NUJS Kolkata moved into the top 5 and Symbiosis Pune edged back into the top 10 of the Mooting Premier League (MPL) with honourable mentions at the 17th Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot in Vienna.
Iram Huq of NUJS was awarded an honourable mention in the best individual oralist category, which gifted NUJS 10 points in this prestigious international Tier 1 event. NUJS is now placed fifth with 38 points and just five points behind fourth placed SOEL Chennai.
Meanwhile Symbiosis Pune also bagged an honourable mention in the best individual oralist category in the event.
Symbiosis speaker Rohan Batra won 10 points for the college with his performance, meaning Symbiosis is now placed in 10th place with 24 points in the MPL sponsored by Clifford Chance.
NUJS made it to the competition's quarter finals but lost out to finalists from the University of Ottawa.
NUJS and Nalsar Hyderabad were also finalists in the Frédéric Eisemann Award
team orals category, although team honourable mentions do not attract points in the present MPL scoring system.
King’s College London won the event defeating University of Ottawa, Canada in the finals. University of New South Wales bagged the best memorial for both claimant and respondent. Antonia Füller, University of Freiburg was awarded the best oralist.
The Moot is convened by the Association for the Organisation and Promotion of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (Verein zur Ausrichtung und Förderung des Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot).
NUJS Kolkata brought the Vis Vienna cup home in 2003 and remains the only Indian law school team to have ever done so. However, last year ILS Pune came close but eventually lost in the finals.
This weekend the MPL Tier 2 Manfred Lachs Asia Pacific round finals will take place. Will NLSIU Bangalore qualify to the world finals of Manfred Lachs to defend its title in the next MPL season?
The MPL is sponsored by Clifford Chance and the top eight ranked law colleges will share a generous prize fund of Rs 1.5 lakhs provided by the firm.
2009-10 Mooting Premier League rankings, sponsored by Clifford Chance
Law school | Points | Wins | |
1. | Nalsar Hyderabad | 149 | IICLAM (best memorial); Henry Dunant Indian rounds (runners-up); Surana Trial Advocacy South (best team, best memorial); Nani Palkhiwala (best memorial), Bar Council of India (best team); KK Luthra (runners-up, best speaker); NLIU Tankha (runners-up, best memo); MM Singhvi (best memo); Jessup South (runner-up); DM Harish (best researcher); Surana Corporate (best team, best memorial); SP Sathe (best team, best orator); KLA Moot (runners up); NUJS Herbert Smith (best team, best memorial); Surana Int'l Tech Moot (best memorial); Amity Moot (runners up, best orator, best memorial, best researcher); Philip C Jessup (semi-finalist); ISRO Manfred Lachs funding rounds (best orator) |
2. | NLSIU Bangalore | 102 | Manfred Lachs (best team, best orator); Stetson South (best advocate), Bar Council of India (best orator); KK Luthra (best memorial); MM Singhvi (best researcher); Jessup South (best team, best orator); KLA Moot (best memorial); I |
3. | NLU Jodhpur | 94 | Nalsar B.R.Sawhney (runners-up, best memorial); Stetson North (best team, best memorial); Jessup North (best team, best orator); Surana Corporate (runners up, best orator); SP Sathe (best memorial); KLA Moot (best team, best orator); NUJS Herbert Smith (runners-up); Surana Int'l Tech Moot (best orator); Amity Moot (best team); Stetson International (5th & 6th best orator) |
4. | School of Excellence in Law (SOEL) Chennai | 43 | Henry Dunant Indian rounds (best team, best orator), NLIU Tankha (best orator); Nani Palkhiwala (best team); Red Cross Asia Pacific (semi-finalist; honourable mention best memorial) |
5. | NUJS Kolkata | 38 | All India Corporate Law Moot (best team, best researcher); Willem C Vis Hong Kong (honorable mention); I |
6. | ILS Law College Pune | 31 | Bar Council of India (runners-up); DM Harish (runners-up); NUJS Herbert Smith (best speaker); Surana International Tech Moot (best team); ULC Bangalore Moot (best team) |
7. | NLIU Bhopal | 29 | All India Corporate Law Moot (runners-up, best orator); Nalsar B.R.Sawhney (best team, best orator); Stetson South (best memorial); MM Singhvi (runners-up) |
8. | Government Law College (GLC) Mumbai | 26 | KK Luthra (best team); MM Singhvi (best team); DM Harish (best orator, best memorial) |
9. | Amity Law School IP University Delhi | 25 | IICLAM (best team & best orator); Stetson North (runner-up), Jessup North (best memorial) |
10. | Symbiosis, Pune | 24 | Nani Palkhiwala (runners up, best orator); GNLU International Moot Court (runners up); ULC Bangalore Moot (runners-up); Willem C Vis Vienna (best orator hon. mention) |
11. | Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL) Patiala | 18 | Henry Dunant national rounds (best researcher); NLIU Tankha (best team); ULC Bangalore Moot (Best Memorial) |
