"by LegallyIndia

1 hour ago

Hello, we've added the option to choose a preferred colour scheme with the 'Theme' link in the bottom menu, and added a more muted / professional / perhaps sophisticated ;) option, which is not quite as bright as the default amber. Does that one look better?

If there's interest, we'll look into adding a dark mode too - please leave a comment below and upvote on it, if yes."

I thought that this might go unnoticed for a few users, just letting you guys know that you can (must) change the theme by following the aforementioned instructions.

And yeah, blue is way better. What lead you guys to make yellow the default one, lol.

We need to see the value in all people and strive to maximize their potential instead of lowering standards to check a bureaucratic box. Clearly inequity exists. We must individually hold ourselves accountable and do our part to bring others up to their potential. When we lower the bar in k-12 education, we set individuals up for failure in higher education and create an emotionally unhealthy environment where clearly only the strongest survive and everyone else has no value to society. Unprepared students are shocked by academic demands and later, shocked by their employment demands. This is creating an elitist divide globally, which never ends well. Education needs a new foundation. The current K-12 system in the USA is not working and would benefit by incorporating some of Denmark’s model. It is not a race issue, it’s an economic issue. Schools in poorer communities don’t have the resources, funds or volunteers, from families and businesses that schools in wealthier communities have access to. Individuals need to make the choice to personally invest, resources of time and money, into those communities. Otherwise we send and reinforce a message that those individuals within those communities are lessor than others, which is simply not true. It would be nice if every time someone contributed to their own child’s school they also contributed to a school in a poorer community at the same time?

I would like to add one qualification to this comment. It is true that these NLUs and several others may have a more demanding curriculum and pedagogy, but if someone has made the choice that UPSC is going to be their foremost goal, then they can afford to let some of the usual academic expectations take a backseat, maintain a middling CGPA with less effort and focus on the UPSC preparations instead. I have seen students doing it. The advantage of studying at these places will be that one can always have fallback options like private sector jobs even with lesser academic credentials in case UPSC does not work out, given the reputation and alumni base of these places.

Dearest LI Commentariat,

We are very happy to be finally rolling out the first public beta of the new commenting engine to replace the previous system that was creaking at the seams and had become unmaintainable, as many of you may have noticed.

The new platform was built from scratch for LI's lovely readers and is starting out on the principle of keeping things the same, as much as possible, particularly in terms of functionality and features. But it is hopefully also more pleasant, delightful and robust to use, and we would definitely love your feedback and ideas about what we should implement next.

A few new features:

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👑 The most active and helpful members of the community will get their standard accounts upgraded, first to where their comments can bypass future moderation and go live immediately, and then to where they can feature comments (or declare comments as trollish or contested), and eventually to where they can also moderate comments directly if they feel like it. We are open to ideas for how this can work to make LI a pleasant and helpful space for all.

🔎 LI finally has a native search of comments, so the treasure trove of the archives that are full of useful (and sometimes not so useful) information, are already a little more accessible and we hope to tweak the search engine and presentation further to bring more relevant and useful results.

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🎹 The User interface is chock-full of keyboard shortcuts, and a few gestures on touch devices - click the Help menu item in the bottom bar to find out more.

In the meantime, please let us know any ideas or suggestions or things that are broken or rubbish. We'll leave a few suggestions that have already come from the community in comments below - please vote on them to nudge us in the right direction.

Lots of Love,

LI & Cetera

1. Learn automatic numbering
2. Follow the firm's preferred font, font size, alignment etc if they have otherwise times new roman 11 and text justified should be okay
3. dress formal, only black white works if you are tight on budget, but pls dont introduce pastel shades of yellows, purples every other day if the shirts are cheap. nobody cares if the shirts are white and mute but if the shirt and cheap and loud it turns me off
4. if you are submitting any legal research, cite the law using footnote - by law i mean law not any secondary source like HT, IpLEADERS ETC.

Sorry for my typing im dyslexic guys it's hard for me t o type normally

Might seem like coming from the horse’s mouth, but the TMT team is an absolute beast. All the bosses are super cool, nice and thoughtful. There are no under handed insults thrown at the associates. They’re given multiple chances & opportunities to rectify their mistakes, justified, of course. The whole team works like a ‘Team’ and helps each other out. To answer your question, Mr. Abhinav Chandan is an amazing boss who’s always willing to help out and direct the associates whenever required, even if the work is not from his domain. The work culture at KCO is also very professional and strives towards building up the person as a whole and as a professional for which the partners train the juniors themselves and KCO keeps organising grooming and training sessions.

PS: About the dress code, there’s no shooting of ‘Suits’ happening in KCO, therefore, we all dress like we’re supposed to in a law firm, i.e., Western Formal.

Hope this helps :)

I agree that it is unfair on their own homegrown talent. Disagree on the Dewey comparison.

But if a justification is what you are looking for, it is that partners who are poached laterally will usually come in with their independent books while internally promoted partners don't and will need their sponsoring senior partners to feed them work for at least a couple of years while they build their books. Poaching hi-flying laterals simply makes for better business sense.

So, firstly none of those gurus called themselves as 'Godmen'. It's the media.

Secondly, please don't club Osho along with the other two cartoons. It shows your immaturity if you are not able to appreciate the difference between Osho from others. Osho himself says that he is against all forms of indoctrinations including the one being peddled by Tate. Osho's philosophy is to subvert all forms of conditioning that the society and civilization has constructed for humans.

Right now considering the downfall and extremely risky and shady market, it is best to go with the traditional btc/ eth etc, you could expect a rise in another decade, but only more downfall for another few years, but I think better prospects that tech stocks.

taxes? crypto is taxed under capital gains so Idts much
NFTs no-no, complete sham bubble that burst before it even rose

Of course, none of the information provided here is to be relied on as expert financial advice. Any losses therefore accrued based on this information is only at your own discretion and doesn't make the website or the commenter liable.

Not sure where you're reading that in our website? Our website basically states that internships are the ONLY channel through which we recruit fresh grads. That's a VERY different thing from saying we hire fresh grads ONLY AS interns.

Also, this point is again quite clearly made even in my original post above - "We hire fresh grads ONLY through our internship programme" . The compensation bands too are very clearly explained in my post, but for the sake of abundant clarity, "Associate Entry Level Pay" means "A0 Pay" and it is paid to fresh grads that we recruit.

I hope this clarification frees your mind from torturous thoughts of impending penury :-) All the best!

