, another one in England, one in Montreal, uh, some witnesses in Tokyo. We had our witnesses, um, in, in some of our witnesses were in the room and, and we had no glitch. They were,<laugh> almost remarkable in two days, no technology glitch, everything worked perfectly from that from a, a textbook virtual hearing conducted perfectly. That was, that was great. Um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make Sarah Blu, even though this is an audio only, but Sarah conducted one of the best cross examination I've ever seen in my life. It's too bad that he hearing are not, uh, public they're confidential. So I can tell you more than this, other than she did an, an amazing job that I would use, uh, as an advocate society teaching moment, if it was, if it would've been public. So that's unfortunate, uh, highlight of the hearing for us. I think we were all quite, uh, uh, emotionally drain, I think, uh, other than Han and our team, uh, we were all women and this was by design. Uh, our clients were women, of course, men is a women, but the, the president of the Canadian Olympic committee is a woman. Uh, the general council of the Ken Olympic is a woman and our entire team of lawyers, everybody, like we only had women and we were in a sea of men because all of the judges were male. Uh, all of the witnesses, the IOC, everybody was male. So it was a, it was a nice contrast, um, visually on, on teams. And, uh, there was some, we're all, both Sarah and I are our mothers. They, this was an issue over and above my personal relationship with Mandy because she's my daughter's coach. We also all felt took it very personal. Uh, I, uh, after 28 years at the bar, I can tell you that I had never done a case where I was so personally and emotionally involved. Uh, it made our other be the farm litigation, uh, pale in comparison of how emotionally drained we were all are. By the time we got to the end of the hearing, Mandy, uh, this is a nice process at the, at the cast where the athletes, the athlete is given in the final world. So the, the word, so the, the athlete can do the closing statement. Um, and even though I had read the speech to make sure it was appropriate<laugh> before a closing statement, uh, we were, um, we were very emotional and, and our last, uh, ten second of the speech, uh, was about the type of conversation that she would have, uh, with her daughter when she's older, uh, about if she has to explain to her why the IOC punished her for having her, or, uh, how she fought for rights. And, and I'm still having a hard time. My voice is already going it's, it's been six months and I still have a hard time saying it because it was such a personal statement. Mandy was crying. We were all having a really hard time, uh, not crying. Uh, the room felt like moment of silence and remembrance day. It was a very, very heavy ending to the, uh, to the hearing. Um, but, uh, extremely gratifying that we had brought it to the, uh, to the finish line at that time. Everybody was quite relief.

Speaker 3: 24:21

I think I've heard to the great prime that there was a, a flurry of activity over Canada day weekend.

Speaker 4: 24:26

Yes. Um, so we won, uh, it was pin and needle because it was 6:00 AM here. When the decision was gonna come out, we knew we were only gonna have the operative part of the award. So the reasons for our listeners, the, the reasons that everyone is waiting for, because, uh, we're gonna talk about this in a moment. We think there's gonna be quite a bit of precedent setting statements in the reasons, uh, we still don't have them, but the, uh, the operative part of the award was, uh, ordering the IOC to provide an accommodation. Um, but they didn't tell, they didn't tell the IOC what to do. So they didn't go as far as, um, using what, one of our proposals, many proposal of what they could do. They just told them, provide an accommodation. And, and that's why even though, after we won, uh, which was on June 30th, uh, not only, we weren't quite sure what was happening, but we were still fighting during Canada the weekend because, um, we weren't happy with, well, essentially the accommodation that they had design was still disqualifying Mandy. So it was going around the letter of the award, maybe respecting the spirit of the award, but it was not respecting the letter of the award. So, uh, we had a couple more back and forward to for finally by the Sunday. So the decision was a Wednesday, uh, by the Sunday, uh, they clarified the operated part of the award and, and they ended up giving, adding a spot. No women was penalized, nobody lost their spot, they just added a spot. And, uh, and then she went to the Olympics.

Speaker 3: 26:02

That's so wonderful. And like you said, there was a lot about this in the media. So I saw Justin Trudeau and others and others tweeting about it, um, to get personal for a moment, I was really struck by how this story, and I guess a few others during the Tokyo Olympics shed light on just how complicated family planning is for these professional athletes. Uh, I was on maternity leave at the time when this was in the news, and I thought lawyers agonized over the right time to have children imagine having your career hinge on your ability to have a baby within such a narrow window. Uh, you know, what were your thoughts about the context of all of this?

