Mission and how we support moot courting
Nica.team standards for moot courts listing
Frequently Asked Questions
How to reference to Nica.team
Ranking and Methodology
Mission
Nica.team is a consortium of likeminded people united to promote moot courts around the world and to pay tribute to all those who participate, organize, judge or sponsor moot court contests by restoring and maintaining memory records about the events. Extensive data allows to compare law schools and reveal their ability to grow and support brilliant minds.
How does NICA.team support moot courting
- NICA.team promotes mootcourts as an intellectual sport worldwide motivating more and more law schools to join competitions.
- NICA.team makes it possible to compare law schools and enhance the competition between them. Are you looking for a law school to get education? Check our Ranking!
- NICA.team helps moot courters to get support from their universities as even a mere participation in a competition gives scores and raises the law school in ranking.
- NICA.team pays tribute to organizers, participants and sponsors allowing them to access historical records and get a direct link to individual, team and lawschool profiles.
- NICA.team helps students and teams to choose among contests and better prepare.
Moot Court Competitions
We invite contests’ administrators to join NICA.team to moderate their competitions within the project and to participate in NICA.team methodology development. It is free and exciting!
We also gather and accumulate data from open sources and use it to build open archives commemorating organizers, participants and sponsors.
We are happy to welcome all competitions, however, only those which match these criteria count for contributing to law schools NICA ranking:
- Organized regularly (as a rule at least two editions have been organized)
- Among other issues rely on oral skills of participants
- Sustainable in number of teams (as a rule have at least three participating
law schools) - Are team competitions, rather than individual
- Share principles of Nica.team (fairness, non-discrimination, transparency and non-MDH)
- Do not have disputable or negative reputation
Frequently Asked Questions
Some teams like this one and this one have cool pictures of team members, how could I amend my team’s profile as well?
Just log in and register your moot court experience in your profile. Then the miracle happens automatically.
What is the difference between national and international rankings?
There are two rankings. They have much in common, but they are calculated differently. International ranking reflects participation of a law school in international (world and regional) competitions. National ranking adds to them national competitions as well.
My team became a winner of a prestigious national competition X. Why we are not number one in the National Ranking for my country?
First, congratulation! Second, check the date of the last update of the ranking (if your competition is a very recent one). Third, check whether your national competition is in the list. If affirmative, then lets have a look into Nica.team methodology (also see below): the number of achieved points to great extend depends on what teams you overcame. The higher rank opponents bring more points. Plus, National ranking gets points from International competitions as well. So, check pages of other universities to understand better what influenced their ranking in your concrete case.
My law school traditionally participates in only one competition and we are the champions. I’m disappointed that this is not enough to be the number one in my country.
Well, to be the number one means to demonstrate that your teams are better than others. In real life this means that your law school invests more in practical oriented education and moot court community. And this is exactly what Nica.team welcomes. It is fair that participating in more competitions theoretically gives more points (however, the results are also very important). This is also true as there are many different fields of law. Being a champion in one doesn’t mean being number one in others. This is a matter of strategy as well. Compete. Overcome stronger teams. And get number one!
What are the numbers on the home page with minus/plus signs?
They reflect the changes in the teams’ place since the last update.
How often does the ranking update?
The current year ranking updates at least monthly. The date of an update is indicated on the home page under the ranking table.
In January (in 2023 – in March) the ranking of the previous year updates the very last time and is not changeable anymore.
In April 2022 it was decided to update all the previous years with new information as well. This is special to 2022.
We participated in the competition X, however, I don’t see it in the list (alternatively: I believe data is not correct).
We are more than happy add new competitions to the ranking! However, they should met some conditions (see above). Contact us if you think any data is not ideal or you would like to contribute. Practice shows that some competitions are not transparent – no one knows exactly which teams reached which round. The results are not published. We do not add such competitions.
We administer the competition YYY. How can we become Nica.team member?
