1. You need to bill double than what your team is paid.

2. No such thing as connections in partnership. Only pure merit.

3. Mid levels move out because they cannot handle the work pressure not because they are denied partnership. If you have been excellent at servicing clients, then you are guaranteed a seat at the table. In house is utterly useless and I would suggest not even going down this path, unless you want to sink your own career.

4. There are broadly equity and salaried partner models. If you're equity, you get a share in the business.

I am surprised your partner hasn’t spoken to you about this.

Depending upon the firm, salaried partners (10-12 PQE) may or may not be required to bring in work. It depends on whether their equity partner is a big or mid rainmaker. If it is the latter, then minimum expectations are you bring in revenue that covers your own small team’s cost (inclusive of bonuses) along with a 30% overheads cost. Ideally in a team sizing of a salaried partner and a couple of SAs and As, this would mean 3 cr to 5 cr.

Bringing in the work is both a mix of your abilities as a good lawyer and your social skills. You do not need to be a second generation lawyer (although it helps). Connections are built through friends, college mates who went in house, through introductions by existing clients to their other GC friends and of course through regular business development.

In order to reach this, by the time you are 8 PQE make sure you have at least one if not two dependable juniors who will help you execute the work such that you can take out 2 hours in a week to develop your market skills and connections. These are the juniors who you too will lead in the future when you become EP and to whom you will hand over part or your entire book as you grow.

It is not easy but it is also not as difficult as it may seem. You have to balance your work execution, client persuasion and team management along with whatever semblance you have of a family life. The real difficulty is scaling up to the next level, i.e. a 10 cr book.

For non-M&A teams, you have to figure out the right mix of taking up a couple of large mandates and smaller but voluminous matters to reach your targets. Start this exercise at 7 PQE and work towards it religiously. You will be able to achieve it.

If you have other questions, please feel free to ask. Its important that this conversation needs to be had in an otherwise self oriented profession where personal ambition/greed trumps healthy team and succession planning.

- Not that Old First Gen EP

I would say the entire foundation of the CCI is faulty. MCA works to facilitate corporate ease of doing business and handles broad corporate policy. MCA also controls the budget, has a role in CCI appointments and a general supervisory role. The CCI acts as a prosecutor and judge against corporate misconduct. This is a setup for failure. Too many pressure points above the CCI.

'Leadership' is more about management than law. In 'legal leadership', the emphasis is on the latter word and not the former. It doesn't take too many brain cells to understand why IIMA was picked over an NLU. This really has nothing to do with NLUs not being national institutions. Also, given up on openly advertising NFSU?

Good for you but we don't have that opportunity of interning while also attending college because tier 2 peeps live in Orissa, punjab, Bihar, UP, tamil nadu, you on the other hand live in mumbai, you can go do your long term internship come back home to a hot meal, you expect us to do 1 year long internships? This js just privilege speaking

These long term internships allow firms to reinforce the elite hierarchy only people that are wealthy enough to have a home in mumbai can bear the costs of unpaid/low compensating firm, this indirectly bars out other hardworking individuals that can afford to do only 2 months internship at max due to cost issues and attendance policy issues, please throw the paralegals out of the system or make a even playing field

Second year law student at a tier 69 uni. started with litigation internships from my first year but eventually realised i can't sustain it without a godfather in this profession. tryna pivot towards corporate and recently interned at the NCLAT tribunal and found IBC kinda interesting. What should I read to build a base in corporate law and IBC, which internships should I target going forward, so i can at least land a tier 2-3 firm by the end of my degree??

Us folks at NLS who know the faculty are already celebrating this proud achievement!! The faculty are an accomplished scholar on legal philosophy who teach third and fourth year undergrads. They are going to be supervised under Prof. Toh from UCL on an advanced topic in legal philosophy, having also secured admissions at Oxford and other prestigious places. Our pasts colleagues have also pursued their doctoral degrees with full funding at Oxford, Yale, NYU, Melbourne, UNSW, NUS and Vienna. NLS students are truly lucky to have the best of Indian legal academia.

T2 NLU-BO'27. I want to pivot to pure nclt practice post graduation. have done T1 internships in this area aswell but hiring prospects look slim. what counsels can i join who will pay decently & have good practice. any other options? Im ok doing a bit of sebi/sat work aswell. dont want to do pure litigation at other courts

“For thirteen years, I’ve been described and reduced to binaries too. Victim. Liar. Journalist. Activist. Liberal. Promiscuous. Survivor. Reliable. Strong. Broken. Political plant. Bubblegum feminist.”

https://nishswish.substack.com/p/shadow-twin

Hopeless grad from 27, who tried all my best to get into S&R and had everything which a T1 firm needs (top 10 batch rank, Tier 1 internships, moots, publications, etc). STILL FAILED TO CRACK S&R.........

Is it because of their selective hiring of creams of NLUs and the highest pay among all T1 OR is it because they dont participate in DAY 0 and are highly selective in terms of giving out PPOs?

I am being offered an assessment opportunity in a small litigation firm with stipend upto 15k during assessment which will be increased to 25k if placed after assessment and there will be additional 7k addition if i get my Bar registration. i am confused if this is an opportunity i should settle for. there is also a possibility that i will get placed but the stipend after placement is so low that I am not able to decide. Also since i am not from a mid private law school i feel like there are anyway less opportunities and as a beggar cant be a chooser i should take it. any suggestions?

I know this is such a repetitive topic, but this is such a discouraging profession. After being in profession for a few years, I don’t think men form these court corridor alliances to intentionally leave women out of work building circles, but the things as they are do not help and only makes it discouraging. I saw few talented women leave practice in last 2 years. I could not ask them their reason. But I wonder if law firms are only real way for women ( please read 1st gen, though even 2nd 3rd gen women aren’t going anywhere with all the family ties except judgeship in rare cases) to reach some height in litigation. Also , litigation sphere is highly unsafe for women, specifically chamber set ups. It puts women who do not come from connections at a greater risk. You may vary with opinion , but these experiences make it very very hard to focus on work and grow without mental shackles. It’s a rant, don’t go attacking or telling me how things have improved for women. You may put stories of inspiration of 1st gen women litigator which can help think straight. Need mental strength.

There is only 1 PE/VC team in Argus Delhi. Nothing to comment on the associates because the team entirely changes every year but the partner is extremely bad. Incompetent and inhumane. On multiple instances, people in the team have had panic attacks inside office premises because of her and it is extremely scary to see that.