12. | GNLU Gandhinagar | 17 | IICLAM (runners-up); ELSA WTO Asia (runners-up, best orator) |
13. | Law Centre I (LC-I) Delhi University | 14 | Henry Dunant Indian rounds (best memorial), Jessup North (runner-up) |
14. | Nuals Kochi | 13 | Surana Trial Advocacy North (runners-up); Jessup South (best memorial); Surana International Tech Moot (runners up) |
15. | University Institute of Laws PURC, Ludhiana | 11 | Surana trial advocacy north rounds (best team, best orator) |
16. | CMR Law School, Bangalore | 10 | ULC Bangalore Moot (best orator, best researcher) |
16. | Kerala Law Academy Thiruvananthapuram | 10 | Stetson South (best team) |
16. | NLU Delhi | 10 | DM Harish (best team) |
19. | UILS Punjab | 8 | Surana Trial advocacy South (runners up, best orator) |
20. | HNLU Raipur | 7 | Stetson North (best orator) |
20. | New Law College Bharati Vidyapeeth University Pune | 7 | Stetson South (runner-up) |
22. | CNLU Patna | 5 | GNLU International Moot (best memorial) |
22. | Government Law College Ernakulam | 5 | MM Singhvi (best orator) |
22. | Institute of Law, Nirma University, Ahmedabad | 5 | Surana Trial Advocacy North (best memorial) |
22. | ULC Bangalore | 5 | All India Corporate Law Moot (best memorial) |
26. | Campus Law Centre Delhi | 3 | SP Sathe (runners up) |
Click here for an updated (February 2010) list of the Mooting Premier League scoring criteria.
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mooters have to get certain privileges and special treatment than others!!
Though it has been said before, I reiterate, it is very strange that there are no points for quarter-finalists at Jessup and Vienna.
believe it or not. mooting is not, and should not have to be everything.
people who believe that should flunk a year.
@#4: And I dont understand the logic of attendance rules. Why cant we let attendance be governed by the simple forces of demand and supply. If a lecture is worth attending only because attendance is being taken, the concerned faculty member should think of alternative career plans
@#5: Very good idea. Mr. Prabhash Ranjan and Prof. Shamnad Basheer of NUJS could probably both individually win the league competing against all the other law schools put together.
If you have a RPL, we should probably request Prof. MP Singh, the grand old man of NUJS, to stay out of the league. Otherwise other universities will have some serious trouble in coming anywhere close to winning. There are also the young NUJS academics like Prof. Basheer and Mr. Prabhash Ranjan.
And NUJS Law Review (ranked 1st in India - above IJIL - by the Washington and Lee University's survey of law journals) will also tilt the league in favour of NUJS.
Plus, when I sopke to a Asst. Prof. at King's College, London while in his visit to Calcutta recently, he clarified the lack of mooting importance for higher studies. Admittednly, moots like Vienna and Jessup add up to your CV but the policy of any interviewer is this: "One international moot = One international Publication" and "One national moot = One national publication".
So far as attendance is concerned, if mooters cannot balance their extra-curricular activities and acadmics, why moot? It sounds unreasonable to considers mooters masters of law school and awarding special privileges is a childish idea.
Mooting is just a law school exercise like debating which limits your CV value. You cannot boast of your mooting skills when you attain a minimum age/experience. For instance, you can never say you won a moot when you were 22 when you are made a Partner at a Law Firm, or a Chairman of some government committee, or may be Prof/VC of any law school. However, things like presentations and publications never die away from your CV regardless of your post. For example, Tarunabh Khaitan, Vinay Sitapati from the NLSIU.
Legally India may do a MPL, not contended, but breaking news on mooting achievements is not what India needs, or indian lawyers need for that matter.
A good lawyer is the one who knows the law and reproduce it in legal terminology elsewhere. For that he needs no mooting deliberations.
This is not to demean any other activity. All of them have their due places in law schools. But mooting is the only activity which makes you feel like a lawyer. A person in any stream can write papers or debate.
Unfortunately, in NUJS there are some resentful/jealous people like this in the SJA so mooters are not given the status they deserve. Another problem is that some people in the MCS themselves only have a secondary interest in mooting and are primarily in it for politics/glamour...people in NUJS should know who I am talking about.
Mooting is equal to debating? At a Law School? Right.
You must be one of those hardcore "On that point Sir" debaters, who've either never mooted or tried and failed at it. Mooting is a LEGAL activity, and we're all at LAW SCHOOL. Debating, in India, is one huge game of little card tricks and rhetorical devices. Please don't disgrace the name of mooting by even mentioning it in the same breath as debating.
