Exclusive: Legally India research has revealed that the top five Indian mooting colleges participate in a roughly similar number of moots while ILS Pune participates in up to a mammoth 70 moots per year, while almost half of NLU Delhi students are mooters and NUJS Kolkata has the fiercest internal competition for mooting places. Plus, a preview of MPL 3 colleges below – promotions and demotions: feedback required.
After a successful second season of the MPL sponsored by Allen & Overy that saw Nalsar Hyderabad run away with the crown a second time, Legally India spoke to the moot court associations of the top 10 MPL 2 schools according to the Mooting Premier League 2 season standings to gain an insight into the intra university mooting patterns.
Overview
At most colleges between 10 and 20 per cent of the total student corpus participate in moots.
At NUJS Kolkata the internal competition is arguably the fiercest: only one in four out of the 200 taking part in the intra-rounds gets to take part in outside moots.
At most other college the odds of getting selected are closer to one in two, with GNLU Gandhinagar and ILS Pune fielding the largest mooting corpus of 150-160 and 200 respectively caused by the large size of their student bodies.
ILS also participates in the largest number of moots – between 60 and 70 – closely followed by GNLU at 55.
Out of the top five all except NUJS and NLU Delhi rack up 25 external moots per year for their students.
At NLU Delhi, which made its debut in the MPL’s top 10 this year, mooting was all around the campus. Its 60 mooters visited 30 moots and with the college only entering its fourth year and an overall student strength of 150, it was also the college where mooting was most popular: more than one in three NLU Delhi-ites were mooters last year.
Interestingly the top three-ranked colleges all allow mooters to perform in more than one moot per year. But except for Nalsar, NUJS and NLSIU, as well as ninth-ranked NLIU Bhopal this year, other colleges enforced the one mooter one moot rule.
Internally competitive
Intra university mooting involves students participating in mooting exercises against college-mates. Those rounds act as selection moots to decide the various teams that are going to represent the university in external moot court competitions.
MPL 2 Quicklinks:
The topmost in the internal rank list will participate in the best moots, such as the MPL’s Tier 1 World Class moots. The moot court associations of various law schools plan, organise and conduct the intra selection rounds.
Some law schools have a two-tier system of intra selections, some have a rigorous three-tier system and some law schools have only challenger rounds.
Special International
Out of the top 10 law schools only Nalsar, HNLU Raipur, ILS Pune and NLIU Bhopal had separate selections for national and international moots.
The other law schools had a multi-tiered selection process for national and international moots together.
Over the years increasing importance has been given to international moots which are usually based on the areas of international law, international commercial arbitration and mediation and international trade law.
Having a separate selection for international moots helps students prioritise their mooting interests, argue those colleges. Apart from the area of law on which the problem is based, international moots generally ensure quality judging standards that expect a completely different level of mastery over oratorial skills.
Emerging mooting law school RGNUL Patiala is planning to introduce separate rounds for its international moot selections this year.
Individual v challenger?
Most law schools either follow a multi-tiered system of intra selection mooting or a moot-specific challenger round.
Nalsar offers its students an interesting mix of both these patterns as their national moots selection is based on the two-tier individual rounds and their international moot selections are completely based on team-based challenger rounds.
NUJS Kolkata has a challenging intra mooting procedure with a three-tier system, the first being an intra batch round and the other two being individual rounds based on constitutional law and international law.
However, at NUJS there is also a challenger round only for the most important international law moot: the Jessup Moot Court Competition.
NLS Bangalore, which had a similar three tier system until now, has made sweeping changes this year by deciding to have just one single intra round for all moots except Jessup and Willem C Vis Moot, which will be based on challenger rounds.
While most law schools have their mooting selections once a year, NLU Jodhpur and GNLU Gandhinagar organise intra moots every semester.
ILS Pune, one of the country's longest-standing and most visible mooting colleges – 200 students participate in almost 70 moots per year, organises the prestigious Raghavendra Phatnis Moot at the beginning of each year which acts as their benchmark intra selection moot.
Unlike most law schools RGNUL Patiala have a completely team-based selection process for all moots. While HNLU organises challenger rounds for each moot that it represents, RGNUL has a team based intra selection round.