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/india-australia-free-trade-agreement-passed-says-piyush-goyal/articleshow/95685031.cms

Text: https://commerce.gov.in/international-trade/trade-agreements/ind-aus-ecta/

Annex 8C: Professional Services
https://commerce.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/08C-Annex-8C-Professional-Services.pdf

"regulated or licensed occupations means occupations for which there are designated authorities, including regulators, that may determine eligibility to practise, and may cover occupations requiring specific vocational skill sets or expertise under various industry or business sectors or state and territory regulatory regimes."

"Each Party shall encourage the mutual recognition of the relevant qualifications, licensing or certification requirements, including in regulated or licensed occupations under various industry and business sectors."

"Each Party shall engage with its relevant bodies and encourage them to establish dialogues with the relevant bodies of the other Party with a view to negotiating and concluding within 12 months of the date of entry into force of this Agreement mutual recognition or similar arrangements providing for the recognition of the qualifications, licensing, and registration procedures across professional services and services in regulated or licensed occupations of mutual interest. The Parties shall promptly exchange the relevant contact points to facilitate such dialogues."

Regarding your point about matrimonial websites, yes it certainly makes all those people communal. That's the very definition. Communalism is not restricted within one religion or faith.
With regard to Trivedi's decision, the problem is that the EWS also leaves out poor reserved category students! Based on your own argument, if the reserved seats get taken by the rich SC/ST/OBC students (which actually does not always happen in reality as per any scientific study actually conducted), and the poor Savarna people take up the EWS seats, then what happens to the poor Dalits? If it is only based on economic criterion, then it makes no sense to exclude anyone who qualifies on the basis of that criterion. Or else don't call it EWS, but poor Savarna reservation.

1st para: because reservation is not a poverty alleviation scheme? And no, if children of communities are actually lacking in representation, they can be classified under SC/ST/OBC too and get the affirmative action rights. The criteria for reservation is far more holistic than under the EWS criteria, which is patently unjust. Or as the minority judgement said, it threatens to tear apart the social fabric of equality.

2nd para: 'trans-formative constitutionalism' is a tool for constitutional interpretation. According to it, you do not take the most base view prevalent in the society and act according to it. You take into consideration the the constitutional ideals. Matrimonial advertisements should not carry casteist or communal preferences upfront. These advertisements are for the public and reasonable restriction are important.

3rd para: assuming he does not support any idea that only a priest born into a certain caste can perform holy functions, it was a public event and she should have stopped it. The public space are not reserved for casteism.

And I am assuming that you agree that she is incorrect on "facts" about Dr Ambedkar's statement and her proposition that reservations should end (you want them for all communities, right?) is baseless.

"Please guide me on which of the above 2 colleges should I put above in the preference list." My brother in christ what preference list? the list is filled post result declaration. Not to demotivate or disparage you but pls don't count your chickens before they've hatch.
Assuming you are not a troll trying to flog the GNLU v NLUJ dead horse, here's arguably the most sensible course of action:
Firstly, score well.
Then, once you have the pre-requisite score, start worrying. Connect with seniors from the both the Unis on LinkedIn and explain to them your predicament. Try connecting with kids senior to your immediate senior batch. You'll get more comprehensive and complete replies. Do not worry, people do reply.

Educated people should stop using the word 'meritocracy' by now. So long as you are not made to give up your parental wealth and generational privilege and given the exactly same training, education, upbringing and opportunities from your childhood as every other child gets regardless of their background, what you display and consider as 'merit' is not inherent in you, but the fruit of privilege.

As someone who started my career in Capital Markets at a Tier 1 firm, I can tell you this. It has its own advantages - the law is largely precise and interpretation is clear. It teaches you great attention to detail and work ethic, and you do get an opportunity to interact with senior management in companies.

After a few years, I made the switch out of Capital Markets for a few key reasons - since the practice area is market dependent, the work-life balance is HIGHLY dependent on the market and more "out of your control" than I experience now I've completed a few years in M&A at another Tier 1 firm. The biggest key reason I left was growth and opportunities - the practice area has a huge focus on SEBI ICDR. While I learnt a lot on these regulations and knew them like the back of my hand, my legal knowledge and experience was too niche, too focused with barely any understanding of (nor opportunities to work on and learn) any other important aspects of law. Since switching to M&A, my understanding of contract law, companies act and rules, foreign exchange regulations and others has drastically increased and I feel far more equipped to tackle a variety of queries and legal challenges than before. M&A also offers a lot of exposure in structuring of transactions, something that is entirely missing from Cap Marks. Cap Marks is predominantly disclosure-based, and the approach for everything is "How do I disclose this to SEBI? or How do I handle this so it can be disclosed to SEBI?".

What the above means for opportunities is that while Cap marks is niche and there may always be a demand for trained Cap Marks lawyers, one would be boxing oneself into this field and the job opportunities available later would be restricted to Cap Marks at the various law firms or investment banks who do ECM work. With M&A, a world of opportunities open up, given that the experience and exposure gained is just that diverse.

It really doesn't matter. Both the colleges are at par and both the colleges have very ordinary teaching faculties.
I personally would have chosen NLUJ, the sole reason is because it has a smaller batch compared to GNLU but if I wanted a more stress free environment then I would have gone for GNLU. Also, if finance is an issue then GNLU is cheaper. In terms of placements both the colleges are at par but NLUJ is still slightly doing better especially when we talk about recruitment in foreign firms. If you want to go for litigation though, GNLU provides a stipend of some sort so you can consider that too.

I have tried to be objective with my answer but I personally feel you can't really go wrong because both the colleges will give you ample of opportunities.

I don't know if this is the right forum for this, but inspired by this thread decided to post anyway. I am an asexual man in my 30s at a tier 1. I am not very open about it, neither do I intend to. I am tired of answering questions about my lack of relationship and non marriage. Is there any support group for asexual people in India that anyone may be aware of?

And to whoever started this group and to everyone sharing, all the power to you!

its based on lottery, there will be 3000 places and I bet there will be 3 lakhs applicants (as the initial ballot is free to enter)

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-youth-mobility-scheme-eligible-nationals

This is a very good question actually and I am happy to answer this. So you won't be able to get the same rights married people do. But that does not mean you don't have options. Here are the instruments you need to execute to practically have similar rights.

1. Mutual Medical Powers of Attorney: This is so the other can take decisions on your behalf. If there are mental health issues at play, consider advance directives under the Mental health act.

