The race for participation in the most coveted moots is fierce and increasingly top industry players are using mooting competitions to select their future associates. With jobs at stake, students will aim to make their mark in the most visible competitions.
Topping the list for many mooters is the Philip C. Jessup International moot court competition, which is the world’s largest. And with National Law School of India University Bangalore (NLSIU) having won the competition in 1999, it has history for Indian students.
“Jessup is undoubtedly the first choice of the law students in our university,” says NLSIU Moot Court Society convenor Adarsh Saxena.
However, the selection process is challenging: after two qualifying rounds in India, only four Indian teams will qualify for the world rounds in Washington D.C., meeting teams that won qualification rounds in 45 other countries. Jessup’s moot problem is based on public international law, ensuring a level playing field.
Last year NLSIU fell short of repeating history after being the highest marked team to qualify to the world rounds but ultimately being knocked out in the quarter finals.
However, NLSIU made up for it domestically by claiming its second consecutive victory in the Bar Council of India Trust Moot Court Competition. This competition involves working on four problems within one month or less and it is considered as one of the most prestigious national competitions. National Law University Jodhpur emerged as the runners-up in that moot last year.
Internationally, a close second to Jessups is the Willem C. Vis Arbitration moot court competition in Vienna. Over 200 teams from almost 60 countries argue before a distinguished panel of arbitrators on an international sale of goods contract.
The Indian tricolor was hung high over Vienna last year when the team from ILS Law College Pune came runners-up in the best team orals category after defeating some of the most prestigious law schools world wide.
A team from National University of Juridicial Sciences (NUJS) Kolkata had also won that competition in 2003.
NUJS also has strong younger mooting talent, winning the NLSIU International Arbitration Competition last year. That event was sponsored by Clifford Chance and other international firms also exhibit a growing interest in mooting. Herbert Smith, for example, sponsors the NUJS Moot Court Competition.
| What moot? | When? | Application deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Philip C. Jessup, Washington D.C. | Jan - Feb 2010 (nat’l rounds) 21-27 Mar 2010 (int’l rounds) | 11 Sep 2009 (early registration) |
| Willem C. Vis, Vienna | 25 Mar - 1 Apr 2010 | 27 Nov 2009 |
| Stetson International Environmental, Florida | 6-8 Nov 2009 (S. India rounds) 13-15 Nov 2009 (N. India rounds) 11-14 Mar 2010 (world finals) | 21 Oct 2009 |
| ELSA WTO, Taiwan & Geneva | Details TBC from 1 September 2009 | |
| Manfred Lachs Space Law | 13 – 17 Apr 2010 (Asia Pacific regional rounds, Sydney) | 15 Jan 2010 |
| Henry Dunant Memorial, New Delhi | 10-13 Sep 2009 (India rounds) | |
| DM Harish Memorial GLC, Mumbai | TBC (rounds generally held in the second weekend of February) | |
| Bar Council of India Trust | TBC (generally held in December) | |
| M.M. Singhvi Memorial Bar Council of India, Jodhpur | Tentative Schedule: Jan 2010. | |
| GNLU International, Gandhinagar | 3 – 7 Feb 2010 | 15 Sep 2009 |
Another popular and demanding moot is the Manfred Lachs Space Law moot court competition. It involves a seeding round by the Indian Space Research Organization at NLSIU, with qualifying teams then competing in the Asia-Pacific rounds in Sydney, Australia.
The NLSIU team reaffirmed its dominance in international mooting by winning the Asia Pacific rounds in Sydney last season and they are now all set to argue before a bench comprising of judges from the International Court of Justice later this year.
Adding to India’s mooting glory was the team from Gujarat National Law University Gandhinagar, which was the semi-finalist in the same competition.
Stetson International moot court competition in Florida is another highly rated competition. “It involves a problem on international environmental law and conducts North and South Indian rounds from which Indian teams are decided for the world rounds in Florida,” explains Ish Puneet Singh from the Army Institute of Law (AIL) Mohali.
Puneet Singh’s team was the semi-finalist in the world rounds of this competition last season. When asked his opinion on the mooting achievements of non-national law schools, he is quick to dispel the hype surrounding the national law schools. “The huge potential of other colleges is visible from the records of the moot court achievements in the last few years,” he says.