Apart from being a team based selection which fosters team compatibility, challenger rounds help to train students better as they would work on the actual moot problem for that particular year or previous problems of that moot during their intra selections. Most individual based rounds are judged by noted lawyers and various law school alumni. The added advantage with a challenger round is that you can have judges who have previously participated in that particular moot to judge your intra rounds. Five of the top ten law schools in last season's MPL had challenger rounds for at least one moot.
Allen & Overy was the sponsor of the MPL 2.
2010-11 Mooting season: Top 10 MPL college statistics
College | Total students | Students in intra-rounds | Students allotted moots | Allotted % of total students | Number of moots participated | Students allowed multiple moots? | Challenger rounds conducted? | Separate selections for int’l moots? | Separate researcher rank list? |
Nalsar | 400 | 80-100 | 50-55 | 13% | 25 | Yes | Yes, for all int'l moots | Yes | No |
NUJS | 450 | 200 | 45 | 11% | 20 | Yes | Yes, only for Jessup | No | Yes |
NLS | 400 | 60-65 | 50-55 | 13% | 25 | Yes | No. Proposed for Jessup and Vis from this year | No | No |
NLU Delhi | 150 | 80 | 60 | 40% | 30 | No. | Yes, only for Oxford Media moot. | No | Yes |
NLU Jodhpur | 450 | 250 | 80-90 | 19% | 25 | No | No | No | Yes |
HNLU | 450 | 60 | 40 | 9% | 17 | No | Yes, for all moots | Yes | No |
GNLU | 800 | 200-220 | 150-160 | 19% | 55 | No | Yes, only for Jessup | No | Yes |
ILS Pune | 2400 | 375-400 | 200 | 8% | 60-70 | No | No | Yes | Yes |
NLIU | 400-450 | 100 | 75-80 | 18% | 25 | Yes | Yes for all moots not picked by main mooting pool | Yes | Yes |
RGNUL | 500 | 200 | 100 | 20% | 30-35 | No | No | No, but planning to change this year | No |
Source: Legally India research, all data supplied directly by moot committees at each college.
MPL 3 season preview – please leave suggestions in comments or on the Wiki
Legallypedia’s tentative list of Mooting Premier League 2011-12 moot court competitions is proposed to be amended with the following. All suggestions welcome in the wiki’s discussion page or in the comments below for the next few weeks. But be warned: please speak now or forever hold your peace.
Suggestions for MPL 3, most probably starting at the end of this month with the Raj Anand Moot Court Competition in intellectual property (IP) organised by Anand & Anand after a two-year hiatus. The IP moot will take place on 27 August 2011 and will most probably be the first moot of MPL 3 and is proposed to enter the MPL at Tier 4.
IICLAM Moot, which was in Tier 4 last year but was excluded due to unfortunate timings, will be back in Tier 4 and take place on 2 September,
Team MPL is proposing to promote the Oxford Media Moot to Tier 2 and the Oxford India Moot to the Third Tier. Please see the websites of the Oxford Media Moot (World Rounds) and the Oxford Media India Moot for more details.
Oxford Media Moot World Rounds:
27 teams from across the world participated in the moot and the website gives details about the judges who are from across the world. After last year’s successful run the Moot deserves to be upgraded for its transparency and the quality of judging and can find good place amongst Tier 2 World Class moots along other moots such as the ICC Trial Moot, Manfred Lachs Asian rounds and the Stetson world rounds.
Oxford Media Moot India Rounds:
22 law schools participated in this competition. That is similar to any of the other Tier 3 moots like DM Harish, Jessup and Stetson Qualifiers. Again, when it comes to judging and transparency, the Oxford India moot will probably be rated higher than many other Tier 3 moots. Team MPL sees no reason why this moot should not be upgraded from Tier 4 to Tier 3.
Exclude Commonwealth Moot World Rounds and Commonwealth Moot India rounds from Tier 4 and 5 respectively as the moot is not happening this year. The Commonwealth Moot is organised only once in two years.
Question marks over the GH Raisoni Moot, which was a Tier 5 moot. Does it need to be included in Tier 5? Team MPL has received feedback that it is not very popular and there is little transparency on how it is conducted and winners are announced. Team MPL is therefore minded to exclude it from the MPL.