2. Wills: Execute wills for the benefit of the other. This will help with succession planning.

3. Guardianship Papers: While only one of you can adopt, you can in your will name the other as the guardian and also execute papers naming the other as a guardian to act in your absence. This gives you a semblance of co-parenting rights.

4. Joint Bank Accounts: You can open a joint bank account. Make the other the nominee on all bank accounts including demat accounts etc.

5. Names: You can by paper publication choose to take what name you like. Nothing stops you from taking the name of the other.

6. Health Insurance: This is where it gets complicated. You won't find a policy that works. So take two policies and if there is a kid cover the child under the policy of the birth mother/father/adoptive parent.

We are crazy if we think foreign law firm entry is more important than strengthening IP laws for Western governments. Let's get out of our silos!! India may not produce much IP and we may have neglected the IP law course in law school in favour of corp law courses, but the world's major companies thrive on IP. Sunak will happily put law firm entry on the backburner if India can first guarantee stronger IP protections for British companies like Unilever, AstraZeneca, GSK etc, or even for British books and movies. See SpicyIP's recent article on this, re British pharma patents. And remember to thank Papa Cyril if you suddenly see the prices of certain medicines increasing in India.

The difference in how seriously students take their work in different settings was jarring to me too. It was a real struggle to just get students to listen and not tune out the information that would be critical for them to be good lawyers. For a while now I have had a bi-modal curve with students either being very interested and invested and working hard, or students just not caring about their work at all and slacking off and behaving poorly and not showing integrity when it came to things like unfair means or plagiarism.

What is surprising though is that even the latter group will talk about how they want good professors who have had fancy law degrees from world universities- but then end up treating them quite badly.
I think there might be several issues at play. I think we should culturally make it okay for students to fail. differently placed students experience failure differently and thats partly why they resort to cheating or corrupt practices. I think also senior students often end up teaching the newer batches pretty toxic stuff.

I wonder also if the integrated BA LLB model is actually doing us harm. I went to a good five year law school and worked hard for my degree and was honest throughout, but I know that was not the case with my batchmates, there were leaked papers, plagiarism everywhere, literally a database of seniors projects you could "borrow" from, more and more cheating in exams, and increasingly more and more petitions to get professors who pushed us fired. We were just too young to value the opportunity before us. We felt like prisoners because none of us knew why we wanted to do the law at all, and we behaved that way, trying to outsmart the guards instead of trying to actually learn.

I'm not sure 17 is a good age for students to commit to a legal education, I have always had slightly better experiences with more mature students- masters students in any discipline. Maybe we should bring back the BA Hons and then a 3 year LLB programme.

the other thing I think the industry could do is actually demand more from young entrants into law firms than just being a human who would work for 16 hours a day nonstop. Perhaps they should actually demand that they know the law. As it is at the top law school where almost everyone is assured a job, there really is no hunger to learn or improve or prove oneself. The brand tag will carry you through so why not spend 5 years smoking grass and grabbing ass and drinking fast no? The worrying thing is increasingly jobs are not guaranteed even to graduates of top law schools and students live in a denialist bubble about this.

I had a much more joyful time actually teaching students in newer universities and less established schools because they were hungry for knowledge and they knew how competitive and uncertain their legal future was, so they took seriously the work of learning as much as they could.

UK law societies are pressing hard for it.

https://www.barcouncil.org.uk/resource/legal-sector-joins-business-in-calling-for-more-negotiating-time-in-india-free-trade-deal.html

It is one of the chapters of the FTA. The important thing to see is the form and manner in which it will come out.

News Flash: It would never be enough. Source: been freelancing since 2014, you will hit a ceiling and then you will stop growing. Big ticket UK/US clients will never come to you. Law is a very specialized area, they would rather have someone in their own jurisdiction. Earning in $$ might be good for a few years, but after that, you need clients in your own jurisdiction. I can still make 2000-4000$ PM, its good when you are 22, but do you want to stay there when you are 32?

I think you should take up the T1 offer and convert it full time if you have resources to work with low/no pay for the next few months.

After working at the T1 you will either continue working there or get fed up and move on to some place with better work life balance/culture, but you’ll have the T1 tag with you which makes life a little easier.

Rishibhai has called me and confirmed that ensuring entry of UK Law Firms into India to uplift the young intrepid lawyers/students of the country and break the backs of some firms commonly called "SCAM" by the young ppl on this forum, is the most urgent and pressing item on his schedule. Other so called issues such as inflation and the state of the economy can wait. Check this thread for future updates. God bless you for stating what needs to be said.

Yours humbly
Yougasathva Dharmanendra Kathak
Chairman
Association for Emancipation of Young Law Students Who Want to Challenge the System

[Completely shooting in the dark here]
You seem like someone with a decent enough insight of contract drafting and the corporate thing. You can cold message a few startup owners in LinkedIn that have potential or received a funding and elaborate what you will be bringing to the table and how you could help them cut costs if they hire you for catering their legal needs.
Even if it does not have a physical office or a good funding, it would eventually help your personal growth and experience. It would contribute to a much sustainable career in the long-run as compared to the other suggestions. Again, I'm just brainstorming how I would've dealt with it without any knowledge, so let's see what others has to say.
I hope you live a prosperous life! ⭐

To elaborate/counter on the points mentioned above:

- The admin is absolutely stale and has no vision for the university, has a ram bharose attitude towards administration, with absolutely hostile attitude towards students.

Case in point: Attendance Policy, no backlog policy, curfew timings, exam pattern etc.

- There is absolutely no dilution of student quality, NLUJ is probably the only NLU with no state based quota and amongst a few who have no OBC quota, with a batch strength of 120 from a very long time, I don't see any dilution from the side of the university, the pandemic has however changed things with many 3rd years having no basic knowledge of core subjects like crime, contracts, constitution etc.

- Very true, there is not a single permanent faculty in NLUJ, good faculty come and after seeing the contractual nature of the job leave, the court infact ruled against their contractual
and hire and fire policy (HC) but a stay on the same was granted by the SC.
Young faculty who join the university leave after getting their PHDs.

- I disagree Jindal and other colleges have not being able to steal the thunder of NLUJ just yet with NLUJ having placements at par to WBNUJS and NALSAR with a smaller batch size. We also have maintained the two vac schemes per batch statistic for a long time.

- Literally no support from the state government, due to the tussel between the two regarding the Domicile policy and appointment of registrar the University has not seen any flow of substantial funds from the government.
The VC refuses to bend over backwards for the receiving of more funds. (As evident by her speech)

- I can write whole paragraghs, what you call poor work ethic is just gen z standing up for their rights and not taking abuse from the superiors, as evident by the decline of ragging culture or be it students protesting for their rights against PPS and admin.

