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:

• MPL 2 Homepage
• MPL 2 season standings
• Information on 53 moots
• MPL 2 calendar
• MPL 2 rulebook

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

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.