Team MPL is minded for the SP Sathe Moot to be excluded from the MPL this season, despite its reasonable popularity as a Tier 5 Moot. Last year there was no website and little transparency on the dates of the moot and the eventual results. The ILS Pune organisers were also actively opposed to the idea of reporting the moot’s results as part of the MPL that year or in future.
Update 17:51: The School of Law Christ University Moot Court Competition 2011 Bangalore has been proposed to be included as a Tier 5 moot. It is held from the 8 to the 11 September 2011 and winners receive Rs 20,000 as prize money.
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RMLNLU has around 200 students participating in their Grand Intras and also they have a separate pool for International and National Moots, please do a proper research before posting it here on LI.
Do you think it matters whether RMLNLU has rigorous intras or not??? nobody is interested in that and of course, readers are looking for what top colleges such as NALSAR, NUJS,NLSB, NLSD are doing... so, keep ur personal fetish for RMLNLU out of the forum....think twice before u post anything about RMLNLU,...
So after three year (i.e. during MPL 2) the student number at NLUD would be around 240.
@ 2 (Tizzy) - Yeah, as the title of the story suggests, we only limited our research survey to the law schools that finished in the top ten in last season's MPL. NUALS Kochi finished 11th and RMLNLU Lucknow finished 12th.
@ 5 (Siddhartha) - The figures in the table pertains to the last academic year (2010-11). Ms. Ruhi Paul from the NLU Delhi Moot Court Committee has clarified with us that the numerical strength of the University during the academic year 2010-11 was 150 students.
Thanks!
Cheers,
Prashanth
I presume you are spending enormous amounts of money to host MPL. I suggest that you charge participant fees from each college which wants to be featured. Might sound outrageous at first, but keeping long term perspective in mind, you need revenues to sustain an initiative like this.
You might consider adding Law Asia as a tier 4 moot. As 3-4 Indian Teams participate in it including NLS and NLUD. Also there is diverse participation from various countries and standard of problem and judging is pretty decent.
You might want to look at adding Leiden India Round as a tier 5 moot.
Also this year if one reads the problem it is also much better drafted which would increase the quaality even further.
The statistics were given to us by Ms. Arpita Sarkar, last year's Moot Court Committee Convener from NLU Jodhpur.
Cheers,
Prashanth
NALSAR all the way! Takes part in such few moots and still is on the top, with NUJS and NLS at its feet! Muhahahahaha! We are the mooting legends. Kian, how about an interview of some of the Rank 1 mooting college mooters, to enlighten the lower rank mooters?
If gultis can be biased in India moots, wouldn't karnataka and nls alumni (greater in number) be similarly biased in favor of NLS? I think NLS students, sympathisers and whiners should be blocked from this website. They spew poor arguments.
Take a good look. We're on top. You're not.
The number of moots here refers to the total number of moots participated by the University. They may not exclusively be MPL moots.
Cheers,
Prashanth
And not to be forgotten, it is organized not only by G.H. Raisoni law school, but ISIL also plays a role being an organizer.
It is easy to allege something, but difficult to prove.
I think, being a participant of Raisoni moot earlier, that it deserves to be there in MPL 3.
I would ask Legally India to consider their decision as in its a good moot.
The Raisoni Moot did receive participation but that by itself does not justify its precence in the MPL. Not having attended it, or having heard of last years rounds, I withhold my comments on the same!
The Christ Moot or the SLCU National Moot as they call it was superb last year! The infrastructure and judges and the problem lived up to high standards. The Union Law Minister, Veerappa Moily attended the finals, so did Oscar Fernandes. The final Bench consisted of Justice Shanti Bhushan amongst other Supreme Court Justices!
Top college participation in Moots-
NALSAR - 25 Moots
NUJS - 20 Moots
NLSIU - 25 Moots
NLUD - 30 Moots
More Moots, More points :P
Certain suggestions I'd like to put in, considering LI has asked for it.
1) Oxford being just 2 years old, pushing it up would be a hasty decision. Yes, it has the brand name and the quality to live up to it, but it is too early to consider such a move.