Just wait for 5 months, the tenure of PPS is about to end, I am quite hopeful that we as an institution will rise and again regain our past glory.

There is a downward pressure on law firm revenues across the world:
1. Clients want to cut costs and found out they can do so in many cases during pandemic as they were desperate to cut costs and now they have excuse of a looming recession. They will demand lower fees and often get it.
2. There are way more law firms to choose from compared to how it was 10 years back.
3. There is a trend of hiring more in-house lawyers for recurring legal work and going to law firms only for ultra specialised stuff
4. Tech tends to reduce billable hours and there are more innovative law firms and alternative services providers using tech reducing bill sizes
5. Big brands don’t command the premium they once did

This makes it harder to pay a lot more - but those firms that can always tend to pay more for several reasons.

1. Signalling to clients and talent in market that they are superior
2. Harder to quit once you are in - you are forced to put up with crazy stuff nobody will put up with if they won’t lose a very big part of their income

Lots of law firms could not function at all without paying significantly above market rate. But it really depends on how profitable they are.

If pay is not growing fast it’s because profitability is stagnant for years now.

There's no hard and fast rule that salaries must keep up with inflation, payment of salary by corporates or firms does not take sustenance of employees into account if they could be replaced easily
This is the same everywhere, I read about a large listed corporate paying 2 lpa for its freshers to 2.5 lpa working for 5 years, and the same has not changed in 20 years.
Unless one firm increases salaries fundamentally, as you pointed out, there is really no incentive for firms to do so, unless they loose too many people by competition- for example the past 3 years in Biglaw, where Milbank kept increasing its scales quarterly, and other firms kept matching.
But considering the nearing recession and the fall of tech, revenues would crunch causing tier 1s to lose a lot, does not really seem someone would risk incrementing scales

Reportedly, many Indian and neighbouring countries' workers lost their life building the infrastructure for the Qatar Fifa World Cup. Not sure whether the families of the deceased have received compensation.

India should take a stand on this issue. I personally wouldn't indulge into this world cup.

What do you all feel?

1. Never ask for an internship or job on a linkedin cold message - at this stage you need to dangle something you can do for them to get a reply and start building a relationship
2. For example, read some article they read and offer to host a twitter space for them on that topic or interview them for some legal website. Most lawyers need and love that publicity and will engage.
3. next, ask them for an informational interview - please read up on what is that - just google it for gods sake

If you do this with 30-40 people, expect 5-6% to lead to informational interview over call or personal meetings. Some of these people may want to help you back and will put in a work for internship or job interview with their friends or even write you a linkedin reccomendation.

All the best!

My paycheck is not enough to live in Delhi, so I am doing some freelance work for US/UK clients on the side.

I can't solicit work in my own name as I am afraid of losing my main job, so I am currently dependant on a placement team of an edtech company where I did a course. Side by side I got a friend to create a profile on upwork and I pitch for projects using his profile, he can't do any of the work so I do it. its slowly picking up. I think at some point I will just leave my job and do this full time although my parents are telling me its better to stick to a stable job rather than freelance work given that a recession may be coming.

Its not easy to survive like this but I had no choice if I did not want to live in one room shared with 5 other people.

I divide my message into three paragaphs. In the initial lines of the first paragraph I write my Introduction and try to engage that person as to why I am writing to him/her. In second pargarph I write about the relevant skills I have with respect to the position I have applied for. Last Paragraph is generic.

Your experience and work profile will vary a lot with the firm you're at. While all your questions are very valid questions, the answer will vary immensely for different people across different firms

The mega mergers requiring complex Form IIs / phase 2 filings are largely concentrated at certain firms such as Trilegal, SAM and CAM. Don't recall Khaitan on any such matter

The complex enforcement matters will be found at Trilegal, SAM and AZB with others sometimes finding their way in. However, the "others" may not always be running the matter and may only be co-counsel roles

The day to day will also vary with the Firm (and the partner). Some partners encourage original drafting, some want previously approved templates to be largely adhered to - you can find this difference even within the same firm

If you're more active on the enforcement side, expect a lot of visits to the DG office on certain matters (my fellow cement vaale counsels, where u at) whereas a combinations centric role will differ in that regard

With respect to what is more interesting between enforcement and combinations, again, varies. Competition law is one of those practice areas where a large majority of the people have an intellectual interest in the subject / had such interest before they entered the practice. I'm an enforcement nerd and detest combinations but some of my friends in the practice area get their kick from their silly little combination overlap assessments

Perhaps the better question(s) you need to find answers to would be -

1. What kind of work do you enjoy more - combinations or enforcement? Try to slot yourself in a firm that fits your profile

2. What kind of work does the firm you're getting an opportunity at do if you don't have the luxury of picking the firm you're working at

Working hours will be worse on the combinations side because all notifiable matters are very big transactions and there is a high likelihood that you'll be seen as an imposition in some matters because no client likes to go to a regulator to seek approval. With the potential of the long stop date, life can be hell on some matters

"even wokes are dissociating from themselves"

ah, yes, the homogeneous category of 'wokes' who are all the same - because political discourse is never on a spectrum, based on a variety of factors and variations of thoughts. It's just us v/s them, obviously. Got it.

Yeah I think you need both kinds of law teachers - research scholars to teach broad survey courses and discussions seminars, and practitioners to teach specialised courses and clinical courses and capstone projects. And I think shutting doors between the profession and academia is harming us. We need to do better.

What’s worse is because these two camps are so divided each camp generally has not nice things to say about the others. While academics are accused of living in ivory towers and not knowing the practice of law, practitioners are accused of getting by on jugaad and not knowing the law itself thoroughly, and perhaps of making unethical choices. And this seeps into how students behave at internships and in classrooms. In the end we’re not building a community that has a common goal but one which is deeply divided and not doing enough to equip the kids with
all the skills they would need to be better than we are at this law thing.

It’s not identity politics for the sake of it right ?

It’s talking about identity as a way to think about how the institution affects different people differently. And that should be fair game. I know as a woman I have been slotted into sister/ mother role in academic settings. Even when I have the best qualifications in the room no one will compliment my intellect - only how nice I am. I know that male academics in my experience have less trouble maintaining class discipline.