Next to AIL Mohali, Government Law College (GLC) Mumbai was another semi-finalist in the Stetson world rounds. And with ILS the runners-up in Vienna’s competition, non-national law schools are making their presence felt in the Indian mooting circuit.
It also appears that India is becoming a mooting destination in its own right rather than just providing the talent pool to international competitions.
The D.M. Harish International moot court competition is organised annually by GLC Mumbai. Featuring a strategic moot in international law, it is now increasingly also being attended by some of the elite UK and US law schools. It is also understandably popular for its lavish offerings of Indian hospitality.
“The west is finally recognizing India as an important mooting destination,” says Ashish Chandra, who is convener of Gujarat National Law University’s (GNLU) moot court committee. “The GNLU International Moot Court Competition has now been recognized by the International Law Students Association (ILSA) - the same association which organises Jessups.”
GNLU’s team was also the runner-up in the world finals of the Henry Dunant moot competition, which is organised by International Committee of the Red Cross in Hong Kong.
And as if the Indian circuit is not yet competitive enough, non-lawyers make up some of the tough new entrants to watch out for with students from the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) gearing up to show lawyers a thing or two again.
ICSI student Amit Kumar says: “Nowadays, the moot court competitions involving corporate laws allow for ICSI participation. We have performed well and were also the runners up in the NLS Corporate Governance moot court competition in 2009.”
If previous years are anything to go by, this year’s mooting season promises to be just as exciting and unpredictable. And with the markets picking up there may even be a job in it for the top advocates.
Legally India will cover the victories, defeats and arguments in the upcoming mooting season. To share results from your law school, please send us an email at
Comments
[Ed: ILS came runners up in the best team orals category ( http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu/cisg/moot/awards16.html ). We have clarified this in the article]
http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu/cisg/moot/awards16.html
I feel legallindia has finally turned its eyes towards the specific interests of the law school students.
I hope to read more such pieces in future. good going!
World over, a lot of moot competitions are sponsored by big law firms (Shearman & Sterling, White & Case immediately come to mind). Maybe its time for Indian law firms to step in and sponsor some truly world-class competitions hosted in India.
Just to add to 7's comments, history has it that NLS won its first national level moot court competition in September 1988, i.e. within three months of coming into existence!
Before you finally start praising any law school, it is important to look at the last 5-7 years amongst all law schools and colleges to see how they have performed. While praising a N law school is okay, ignoring other who are equally good is a bias.
After NLS other law schools have only come into being from 1999 (the year at which NLS won Jessups), thus there is clearly a 11 year range here. Considering the short span of other law school lets see how they have to perform in the years to come. It is too early to start jumping up and down and getting all excited, but yes by all means a mooting table is a good idea to start with.
Also, mooting is usually a sensitive case amongst alumni and law students, so i suggest please double check all the information that you put in your article.
@ED: thanks for adding the clarification regarding the 'orals category'.
and just to clarify, even though i wished i was in one of the national law schools, I am not (including NLU) because i missed by 12th exams on account of family issues and the dates to give the exam passed!! just interacted with the NLU team there and they were brilliant and i followed there performance.
Ture, Jessup and Stetson and Vienna are much much much more reputable and established, you have to allow room for the fact that D.M. Harish is only its in 10th year and it already had 14 international teams this year! Cambride, Cornell, Washington State Univ along with all the National Law Schools (oh, am I grabbing the editor's attention now?) participate in it regularly with the finals being judged by 5 sitting judges of the Bombay High Court! Still, importance is given to the fact that GLC arranges excellent food and acommodation?!
Shame.
Other than that, very informative article. And yeah! Let the games begin!
Good to see interest in moots building up. And yeah.. the article could have done with a little less NLS focus (I have nothing against them, in fact I've always had good friends from NLS)!
GLC: am sure it's a good moot, but you see there's a perception amongst the mooting community of it being rigged! May not be true, but our friends at GLC should do something to correct this perception..
1. NALSAR - NFCG Moot Court Competition, 2009 : Won by Christ College of Law, Bangalore ( now School of Law, Christ University). Additionally, they also bagged the Best Speaker and Second Best Speaker awards.
