Research
Research starter
How to take a moot proposition apart, and where to actually look once you have. Written for a first moot, useful for a fifth.
The method
Seven steps, in order. The order matters more than any single step — most research goes wrong because it started in the wrong place, not because the researcher was careless.
Step 01
Read the proposition three times
Once for the story, once for the dates, once for the prayer. Most first-time mooters start researching after the first read and end up with authorities for an issue nobody asked about. The prayer tells you what the court is being asked to do — everything you research has to serve it.
Step 02
Work backwards from the prayer to the issues
Each head of prayer needs a legal proposition to support it, and each proposition is an issue. If you cannot state an issue as a question a judge could answer yes or no to, it is not framed tightly enough yet.
Step 03
Find the governing law before you find cases
Statute first, then rules and regulations, then case law. Students routinely jump straight to judgments and end up citing a case interpreting a provision that was amended in 2019. Pull the bare Act from India Code, check the amendment history, and only then look for how courts have read it.
Step 04
Build the authority list in three passes
Landmark judgments that set the test. Recent judgments showing how the test is applied now. Then the authorities against you. Skipping the third pass is the single most common reason teams get taken apart in the Quarter-Finals.
Step 05
Read the contrary authority properly
Do not just note that it exists. Work out whether you distinguish it on facts, argue it was decided per incuriam, or concede the point and win elsewhere. A team that has genuinely read the other side answers questions instead of deflecting them, and judges can tell within about thirty seconds.
Step 06
Compile as you go, not at the end
Keep the full citation and pinpoint paragraph number the moment you use a source. Reconstructing citations the night before submission is where teams lose marks they already earned, and it is entirely avoidable.
Step 07
Check the rulebook before you format anything
Word limits, citation style, font, margins and whether footnotes count towards the limit all vary by competition, and the rulebook always specifies. Formatting penalties are the cheapest marks in mooting to lose.
Where to actually look
You can research a full moot on the free sources alone. The subscriptions are a convenience and a citation format, not a requirement.
Free, and where to start
Enough to research an entire moot without paying anything.
- Indian Kanoon
- Full-text search across Supreme Court, High Court and tribunal judgments. The fastest free starting point for Indian case law.
- India Code
- The official repository of central and state legislation. Go here for bare Acts and amendment history rather than a PDF someone shared.
- Digital Supreme Court Reports (eSCR)
- The Supreme Court's own free, citable reports. Use this when you need an official SCR citation.
- PRS Legislative Research
- Bills, legislative briefs and committee reports. The best free source for legislative intent, which most teams never cite and judges notice.
- Google Scholar
- Academic commentary and cross-jurisdictional case law. Useful for finding the article that frames your issue before you write it yourself.
- SSRN
- Working papers, often by the academics judging you. Free to download.
Your college probably subscribes
Ask your librarian for credentials before paying for anything — most Indian law schools hold at least one of these.
- SCC Online
- The standard for Indian case law and the citation format most Indian moots expect.
- Manupatra
- Indian case law, statutes and commentary. Strong on tribunal and regulatory material that Indian Kanoon covers thinly.
- HeinOnline
- Historical journals and archival material. Where to go for legal history and international law scholarship.
- Westlaw and LexisNexis
- Foreign case law and secondary sources. Worth the trip to the library terminal for comparative arguments.
Citation guides
Confirm the style AND the edition from your competition's rulebook before writing a single footnote.
- OSCOLA 4th edition — Quick Reference Guide
- Two pages covering every common source type, published free by the Oxford Faculty of Law. The fastest answer to "how do I cite this" if your moot runs on OSCOLA.
- The Bluebook — official site
- Most Indian moots specify Bluebook, and the 20th and 21st editions differ. Check which edition your rulebook names before you start.
International and specialist
For Jessup, Vis, Price Media and the rest of the international circuit.
- United Nations Treaty Collection
- Authoritative treaty text, status, parties and reservations. Cite from here, never from a secondary summary.
- International Court of Justice
- Judgments, advisory opinions and pleadings. The pleadings are an underused model for how to structure an argument.
- UNCITRAL
- Model laws, the CISG and arbitration materials — the backbone of the Vis moot.
- WTO Documents Online
- Panel and Appellate Body reports for trade law problems.
Citation
Indian moots most often ask for Bluebook or OSCOLA, and a handful use the SCC Online format. None of that is a guess you should make — the rulebook states it, and the edition matters. Confirm the style and the edition before you write a single footnote, because converting a finished memorial between citation styles is miserable work you can avoid entirely.
Record the pinpoint paragraph, not just the case. A judge asking “where in the judgment?” is asking whether you read it.
Both styles are set out source by source, with Indian examples, on the Citation guide.