Paalai, the dry land at noon
The Competition
How theCompetition runs
From memorials and a research assessment to the Finals in Chennai, with every scoring formula laid open.
Since 2006
Pro bono means for the public good. The name says whom environmental law is for.
The first Pro Bono Enviro was argued in 2006, when environmental law was still a small corner of the syllabus. Its questions now sit at the centre of public life: air, water, forests, coasts, the climate, and who must answer for the harm.
Benches are drawn from the higher judiciary, the senior Bar and the academy. Judges of the Supreme Court of India and of the High Court of Madras have presided over its rounds. This twentieth edition is the first argued without paper or plastic, and the first with five ever-rolling trophies.
What it asks of a team
Write
Memorials for both sides, marked by an academic and a practitioner who know you only by a Team Code.
Know
An hour of research and procedure, sat by your Researcher alone, online and proctored.
Speak
Oral rounds before Benches that have read the papers and will press every submission.
How it runs
Five stages
The field narrows at each stage, like a river at a weir. Scroll, and each stage lights as you pass it.
Fair by design
No luck, only rules
Every mark in this Competition is checked twice, evened out and read aloud. Pick a track and watch how it works.
A member of the Penalty Committee checks every memorial by Team Code, before any marking. Each proposed deduction reaches you with the Rule and the page, and you may object and be heard.
Rules 17 to 21An academic and a practitioner each mark out of 100 on seven criteria. Neither sees your name, your penalties or the other’s mark.
Rule 23Each mark is read against its own evaluator’s range. A tough marker cannot sink you and a kind one cannot lift you.
Rule 24If the two standardised marks still sit more than 30 apart, a third evaluator marks the memorial and the two closest marks are averaged.
Rule 24.7Memorials count for 60 and the Researcher’s Assessment for 40. The 24 highest Qualifier Scores go on to argue.
Rule 25
Before every round, judges and teams declare whether they know anyone in the room. Any connection, and the Bench changes.
Rule 50Every judge marks every Speaker out of 100, alone and in whole numbers.
Rule 32Up to the Semi-finals your Round Score is 80 for the adjusted oral score and 20 for the memorial of the side you argue. In the Finals, only the oral score counts.
Rule 34.1Each judge splits ten Ballot Points by the margin. Before the Finals they only break ties: every team is ranked against every other, across all courtrooms. In the Finals they decide.
Rules 34 and 36Scores are read out before you leave. Then each judge is compared with the other judges on the same Speakers, and that judge’s lean is taken out of every mark before anyone is ranked.
Rules 32 and 40
Now try it
Try the scoring
Four of those formulas, live. Move the sliders and watch the result change.
The Qualifier Score
Memorials carry 60 and the Assessment 40. The top 24 go on.
Graded relatively
A raw mark is placed by how far it sits from its own evaluator’s average.
Adjusted for the Bench
A judge who marks low or high is measured against the other judges on the same Speakers, and the lean is taken out.
Ballot Points
Each judge splits ten Ballot Points by the margin. Before the Finals they break ties; in the Finals they decide.
In every round before the Finals, a team’s Round Score is 80 for the adjusted oral score and 20 for the memorial of the side argued. Every team is ranked against every other across all courtrooms, so a strict courtroom costs nothing (Rules 34, 36 and 40).
The host
Where it is argued
The University
The Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University
Set up by the State under Act No. 43 of 1997 and named for the architect of the Constitution. The State’s law colleges, the Madras Law College of 1891 among them, came under it, and with them more than a century of legal education.
Its motto: the law is supreme.
The Institution
The School of Excellence in Law
The University’s own institution, opened in 2002 on the model of the national law schools and admitting on merit alone.
Since 2016 it has stood on the Perungudi Campus, beside the Pallikaranai marsh.
The Association
The Moot Court Association
The oldest moot court association in Tamil Nadu, run by students. It held the first Pro Bono Enviro in 2006 and has carried it to its twentieth edition.
Its former office bearers practise before the Supreme Court, at the Madras Bar and in California.
What is different