Please contact us to get more information and to become a part of Nica.team.
How does ranking is being calculated? What are the pts?
The points are awarded to law schools depending on the number of teams participated in the competition, their level and the round the team advanced to. The full methodology can be found below.
Whether individual achievements (like “the best speaker”) influence ranking of my law school?
No by default. However, the competition can decide the other way and make the needed changes. If such decision is taken – it is reflected on the competition’s page.
Your personal achievement at the same time can be reflected on the page of your team and in your personal profile in case you have registered and updated it. Contact us for any issues if needed.
What do the rounds (1,2,3, etc) mean?
Each competition has its own structure. The rounds can be named by organizers in a different way e.g. quoter-final, preliminary round, round x, etc. To unify the different approaches Nica.team references to rounds by chronological order starting from the earliest to the last one (usually finals). If relevant, Nica.team can use term “Final round” or “Finals” for the very last round as well.
What are the achievements?
Performance of law schools allows Nica.team to differentiate them and award “achievements” or “badges”. The achievements of a finalized year are not changeable. The achievements for the current year are changing following the ranking (that is why they have “anticipated” red mark).
Why Nica.team takes into account achievements within one year horizon only?
Indeed, data Nica.team accumulates makes it possible to build many types of rankings/comparisons. The Advisory Board, after many discussions, made the decision to calculate Nica.team ranking within one calendar year horizon. It has been decided to analyze this issue and discuss again in 2023. Do you have an idea or do you want to joint the Advisory boards decision making process? Please contact us.
Do I need to be registered in Nica.team project?
Registration allows you to indicate your personal input to your School of Law performance and makes your input visible. You can also reference to your personal profile page in your CV. We proof check all the records to remain them credible.
After the registration you also get an opportunity to subscribe to the news and updates.
Who make decisions upon the Nica.team ranking?
The Nica.team Advisory Board discuss practical issues regularly. If you love moot-courts the same way we do – please contact us to join!
How to support Nica.team?
Nica.team is the project organized by volunteers. If you would like to join our team – please contact us. We have a million of fresh ideas and looking for financial support as well. If you have an opportunity to help contact us!
My university has two law schools. How do they appear in Nica.team ranking?
As two different law schools.
I see some education establishments that are not universities (alternatively: not real law schools, are undergraduates, etc).
We do not judge. Why? Because each country has its own standard on who is who. We believe in moot courts and if an institution has a team that is eligible to compete with other law schools – we a happy to add such school to the ranking.
Publications and References
We welcome publications that reference to Nica.team!
You can freely quote Nica.team! We kindly ask you to make proper references to Nica.team (preferably with a hyperlink) in each case of making a quotation.
Publication of badges and other achievements
Moot courts bring joy and well deserved pride to participants, teams and their respective law schools. Feel free to publish your achievements (e.g. badges) on your web-sites, in social media or use in any other publications. However, there are some rules that we all need to follow in order not to mislead other users.
1. We ask you to make your publications clickable with a hyperlink to a relevant page on Nica.team (e.g. the page of the relevant law school).
2. It is also your responsibility not to mislead other users or readers and publish the information (e.g. badges) the way that excludes any misunderstanding of which university has a proper achievement.
3. Design and proportions of badges cannot be changed, however, it is allowed to proportionally enlarge or reduce them in size.
4. Badges of the current year reflect the current situation (that changes regularly) and that is why they additionally should be accompanied by the word “anticipated” and indication of the date when they were taken from Nica.team website.
The easiest way to publish your laws school’s badges is to download them (right-click and then save the picture). Don’t forget to make a hyperlink to the relevant page on Nica.team.
If you need to read the same in more precise legal terms please reference to our terms and conditions.
Ranking and Methodology
1) The law school’s place in the ranking is defined by 2 criteria:
- the weight of the contests they participated in during the year
- how far did they go in these competitions.
2) The weight of the competition is defined by the law schools participating in it.