2. NLS Arbitration, 2009 : Best Memorial and Second Best Speaker Award again went to Christ College of Law.
Judges don't even know who is from which college and the Moot Court Association works very hard to keep it that way.
So in response, to people thinking the moot is rigged..sour grapes anyone?
And to 21 (NUJS Grad) its nice to see you here. Don't remember your name quite well, but you mooted really well and if you saw the scoresheet, it came down to barely anything between us.. :-)
1. I dont think DM Harish is the best moot in India. You can never judge which moot would be the best! But when it comes to International Law and International Moot Court Competition in India, I think DM Harish is undoubtedly superior in terms of participation, the moot problem and the judging.
2. If the moot is in fact rigged, how do you account for the fact that GLC has won it just once in the past 10 years? That too before it went international! After going international..Cambridge, Washington State and NALSAR have won it! How is that rigged?
Pathetic.
Hats off dude!! u hav done a real good work. Anyone can understand the painstaking effort you must hav undertaken to compile all the information..
Keep it up
In 2006, for instance, there were over 500 teams from 89 countries that participated world over (i.e. if you include teams that participated in the national rounds - only about 100 of these 500 teams qualify for washington). So, in terms of the number of participating countries, the Jessup is second only to the Olympics!
[Ed - thanks for pointing out. Qualification rounds take place in around 45 countries - we have corrected this.]
mooting sucks
"To all ye mooting buffs (and NLS haters),
Just to add to 7's comments, history has it that NLS won its first national level moot court competition in September 1988, i.e. within three months of coming into existence!"
NLS haters? Did anyone mention them? While your comments are welcome, adopting such a defensive approach to what was a constructive discussion and bringing up 'NLS haters' taints the comments, as most people believe, with an NLS bias. That would explain your last comment about NLS winning a moot within 3 months.
That's good. But how many of the top ten law schools were there to compete against them?
NONE. Not a SINGLE law school except DU, ILS, GLC and Symbiosis were there. And they hardly participated in moots back then. So that was a bad example.
Let's focus on the discussion here shall we?
"Last year NLSIU fell short of repeating history after being the highest marked team to qualify to the world rounds but ultimately being knocked out in the quarter finals."
Well, in the year before that (2008) they (NLSIU) came even closer to 'repeating history' when they were knocked out in the semis!
1) We have a strict coding policy wherein all teams are given codes in advance nobody is aware of which teams are mooting, not even the judges, so as to maintain an equal ground for all teams.
2) Scoresheets are handed over to participants after each round so as to ensure complete transperancy and all score sheets are duly signed by judges in the court room when the results are declared so as to avoid any basis of impartiality.
3) Even though most people like to believe that the moot is rigged, GLC has not managed to win the moot since it went international, which is the past 6 years and a wide array of teams from across the world have been winning the moot since then.
4) If 5 sitting Judges of the Bombay High Court sign the scoresheets to final rounds in front of the participants, there can be no possibility of rigging.
Thus whomsoever has posted about the moot being rigged, i suggest that you come to GLC for the moot, get the DMH experience and then come back and let me know. you see its easy to comment when your knowledge is too narrow on a certain topic. Cheers!
1) I would not go to the extent of saying that the moot is rigged...... but i would definitely say that there were issues of fairness. The issue arose because the judges who were in the prelim rounds were mostly GLC alumnis and most of them knew the GLC team members. I'm not saying they were biased but the point is there were issues of fairness.
2) The other problem that i had and some law skulls had in tht edition was the quality of judging. Most of the judges called and i would like to take the liberty of including Hon'ble judges of Bombay High Court are not truly well versed with the intricacies of PIL and no matter how much help can be provided in the form of Bench memo etc, the quality of judging suffers. In my time, the in the finals the 5 judge didn't asked more than 2-3 question to both the teams and the team which eventually hadn't even covered the basic issue properly and most of the audience was shocked..... In the prelim rounds, some judges were ignorant of the most basic understanding of PIL like Article 38 (1) (a) of the ICJ statue.
So i think this is one aspect tht needs to be looked into......though i have heard tht the quality of judging has improved.......In regards to the hospitality its one of the best....