My point is that who you are referring to would become lot clearer if I knew who you were. The sad part about the NUJS mooting community at present is that each "side" considers itself to be the custodian of the ancient treasures of mooting and is suspicious of the other "side" and their intentions. This leads to each "side" believing that the other "sides" are out there to corrupt things. If a person from the other "side" wins or does well there are three possibilities: (i) the judge was biased or did not know how to judge (even if the judge has been a winner of Jessup), (ii) s/he cheated, (iii) s/he got lucky.
This when coupled with lot of so called mooters whose egos out do their achievements inside and outside the university makes the situation really bad.
Hope the golden days of NUJS mooting when people could form teams with each other not on the basis of friendships but on the basis of professional respect would return sometime.
2. Somebody pointed fingers at the SJA in NUJS and its lack of involvement in moots. I think this argument falls flat since there are "remarkable" convenors, co-convenors and members in the Moot Society at NUJS who carry the tag of bolstering familyism and favour students who either share the common State or are/have been close friends. This is evident given this year's society where students have been to international moots after submitting improper and "no-argument" memorials. What is seen in evaluation of memorials in NUJS is the structure of it and not the conntent. You have greater chances of making up the moot team if care has been taken on footnotes (however fake) and headings and subheadings. It does not matter whether you are "arguing" properly on legal grounds. The same names qualify for the moots always!
3. No one is equating mooting with debating. Mooting of course involves legal research and drafting capabilities. However, I talked about equating mooting and publications which is a common knowledge. At the same time, only because we are at school does not mean we have to excel in moots. If mooting were seen as an evidence of oratory skills, why do mooters accept corporate jobs instead of court litigation? Doesn't that mean it is all about CV? Are mooters hypocrites? I would from the depth of my heart defend the glory of law school mooting for a student who genuinely cultivates his oratory skills in his school on mooting and post graduation has the courage to join litigation.
4. Mooting involves at least one researcher. What about the researcher? He is also a mooter but has little or no mention. So is mooting only about speaking? If not, and if researchers also qualify for the definition of moot, what differs them from those who write a paper for a journal or law review.
About evaluation of memorials, how do you know there were no-argument memorials? Considering the memos were submitted confidentially to the MCS and after coding to the judges, you have no way of having seen the memos and knowing which was whose memo. A well formatted and well structured memo can also be well written.
If memo evaluation is so completely random in NUJS, how is it that rank 1 researcher in this year's team happens to be someone who won honourable mentions for both her memos as a researcher in Willem C Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Vienna (best performance of NUJS in Vienna ever in terms of memos)? Rank 2 researcher this year was someone who last year, in addition to winning the NLS arbitration moot, won Best Memorial award at that moot. Coincidences? Or memo evaluation outside NUJS is also equally screwed up?
I am not denying that writing articles is a worthy pursuit. I do respect and envy stalwarts like Shubhankar Dam. But why does one of these two activities have to be to the exclusion of the other? As you point out, mooting also involves research. People at times do write papers using the research they do for their moots. These activities can be complementary and need not compete with each other.
Guys and girls ... while mooting is not the end all, and mooting may not be relevant when one becomes a professional, mooting is indeed a way to develop skills and one of the ways to enhance CV value in lawschool. And it is a great experience. No one can refute the fact that a Jessup / Vis award makes the CV look great, though it may not necessarily lead to great opportunities (if on other counts the CV is weak). Also, I once saw an article in an international journal that stated something to the effect that mooting glory in India has become somewhat similar to making it to the law review in the US (sorry, I am not able to provide a link to the same), and I agree that the statement isn't completely correct.
Another interesting angle - A Magic Circle Firm even discussed my moots with me for 2-3 minutes and were very much interested in that section of my application (and I got an offer from them too) !!!
Although we all have our take on mooing, it may be a good idea to give it some thought before completely discounting the significance of moots, esp. when even some of the top 10 universities of the world participate in moots, and have great professors and professionals as coaches.
Ex-mooter.
As a Noojie I am and will remain proud of the grand paint-ball competition that the campus saw a few months back. What can be more "contemporary" in this age of terrorism? What has to do more with "law"?
I suggest ILSA stop organising the Philip C Jessup International Moot Court Competition and start an international paint-ball championship. It should not be too difficult given ILSA NUJS chapter doesnt seem to be averse to the idea. Convincing the organisers in Vienna will be a bit more difficult. But we got the muscle-men. Dissenters can be handled.
All in support of the idea please assemble for a free drink of coffee from our second greatest achievement this year, the coffee machine.
Hey - I'm from NUJS. Yes, there indeed is a long list of good mooters here.
@ #21 -
Those arent the only few involved in mooting / organizing the moots here and it's rather strange that you should make it sound that way. Credit to all of those you've (and #23) mentioned, but it seems unfair to make a comment section on a website a hall-of-fame of sorts.