I know that not having enough scholars rise through the ranks who do belong to diverse communities affects our research. The law isn’t like math- not all answers to questions are going to be the same. In fact the questions we ask when we see a problem might be different based on our own place in society. It’s a messy human affair and I think in trying to flatten that messiness by saying well identity doesn’t matter , we just lose a lot of knowledge. Identity isn’t everything, but it is something.

It matters that most people go through law school not having read Ambedkar. I graduated from a top law school and it wasn’t till much later that I read any Ambedkar. I was a worse scholar before I had and law school didn’t prepare me enough cause all my savarna men profs did not think it was worth teaching Ambedkar.

Pointing to individual exceptions I think only emphasises the rule.

Long response, since the piece makes several points that are relevant to reflect on, and which were some of the reasons I found it difficult to commit to academia full time:

I did my LLM in 2008-09 and had to fund it myself (with some support from the university I went to), since I didn’t have the social capital to figure out how to get the better known scholarships. Back then I thought I was just too stupid for them. I'm a first generation lawyer from a single parent home, and my mom had limited means. We still rue that she didn’t have money to attend my graduation for instance, although she did pull out all the stops for the essentials. So the financial stability - being able to pay my loans and care for her after graduation - was critical for me, and the economics in academia didn’t make sense.

I began to work with a law firm but also signed up for teaching commitments for core and elective courses at various schools, broadly between 2009-2018. When I began, I was young, I had to negotiate hard with my firm to commit time to teaching, I thought I was good at what I did, and so I was disappointed that my teaching experience was mixed. The smaller seminar classes usually had very interested students. In the core classes, while there were committed folks, it was sometimes a struggle to get students to do the basics like get bare acts to class. I used to spend a lot of time and effort just thinking about how to engage them. So I constantly asked myself the same question - how is it that during the LLM there was this expectation that people would prepare and show up, and they did, and why was it such a challenge here, when they were evidently capable of applying themselves otherwise? It isn't easy to ask yourself this again and again without doubting yourself.

Students operate under stresses of their own and I strongly believe that their attitudes are usually not driven by mal-intent (there were folks who failed my class and then came to me to confess that they had gone to admin to get their grades bumped because they couldn’t afford a repeat - the admin those days used to process these requests without consulting or informing the teacher). There were some who were obviously dealing with mental health issues. But there was also sometimes a lack of seriousness and maturity in relation to the classroom space which can be depressing when you invest so much of yourself into conceptualising and preparing. When the classroom experience clicks, it is electrifying and helps you engage more deeply with your subject, but very often it feels like an uphill task to just get through. I also had a difficult time dealing with plagiarism concerns, with limited support from the admin, which put me off teaching for a while.

There needs to be a fix for this situation which results from a combination of factors, where teachers have high teaching and admin loads, students are young, maybe still finding themselves, and universities still often spaces where power functions in traditional ways. I don’t have an answer, but my workaround (a personal choice) has been to never fully commit to either world. Academia gives you a lot to be optimistic about and I have found it important to not let go, although I now prefer to teach less and read and write more. In retrospect I also think that my experience as a practitioner has fed into my academic work and vice versa, but that's a separate conversation. But the choice involves trade offs. It means that your place in either world (“progress”, if you want to think about it in a linear fashion) will never be at par with those who do either full time. But if that situation leaves you happier at the end of the day, perhaps that’s ok. Thanks Megha, for initiating the conversation.

This is why LI is still useful!
@OP: You may also get in touch with Anoop Surendranath from NLUD if you need any pro bono legal assistance about this matter. Or anyone who was part of the Swadhinota Project at NUJS Kolkata.

NDA's blue eyed crypto boy has joined Trilegal. This in all probability means end to the cyrpto practice at NDA. And perhaps India for the time being.

https://www.barandbench.com/news/corporate/tech-lawyer-jaideep-reddy-joins-trilegal-as-counsel-in-tmt-practice

NDA was also the only India based advisor/ business partner of FTX per the list published by Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierpaz/2022/11/10/stripe-deloitte-sullivan--cromwell-are-among-53-ftx-advisors-vendors-and-bankers-weathering-exchanges-collapse/

https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/nlsiu-vice-chancellor-awarded-infosys-prize-2022-in-humanities-category-214197

Jury: Prof. Arvind | Prof. Akeel Bilgrami | Prof. Mriganka Sur | Prof. Chandrashekhar Khare | Prof. Shrinivas Kulkarni | Prof. Kaushik Basu.

The prize comes with USD 100,000 (82 lakhs)

Sudhir is the third Law School alum after Shamnad Basheer and Lawrence Liang to win the prize. This is a slap to his troll haters on LI. I have said before (and will continue to say) that these trolls are very likely students of other colleges who are jealous that Law School has Sudhir has VC. As I have also said before, these people will be better off campaigning for an alum VC at their own college instead foo.

The prize also demolishes an argument made on LI (by the same trolls, I guess) that having lots of publications is a proof of academic scholarship. Lawrence and Sudhir have limited publications, as their haters point out. But what the jury clearly did (correctly) is to look at quality over quantity. Thus, Sudhir has been awarded the Prize for "his carefully argued account of the importance of the landmark 'basic structure doctrine' adopted by the Supreme Court in 1973". Sudhir has made this argument only in his book "Democracy and Constitutionalism in India: A Study of the Basic Structure Doctrine", published by OUP. Thus, a single well-argued book or journal article is better than thousands of pointless books and articles. If you go by numbers only , then the Jindal VC has tons of international publications listed in his bio, but Sudhir has so few that he lists a Legally India article on his bio! https://www.nls.ac.in/faculty/sudhir-krishnaswamy/ Also, ironically, Shamnad had various international publications but was actually awarded the prize (rightly) for diversifying access through IDIA. 😃

Finally, Professor Kaushik Basu deserves a special mention for backing Shamnad, Lawrence and now Sudhir. He has been a big supporter of Law School alumni in a academia and also invited Lawrence to give the prestigious KC Basu Memorial Lecture, joining the ranks of Nobel Laureates like Amartya Sen and Stiglitz and people much older than him.

Congratulations once again to Sudhir and Law School!! In future, my picks for the award are two more alumni (Menaka Guruswamy and Gautam Bhatia).

There are many folks having connections with Partners. What exactly the Partner does to confirm their internships? Is it something that he has autonomy over or is it just that he uses his established position in the firm to strongarm the HR for confirming the internship of his/her lovely lad/lass?