Speaker 4: 26:38

I think, no, I think that's, um, a fabulous point Erin, because

Speaker 6: 26:43

One of the things that I, and I think Sylvie found so remarkable about Mandy's whole story was the planning and the complexity that went into the decision. And it was actually very important from a factual evident entry perspective, because we made a big point of explaining. First of all, the intense level of complexity and planning that needs to go into these types of decisions is only one that female athletes undertake, you know, male athletes who want to start planning their families, or to have families are not forced to consider. What's gonna be the best in my, for my wife to get pregnant or for my partner or for however, I'm gonna start my family for the male athlete. It doesn't matter, you know, when that happens, whereas for a female athlete, it's crucial because the Olympic cycle is four years. And if you're in a sport like boxing, that requires a very low, long recovery period, and you can't really play your sport or compete in your sport while you're pregnant, you have a very narrow window that you can get pregnant. And as it turns out from, um, for those of us who have had this happen before, it's not exactly one of those things that you can decide on Monday, okay, I'm ready to do this and then have it done and ready to go by the end of the week. So what do you think the impact of the decision might be from a, a legal

Speaker 4: 28:10

Perspective or otherwise? So the past decision itself, we expect very good reasons on discrimination. And I would expect a confirmation of Canadian law that discrimination because of pregnancy is discrimination based on sex. Second, uh, impact will be on standing as Sarah explained, there was a bit of a gray zone before cast as to if an athlete, uh, before there are an Olympia in can go to path challenge, qualification criteria. And I think the IOC was very, very concerned about, um, opening the floodgates every four years of athletes. Well, I, I got this qualified and why am I not qualified? And that there, they would start going to be way too many cases at CA um, and clearly, uh, we won on that point that Mandy, uh, had a, a personal standing, but also the COC, because there was all, there's also Jewish students at CA that is not always clear as to when the, uh, the national and as standing and the third leg of all of this independently of, of what the reasons are. We think that the, the operative part of the award will now prompt federal sports organization all over the world to adopt a maternity policy. We can't be in this flux that other than the world tennis association, there's nothing in writing. So

Speaker 3: 29:50

As litigators, we often have broad practices, but I'm always fascinated when other people go outside their immediate expertise to take on pro bono work. What thoughts can you, you offer lawyers who are listening about stretching yourself, uh, in this case to take on the IOC in a Swiss-based arbitration.

Speaker 4: 30:09

I think I've mentioned before. It was the most gratifying case of, uh, certainly my career, but I think Sarah, Sarah as well. And so I, I would say it as, uh, stretching ourselves. Um, there's no doubt it was intense, but it's pro bono cases, um, is good. They're good for the soul is when one of my partner told me this, as we were very tired, it says, these cases are good for the soul. So it's, it was, it was a great legal case. Um, we, um, but from a, as a human being, um, I would do it again<laugh> cause it really teach you more than just new, uh, legal principles. The other thing is it's, it's important to, to, to reach out to other members of the bar, like the, the court of arbitration for sport for us was a new beast. We had never appeared before the court of arbitration for sports. They are some excellent sports lawyer in Canada. It was unbelievable how generous people were with their time. Um, Jim tier that pardon and Jim bunting at tier, uh, who had been involved in the discuss for own case was extremely generous, uh, offering advice, you know, on process and, and the timeline. Um, I also spoke, I was in regular contact with, was a sports lawyer in, in Montreal who also knew more about the court. Like these people didn't ask for anything, they didn't have their name on the record. They were just so J interest with their time and, and, you know, sending us good luck. And so, so don't, uh, I think that would be my number one tip is don't underestimate, um, the importance of resources outside of your own firm, or gonna be willing to, to help you if you're outside of your conference zone. And for all, N I think when we do pro bono cases, it is often outside our conference zone. You know, we're not criminal lawyer, or we're not family law lawyer. So it's it surround yourself by the right people is what I would say,

Speaker 6: 32:15

What I would say in addition to what Sylvie has just mentioned is that I think one of the most gratifying things about this, or in gratifying thing about this was kind of the systemic change that we were able to see directly from the results of our work. So, um, you know, in so much of the litigation that we do, so we described it earlier as bet the farm litigation, we, we pour our hearts and souls into those cases too, but because of the economics and because of business decisions, so much of that litigation settles, whereas in the pro bono context, you know, you particularly this case, or, you know, whether it's a criminal lock case that you're involved with an immigration case, many of those cases aren't settling because the stakes it's not economic, the stakes are fundamentally personal, and it doesn't make sense for the parties or the litigants involved to settle. And so you, you often do see the extreme, hard work translated directly into act systemic change. That's, you know, we're still waiting for reasons, so it's not fully public yet, but hopefully once we have the reasons this will all be in the public record. And I think that is a bit unusual for us given, um, the size and complexity of the litigation that we're off often doing on a traditional basis.

Speaker 4: 33:37

It was, it became very, uh, um, obvious to us as to why there is so few athletes that challenge the IOC. Uh, you know, you're, it's not me so much as our firm and as other firms that do do this work pro bono, this was, this is a lot of money for the firm. This is not a pro bono case. It was, you know, we were, this is not a pro bono case you do for two, three days. And a lot of the pro bono cases that we do of course involve numerous lawyers, but not every athletes have access to this. And in fact, if you look at a lot of these cases before CA there are often 2, 3, 4 firms, cuz they will split the work. So it's not so cumbersome in one firm from a resource perspective, we were eight people full time between April 15 to, uh, June 30th on this. And, and you know, the regular athlete cannot afford to do this. So it's, it was gratifying from that point of view that it paid off not only for Mandy, but we really do believe that it will pay off in the future for a lot of female athletes all over the world, no matter what the sport is.