Well, hopefully, the year that has been for NUJS mooting will see a turnaround next year. I think enough has been said about this on this forum already, so I'll stop there.
Just an FYI - most moot wins for us this year comprised of teams from 1st - 4th year students. Ditto with the moot organization, which had many more students in the organization team than what seems to have been suggested in an earlier comment.
Would appreciate if commentors would maintain the decency of not using this as a forum to anonymously 'brag' about their friends or unduly discredit others. Also, some basic level 'research' is the least the rest of us can expect from you.
ps you might hav startd the revolution from the bed but its time tht everyone else wakes up fr their own good.. even if it requires door slamming n a little spamming lol dont stop, proud of u mate
pps might i add the am-a-zing race to the list..
I understand NUJS may have its internal problems. But please refrain from washing dirty laundry in public.
A fellow Noojie
@26: In complete agreement with you.
If anyone who is mentioned by name here would prefer to have their name redacted, please contact me or leave a comment saying so (include contact details please, they won't be published).
Best regards,
Kian
I don't wish to name you guys here, but we all know who you are. It is astonishing how you're making the entire university suffer for the acts of 4-5 of you.
Hopefully, we've seen the end of this.
To all others - I apologize on behalf of some of the comments made here. Please ignore them.
@ 27 - A president who launches such slimy "attacks"? No, thankyou.
@ Other please remember mudslinging at a public forum will make your own clothes dirty. (There is not Tide to clean it again) If you love NUJS/yourself stop doing it.
For others who are outside of NUJS: We apologize. Only a small group of students indulged in these disruptive activities and all the mudslinging / petty posts were restricted to their comments. By no means does this reflect on the level or manner of debate in the university.
Please take whatever was said with a pinch of salt, and forgive their indiscretion. As a professional university, we believe in adhering to appropriate procedures and respectfully addressing issues of concern with dignity.
Mr. GV / Pipo and whoever else has posted here: we hope that you realize that this was no "revolution". You have been a cause of nuisance and an embarrassment to us all, especially those who are not involved in your petty controversies. Please stop dragging the entire university into your personal grudges and insecurities.
Kian - please do a better job of moderating the comments!
i must commend on the level of research and intensity they bring with them to their moots!! more importantly thanks for organising INVICTA.,. he he !!
And WAY TO GO SYMBI!! Batra's made us proud!! Happy mooting guys while you can still do it, trust me you are gonna miss the feel of it after you pass out from law school!
"What is the big deal about this exactly?"
The issue was over some stupid society award. One society won it, others did not. A few from the societies which lost out in the race (and their friends) made a political campaign out of it and directed their attacks at the friends of 3 - 4 members of the society which won.
Widespread campaigns to discredit the work of the society which won it, deragatory facebook posts which were personal in nature, pictures to ridicule those who associated wih those members, etc followed in an attempt to malign the friends of 1/4th of the society which won. The saddest part was that these people narrated the story in such a way as to convince others that there was a bias in handing out the award and lied to all the other students to provoke sentiments against the winning society (actually, mostly their friends)! These included made up stories about how threat sms's were sent (which were traced back to their own number), how 25 students attempted to beat up 2 other students (the "fight" here was a confrontation regarding deragatory posts and it involved 4 students, not 25!!), amongst others.
"so what?"
Maybe to you it doesn't seem like something was amiss here, but to many of us at NUJS it does. The people being targeted had little to do with the award. These efforts were personal and highly political in nature and were carried out with malice. Relying on such lies to further personal and political agenda was the low point. Mudslinging is not our tradition here. Properly conducted debate is.
Most of the comments on facebook / legallyindia / elsewhere were removed once the truth started emerging. This was hardly on "open discussion" since it was just one bunch of people targeting another. Perhaps if the comments had been genuinely witty, it would have been less of a problem :-).
Kudos to the ones who maintained a dignified silence through this.
Anyhow, it seems that sanity has prevailed and the issue has been put to rest. Good to see people exercising their better judgment. Hopefully, if they still have any objections to the award (yes, the same stupid award which triggered these series of events), they will take it up at the appropriate forum and in a dignified manner.
As for making life better for Mooters, well it was never easy and as an ex-mooter (plus NUJS alumni) my point is simple it (the hardships) comes with the turf. You are either good enough forit or you aren't , no two ways about that. The first batch of NUJS never had it easy, yes there was some relaxation for attendance (i.e. limited to the period the team was in Delhi etc to research), but nothing more. Financial support was zilch! We didn't feel great about begging to Senior Advocates, but the Univ was new and one had to adjust! Many of the first batch mooters also debated, published (internationally in excellent peer reviewed journals), were active in social service scene...they balanced it.
Btw mooting many not be the only thing you do in law school, but it is one of the most imporatnt and you do gain stuff out of it (foreign internships for e.g)!
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