I am a law student who has done a project on precisely this topic (but for both men and women). Yes, it is possible but only if it is a long enough sentence to help warrant that- it can take upto 5 years for actual transfer to happen. If it is life imprisonment or a 7year+ punishment, then most likely possible but if she only has 3-4 years she is better of in Nagpur. If it is 7 year+ , then after you file a request, there are lots of issues for prisons to consider and hte biggest delayer is the accomodation in the prison she wants to serve her sentence. Tihar is usually very oversubscribed, and centre is keen to transfer prisoners from there. Rohini or Mandoli will be a better bet if in Delhi, but you can get it done in 3 years if you are willing to compromise to somewhere nearer but not in Delhi. My personal recommendation would be Ambala or Jaipur central jail which are both nearly 5 hrs drive/3 hr train away so you can still see here twice a month easily. Jaipur central jail is specially known for that, a bit like Thane jail for anyone who has moved to Mumbai/Pune.

With regards to practiality, talk to your lawyer about the whole process- the main challenge will be the sentence (unless by SC) to be transferred to the court of where you want it to be transferred but usually its a formality. If it is a short travel (say 5 hr drive) then police tend to drive them by road but in your case more likley to be an overnight train ride. Most prisoners are escorted for night trains. It wont be a pleasant ride for her, because she will most likely will have to sleep under heavy police escort and most likely even tied with a rope to one of the escort officers (who will be a woman!). Sorry about your situation.

Damn, this hit home. I am that person she speaks of who will eventually go on to gatekeep academia - the upper caste, male, fluent-in-English, foreign master-PhD, academic (but not in India).

Especially where she says that practitioners say that academics are not 'real lawyers' seems very peculiar to India because a large number of law firm partners have PhDs and a large number of professors are law firm partners abroad. This batshit crazy rule of BCI to bar practice of academics does way more harm than good. Even for those who are full-time academics and in legal theory, nobody questions their legal mind saying they would not survive in court - precisely because their articles are cited by lawyers in courts.

Further, unlike most foreign countries, we do not even have a single academic on the Supreme Court even when there is a constitutional provisions to do so. Combined with the meagre pay, why in the world should anyone be in academia in India? That is not sacrifice, that is stupidity, unless you are willing to strive to change the system completely - which you cannot do singlehandedly.

Came across this recent piece today : https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-i-left-my-job-in-academia-for-corporate-law-firm-8264642/lite/

I know the author has lately caused some controversy with her behaviour, and she admits that she hasn’t been the perfect teacher. But would it be worthwhile to take a beat to actually reflect on what’s going on in law schools?

Are female professors really this overburdened with care work? Reflecting back on your law school days do you think people treated female faculty differently?

Why is there a culture of dishonesty and “jugaad” rather than academic integrity? Did you cheat or use unauthorised means or plagiarise for work in law school? Why/ why not?

Is it just because students are under so much pressure with so much work or is it because there is a culture of dishonesty? What can we do to address this problem?

How does the academy reform to keep its young faculty who come in with idealistic notions about what their day to day job should be like?

Do we open up law teaching to practitioners at least a bit more than we are doing now so that people don’t have to make hard choices about teaching or practising and can do so side by side?

The link for the data is https://public.flourish.studio/story/1037222/
This was one of the winning submissions of the Open Data for Justice Challenge hosted by Agami.

Please look through the data before downvoting!

I have been through this.

1. It will depend on the workload of the Partner/law firm. If they have decent workload, you will get some quality work otherwise run of the mill grunt work including secretarial work. Do not consider, secretarial work as a bad work. Just learn this kind of work, may be useful at a later point in your career.

2. It is very common. Some may not wait for 6 months. Now, since you are already working, I do not know if you did any DD around the Partner / law firm before accepting the offer.

3. Yes, it will. Try and complete atleast 2 years. If the work place becomes too toxic, then leave. No point in sticking where your mental and physical health is compromised. Career choice is a very personal choice. Please consult your mentors, teachers or any one on whom you have trust to guide you through this.

bro

write application letter in your handwriting (mention your contact no.)
then enclose Resume with that
then book OLA/UBER
and give that to HR manager & tell them
i would have sent a mail but bcoz i love this firm
i used different approach while applying for the same

i got several internship through this trick. I think in that boring ecosystem , they love maverick approaches

1. If you are a lawyer registered to practice in india no pqe is needed, just clear sqe

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/international/how-to-become-a-solicitor-a-guide-for-international-lawyers-and-overseas-students

2. If you are a law grad but not qualified lawyer in India, then just get registered in India first then write sqe

Degree is not an issue here as some people who have heard things about QLTS and don’t know anything much about SQE would suggest

Also some universities like university of law in the UK will tell you that you need to do a bridge course first to write SQE - not true. Foreign qualified lawyers can write sqe, no bridge course needed.

If in doubt, write a mail to law society and SRA, they would respond.

Remember- do not try to qualify as a foreign educated law student, try to qualify as a foreign qualified lawyer.

All the best!

Why is LI always like this.

There are also people who genuinely like this profession - for a variety of (right and wrong) reasons. I may not be able to charge 20L per hearing, but I do make sufficient living and arguing in court does feel like my passion.

Been practicing independently for some years now. Law was by choice, and continues to be so.

Perhaps you need a career change (and some therapy). But don't think my active choices that led to my success are by chance merely because you did not like this profession.

If you are jumping from SEBI to a Corporate Law Firm - you are either extremely money minded, intelligent/competent or utterly stupid.

SEBI at least for Legal Officers is an incredibly lucrative job. There are many Judicial Services toppers across India who are still writing SEBI law officer exam.

I am a judicial Officer in rural maharashtra - I have friends in law firms, chambers and all government offices. I will tell you why nobody moves from SEBI -

1. Insane Salaries - Starting salary for a fresher (CTC) is far far more than a Judicial Officer and even top law firms (18LPA)

This salary over the years can go upto 40LPA - all inclusive.

2. MUMBAI - forever in Mumbai. Imagine? Most Government jobs have harsh transfers all across India. Most of SEBI Legal work is done in Mumbai. Same office.

As a Judicial Officer - living in Mumbai is a dream come true. Most of your life is wasted in rural Tier 9 towns.

3. Career - you can go almost till the top in SEBI.

You will get extremely interesting and complicated work.

As a judicial Officer mostly you will end up as a PDJ. HC/SC Judgeships are almost reserved for the likes of Chandrachud's, Narimans, Lalita and other big family names. Initial 10 years of your judicial Officer life you will be stuck up with stupic cases and dumbest lawyers.

4. Work Life - Obviously 100 times better than at a law firm. SEBI is a 10 to 5 job. I have heard it's more convenient than even a Judicial Officers job.