Speaker 3: 34:56

So I had a chance to speak with Olympian, Mandy Bojo to ask her what Tori's pro bono representation. She meant to her. Here's what she had to say.

Speaker 7: 35:06

Um, well, I mean, it meant a lot. I think it's actually hard to describe in words what that meant to me. Um, I, you know, had a personal relationship with Sylvie, um, leading into this case. Um, I had never asked her for, um, advice before, cause I felt like, you know, she's so good at what she does. People probably ask her for advice all the time. So I really that with her, but we, we got along so well from the beginning, um, and we just kind of stayed connected. So when this all came up, um, I reached out to her and you know, she was so quick to like offer, offer her advice. She was quick to like do a little bit of research. She offered to, um, you know, contact the, the people that were making these decisions right away. Um, and again, we thought it was just gonna be a simple solution of like having maybe her send a letter, having boxing Canada send a letter. So when it did kind of like become much bigger than that and something that we actually had to like take to the court of arbitration for sport, um, the fact that, you know, she was able to get, um, to on board to sent message. She just pulled them what we were dealing with. Um, and then they stepped up and said they were gonna do it pro bono. That was, that was just, it was just really incredible. Um, obviously a law firm that, you know, is, is just of that stature, um, willing to support me, um, was pretty amazing. And I think the biggest thing too, is that like the fees<laugh>, um, you know, for something like this, I had no idea and you know, what the work that they put into this and the big thing for me, like moving forward and was I going to take this and actually fight it? Um, I didn't wanna finish my career<laugh> in debt. Um, you know, even just filing fees, um, at the court of arbitration for sport where, you know, over$20,000 and, um, that that's a lot and that's, I think why a lot of these cases don't end up going to that level. And, um, it's unfortunate. So I was really, really fortunate to have, you know, Sylvie the entire team, um, at Tori's obviously Sarah, she, she was a, a key part in that as well. So can you tell me about your thoughts on the hearing process from an athlete's perspective or from a bystanders perspective? Yeah, it was actually really interesting for me, um, to go through that process. Um, obviously there was like a lot of stress. It happened really quickly. Um, I learned a lot along the way. Um, but I also learned a lot about like Sylvia and, and, and Sarah and what they do and how similar that is to the boxing world. And it's funny because as I was going through, um, the case, like I remember sitting there and like writing similarities down on like, you know, when she was talking about, um, like preparing for the opposition, like, what are they gonna say? What, like, how are they gonna react when we send this? And like always being like one step ahead, which is the same as what I do when I'm in the ring. I always have to think about, okay, what my opponent's gonna throw, how am I gonna counter that? Um, you know, those type of things, even just like the mental preparation, like going into, into the fight, which is like going into the case, going into the courtroom, um, that performance piece, right? Like when you're there and you have to like give your opening statement, like we have to start the first round really hard to like, make a statement for the judges. There's just,<laugh>, there's so many similarities. It was actually really cool to see. And I think it really helped me, um, just, just understand that, that connection that I had with Sylvie, um, prior to that, um, so it was, it was just super cool to, to be a part of,

Speaker 3: 38:49

I know these types of files often take a village. Are there other members of your team or people you'd like to thank who assisted you and, and along the way.

Speaker 4: 38:57

Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. So, uh, we had a large team, I mentioned it before. So Lisa TBA, I, and Kara, who we had four summer students and none of this would've been possible without them. Uh, Sarah, uh, who was really, I'm not even saying my number two, because this was an absolutely equal partnership. There was no number one. And number two, I would not have been able to take on this case without her. And I found out after we got the decision that she was actually pregnant during this old crazy period. And she did didn't wanna tell me because she was afraid I was gonna protect her and tell her, no, no, no, don't work until 2:00 AM with me. You should go lie down. So she purposely did not tell me that she was pregnant. Uh, but now you can understand why it was even more emotional for her this whole time. But I only found out that she was pregnant when everything was over. So, uh, uh, a you thank you, Sarah. And, uh, of course we had the people from outside the firm that, uh, we could call, uh, uh, Jim bunting at tier, uh, pat Montreal who were really our, uh, we were like bouncing ideas with them and they never asked for anything in return. So great, great colleagues. Thank you to everybody.

Speaker 8: 40:17

Thanks again to Erin Farrell at galling Sylvie, R and Sarah Whitmore at to, and Olympian Mandy Bojo for her time. Thanks also to Luke Saan for his technical assistance. Thanks to my coed, Ian Brennaman our production leads, Natalia Rodriguez, Kirsten Jer, and Zoe AEL to Danielle Doug Livo Dentons our technical sponsor for her editing assistant and to the advocate society team for their support. This is we pilot co-editor of friends who argue signing off

Speaker 1: 40:47

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Speaker 2: 40:53

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Speaker 1: 40:59

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Speaker 2: 41:20

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