2) Raisoni I believe does not deserve a place on the MPL.
3) If the organizers of Sathe, wish to have it excluded then there is no scope for discussion. Then again, it in any case doesn't warrant an MPL Slot.
4) School of Law Christ University Moot saw some big names judging the rounds and preciding over the program. I think Moily was there and Shanti Bhusan judged the finale in front of a 2000 seater audi. Good stuff can be expected of them. Warrants Tier 5 Status according to me.
Also is this case with Air Law Moot. Both these moots deserve tier 4. AQuoting MPL 3 is back!!!:
Don't forget, ISIL is also one of the organizers.
As far as I'm concerned, being a participant earlier in that moot, I find no ground to exclude it. There are some other moots that are at lower pedestal than it which are a part of MPL and nobody is even questioning their presence.
If you did not hear about Raisoni results this time, its a fault on your part that you don't keep yourself updated. It was published in Legally India MPL2 with the results of HNLU winning jackpot in one moot.
I'd ask LegallyIndia team to take into account views of participants and being a NLU student,I advocate for its presence in MPL3.
Thanks for the suggestion. We have mooted this idea earlier. But the problem is that most of the moot organizers are not ready to reveal the total number of participating teams. It is very difficult for us to get detailed information on the Universities that participate in a moot.
Since some moots update their websites with the list of participating teams, we are planning to put the list on the Legallypedia wiki page of each moot. That will help to analyze the kind of participation a moot receives.
Thanks!
Cheers,
Prashanth
It deserves to be a part of MPL3. Many teams participated, and even from bigshot law schools participated, when I participated in the moot. ISIL, the one which organizes Henry Dunant also organizes it. Results are fair and individual marks are shown of speakers.
No doubt about it, that Raisoni should ba a part of MPL3 & the question on Raisoni should not have arisen.
With regards to the International this year it will be the 6th edition of the competiton and if we are talking about the years since the moot has started it is an older moot than ICC trial which has had 4 editions.
Well, claiming that Oxford India has the best judging in the country is a bold statement. NUJS Herbert Smith, DM Harish, KK Luthra, MM Singhvi, GLC's Palkhivala, etc. have excellent judging too. But not all of them have been elevated to Tier 3! It's a little unfair to several other established moots.
I think there's an unfair prejudice towards the moot only on account of the combined brand names of Oxford & NLU-D. Not denying that the moot is good, but it's a little too early to give it so much credit..
Really,I feel that Raisoni deserves to be there & this time good number of NLUs and other good law schools participated.
Judges in finals were senior advocates.
This years problem is of extremely high quality. Again it is based on Constitutional Law, inlight of the corruption that is prevalent currently in Karnataka and India and the difficulty level is extremely high.
If anyone from the OC of this moot is present here, could they cite the number of teams appearing for the 2nd edition of the moot?
The best would be to include both Raisoni and Christ moots.
Above consensus on the same establishes this for both moots!
"Well, claiming that Oxford India has the best judging in the country is a bold statement. NUJS Herbert Smith, DM Harish, KK Luthra, MM Singhvi, GLC's Palkhivala, etc. have excellent judging too. But not all of them have been elevated to Tier 3! It's a little unfair to several other established moots.
I think there's an unfair prejudice towards the moot only on account of the combined brand names of Oxford & NLU-D. Not denying that the moot is good, but it's a little too early to give it so much credit.."
I have no idea how is it a bold statement.
"NUJS Herbert Smith, DM Harish, KK Luthra, MM Singhvi, GLC's Palkhivala, etc. have great judging"
Yes Herbert Smith and DM Harish have good judging but still just see the profiles of the judges of Oxford India moot and you will see the difference. About KK Luthra the judging is decent like anyother moot not something exceptional and MM Singhvi well yes you have trial court judges and advocated judging the prelims and quarters so no comments.
If there is something good why cant we accept that. How is it a big deal if some moot is doing great in its second year. Ask anyone who partiticpated in it they can easily tell you the difference between Oxford and anyother moot in terms of transperancy judging organising.
I think a more accurate number would hover around 150ish, this would exclude those who withdraw at the last moment while not counting those who figure in the winter and the summer intra both.
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