+ STABILITY - Salary till 60, as long as you yourself is not a fraud. You won't be fired.

So

My POV, I WON'T understand why should people even leave a sebi law officer job.
Have heard a few names of those who exited SEBI and started Hardcore boutique Securities Litigation law firms.

Contrary to assumptions, empirical data shows that majority of SC Judges are first generation lawyers. Out of 194 Judges of the Supreme Court since 1950, 96 Judges are first generation lawyers, 66 have a close relative in law, 25 have a close relative who is a HC Judge and 11 a SC Judge.

I am not saying that nepotism does not exist, it definitely plays a key role in High Court appointments and elevations but as the data shows, the elevation to the Supreme Court in most cases in primarily on merit while factors like relationships with SC/HC Judge/ Prominent persons in law do play a key role.

Um, there can be many names. Recently retired madam Indira Banerjee, Justice moushumi Bhattacharya (Cal HC)., justice nageswara rao laavu (retd).

BUT even if they are not from "justice" family ultimately those who get elevated have contacts and blessings from big families and chambers. By big families I mean the right circle. It is natural to have contacts with big lawyers and justice when you are 3rd or 4th generation. Not a big wonder. Infact, most established lawyers I know in my district are not even charmed by elevation to HC- not their children.

It was a shock for me. They text and have whatsapp conversations with most justices on Bench in HC. Altough, their is not much favoritism which I have seen but yes friendships are there. Justices are HOOMANS too haha. That helps in getting elevated ,getting designations and work on table but jot getting favorable orders. It is very very rare.

As far as justice banerjee is concerned her senior's spouse was a sitting justice in SC when she had joined practise in SC. You can research more like this.

Sleep less.

I kid, I kid. To be honest, you do find time for your hobbies. Maybe the starting couple of years it might be difficult but it does get easier once you have a little more control over your timelines.

I watch a lot of anime and have a sizable manga collection. Lots of friends read, play cool sports, play instruments. It's important to have a hobby to distract yourself from work.

1. Your answer should not be meant to impress him, I bet he would've met someone like that previously.
2. It should unique to yourself. (Not necessarily, but preferably)
3. It should potray a keen sense of curiosity for law. ("...")
4. Your attitude should reflect that you justify your reason for being in law, which would be quite difficult if you make up a random answer.
I honestly don't think he would judge you on the basis of why you chose law rather than your work itself.
For me it's because I didn't want to be an engineer like everyone else, law caught my interest, I delved into it, I enjoyed it. Answers that are simple yet reflects the honest nature of the person seems the best to me. Cheers! 🥂

In light of Chandrachud becoming CJI, just wondering how many first-generation lawyers went on to become either prominent HC CJs with good tenures or SC judges. Names of those currently serving/recently retired or with particularly inspirational stories would be helpful.

But what would also be helpful is numbers (either actual statistics or ballparks based on personal observation): how many SC judges are self-made, that is:
1. Don't have any first/second degree relatives who are SC/HC judges, Senior Advocates or otherwise lawyers with well-established practices
2. Don't have any first/second degree relatives who are influential politicians and could've plausibly given a significant leg-up (and material support)

To some extent it will depend on what kind of disputes work you want to do/your team does. Disputes teams in India do everything from civil/commercial litigation, domestic arbitration, arbitration-related litigation (including setting-aside proceedings and enforcement) and international commercial arbitration. Not all teams do ICA, either they don't have the requisite expertise or can't get the clients, but yes, it is a field that is fast growing in India.

In general, it's a good idea to cover all basics. But just to give you a starting point:
1. A&C Act (obviously): Be familiar with the bare act, fundamental concepts and jurisprudence, recent developments (ex: Vidya Drolia, vvv important). The greater command you can develop over this, the better.

2. CPC: A vast and complicated subject. There are two parts to it: substantive principles (res judicata etc) and procedural rules. Make sure you have a working idea of the principles, don't necessarily need to go into too much detail. The rules, I honestly can't tell you what to focus on. I've been told it only comes with practise. Hopefully someone else can pitch in here. IMO, try to study the lifecycle of an arbitration and see at what points can it lead to litigation (suit for submitting a dispute to arbitration, dispute over existence of arb agreement, appointment of arbitrator, challenge to an appointed arbitrator, application for setting aside etc), then study the procedures related to that.

3. ICA: basic concepts, schools of thought, international instruments, application in India. (if relevant).

Beyond that, it's still a good idea to study all commercial laws well, because they'll form the subject matter of the dispute. Contracts always comes in handy, TPA, Corp and IBC (if your team handles NCLT/NCALT appearances) etc. Heard of a disputes team doing an IP matter once, but I don't think that's v common.

Good luck!

Without a women's quota in education, it is impossible to have a sufficient pool of educated and skilled women to even fulfill the women's quota in employment. And most of all, the women's quota currently followed is horizontal so if 50% of women are even underrepresented to 30%, the quota simply does not trigger.

Caste Discrimination is a very real thing and vicious thing in India I have nowhere denied that nor do I believe reservations are only used by "rich people" and I understand reservations is meant to primarily address more than just economic disadvantage. Nor do I believe we should stop reservation for a couple of more decades in this country, but there must be some timeline or at least something against which you measure progress/effectiveness. There must be some practical restrictions being placed and the Government must ensure that the benefits are directly reaching people who can be the ones to break the cycles of poverty/ get better secured jobs/ culturally have a stronger foothold in society.

I believe reservations should be capped the same family cant be allowed to use its over three generations (or some cap like that) considerations of income should be a factor. There should be continuous public data about from which demographic(location/ people who are the second or third generation in their family to use reservation ) so that the Government can make the system efficient and the public is aware that the sacrifices that the general category make are being used for something. This data should be publicly available and the government must be forced to directly make changes in policy and ensure public systems are in place so that people in need of reservations can actually avail them. I would love to see the data from the beginning regarding how many people who avail reservations are the first in their family and compared to generational quota users. And how that ratios between these two categories has changed over the decades.

