A team from NLSIU Bangalore has made it to finals of the most prestigious moot in the world, the Jessup, where it eventually lost to the University of Queensland, Australia.

The dream run of NLSIU’s Nikita Garg, Bhavesh Seth, Saarthak Jain and Isha Jain ended early this morning Indian time, after finals began at 11:30pm last night.

And NLS’ Isha Jain won best oralist in the final too, according to a Legally India commenter.

Update 18:38: Jain told us: “Everything about the international rounds is intimidating.

“We competed against outstanding orators, were judged by some of the most accomplished experts in the field, and finally got to argue before judges of the International Court of Justice with hundreds in audience.

“The experience was overwhelming, and has certainly honed our lawyering skills in a way that nothing else in law school does.”

According to NLSIU’s official student-run Facebook page:

India reached the finals of the mooting world cup, the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, 2018. Isha Jain received the best oralist award. Over 500 teams across various countries participated in the world rounds held at Washington DC. The more that is said about this achievement is less.

Indian teams have always done exceptionally well not just at this particular competition, regularly breaking in the top 32, but generally at all moots at the world stage, winning several of them between them, every year, year after year. None of these Indian universities feature even in the top 100 law schools across the world. But to hell with these rankings, they aren’t designed to take into account small ecosystems with annual intake of only about 100-150 bright individuals, juggling with minimal resources.

We all got 99 problems but churning out extremely talented individuals doing remarkable work ain’t one of them. This win does not just belong to NLSIU, but it belongs to every Indian law student. This one’s for all of us!

Here’s a short celebratory video of students rejoicing the victory together at 2 AM, watching, cheering and taking pride at this stupendous performance.

See our live blog for more updates and details from the competition, which saw four Indian teams in the advanced rounds of the last 32: GNLU Gandhinagar, NUJS Kolkata, NLIU Bhopal and NLS.