(Anecdote- I helped our colony's vegetable vendor's son to fill in a post office Clerk form, the education he received in Government schools in Delhi is atrocious he got unpractical vocational subjects, he is not the one getting into IIT based on reservations, he doesn't have the bare minimum qualifications to even apply to DU beyond vocational courses which again offer no job security. When the Government for the last couple of decades has let the Government Schools systems deteriorate for so long often the people who use reservations come from families where there Grandparents broke the cycle decades ago and only these people can take advantage of the system. Again I understand this is not true for all cases, but this still needs to be addressed in policy considering that reservations are going to going on for several decades to come. But when the government lazily just keeps increasing reservation without doing the background work, reservation is not having the intended effect and it comes at the cost the general category. And that cost needs to be taken into consideration when forming policies)

It is also especially infuriating that the actual institutions that have the ability to directly force and compel change/ empower disadvantage communities directly irrespective of whether society is ready or not i.e., the Judiciary(HC/SC) and Parliament (Important Departments/Committees) don't have reservations.

One thing that can be considered is an effective search tool. There are a lot of useful prior threads in legally india which can be accessed only by some sort of a keyword search on google itself. Maybe moderator can start a system of 'tags', where you tag each post with relevant keywords (eg: "Senior Advocate", "Delhi Crim Lit", "M&A" and so on.

Ever since the new phase of LI has started, with no news coverage but only individual posts, there have been a slew of posts spanning a wide range. I am not opposing such posts even though I personally don't see the point of many of those. What I'm wondering though is whether for ease of navigation by people who only visit the site to get law school news, or law firm news, or get some genuine queries responded to, there can be a separate section so that they don't have to go through all the rest of the posts. There's nothing wrong with having a section for debates or even gossip for all I care, depending on the demand. Even non-law topics can have a separate section of their own, and so can political debates.
@Moderator: Any chance of that happening?

In April, the court refused to interfere with the investigation:
https://indiankanoon.org/doc/184814091/

Yesterday, the FIR was quashed after the intern reached a settlement with the lawyer:
https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/karnataka-high-court-quashes-fir-against-lawyer-accused-of-harassing-throwing-water-bottle-at-intern

Remember that a few years ago, another girl intern at another firm in Bengaluru committed SUICIDE after she complained of being repeatedly sexually harassed by the partners of the firm. It was widely reported in the national news and TV channels leaked an audio recording where the girl intern was being pressured to withdraw her complaint. But the case fizzled out and the accused lawyers are happily practising.

I think it's really sad that the cause of interns who are not from NLUs are not taken up by NLU students.

First Elon sacks half of Twitter. Now Zuck sacks of 13% of Meta. Will this mean tech job losses in India and the economy slowing here as well? Will this have a ripple effect in law firms too? Is it time to panic? And if a recession is confirmed, are we in India royally f**ked?

Hated this during my time there. I'm severely immuno compromised and stray dogs, no matter how cute, can be a vector for infections that I could otherwise avoid. Meanwhile some kids would try and sneak dogs into every place they could with no regard for how it could affect others.

Owing to the recent controversies revolving around the imposition of Hindi over the country, English has been proposed as a neutral alternative. This has opened the proposal to attack as being entangled in the intellectual shackles of the coloniser.

I propose we should just select French as the national language and be done with it. Would be fair as everybody would start from scratch; well, except for some people in Puducherry. It is also a fairly international language and enables access to even more international markets combined with the existing English competence.

---

En raison des récentes controverses entourant l'imposition de l'hindi dans le pays, l'anglais a été proposé comme une alternative neutre. Cette proposition a été attaquée comme étant empêtrée dans les carcans intellectuels du colonisateur.

Je propose que nous choisissions simplement le français comme langue nationale et que nous en finissions avec cela. Ce serait juste car tout le monde repartirait de zéro, à l'exception de quelques personnes à Poudouchéry. C'est aussi une langue assez internationale et elle permet d'accéder à encore plus de marchés internationaux, en combinaison avec les compétences existantes en anglais.

On a couple of occasions, it was my interview performance. But I made improvements, read up further on the law, and answered technical questions better. But even in the interviews where I answered technical questions correctly, I was rejected saying that an offer commensurate to my skills and experience cannot be made. So to answer your question, it has been really bad luck for the most part. Left me wondering why I was even interviewed in the first place if they were looking for someone with more experience. And if everyone keeps saying more experience, and refuse to take me in, how will I ever learn the practical aspects ? How will I grow ? Also, with regards my interview performance, this was the same interview performance which got me in to my previous organisation.

I do not want to leave Law, but if so many rejections are coming my way, I don't think I would have much of a choice.

Not exactly, but same thing happened to me in a different way. I was randomly taken off a few matters, and every single mistake was pointed out. Credit was not given where it was due. Hints were dropped and it was made so obvious that I had to go, else, I would have been asked to go. Still jobless. Been rejected at nearly 7 firms after having made it to the interview stage. Feeling down and out.

PS: Anyone with a constructive suggestion or a way out to help, please get in touch. Those who wish to say things on the lines of "you are incompetent", "it is shameful that you could not land an offer anywhere even after so many interviews", "you are not cut out for this profession", etc., etc., please do not reply. So much of negativity already. The last thing I need is more of it.

this might be helpful https://www.legallyindia.com/views/entry/a-simple-5-step-guide-on-how-to-write-effective-and-popular-legal-articles

A piece of flash fiction (or not-so-fiction, possibly), as part of a writing exercise titled 'perspective reboot' many years ago. Enjoy

Rite of Passage

"Did I not tell you this was due this morning?" His face falls, the morning's greetings forgotten.

"Yes, but..."

"What is the issue? Can you not handle the deadlines given to you?"

I see him flinch. I can tell that his mind is working to come up with a suitable response. Forthright admission? An excuse? A promise that it won't happen again? Frankly, it doesn't matter.

"I really tried, Amy, I was up most of the night," he says finally. My lip curls at his hangdog tactics.

"I didn't come in to work today to debate your sleep cycle, Raymond." He blinks. I suppose I've become more creative with my quips with each passing associate. "I came in expecting the memo at my desk." I could raise my voice, but today I don't feel the need. I watch him rock on his feet, wishing he'd stayed up that one extra hour. Or two. Good. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see people watching the exchange, a dint of pity in their eyes. And guilty enjoyment. Everyone loves a good scene.

"I'm sorry, Amy, I...it won't happen again," he mumbles. "Please give me one more hour."

"Do what you like, Raymond. I'm not going to pick up the flak for your weaknesses." I turn away, but not before I see him tremble as he returns to his desk.

"Do you really need to bully him so?" Rosalyn asks, stopping by my desk.

"Oh, come on. We've all been there. How will they learn unless we rough them up. Anyway, coffee?"

Anything and everything related to companies.

Advisory mandates: Advice on proposed transactions, advice on secretarial matters, changes in the law, setting up a new business vertical etc

Transactional mandates: Getting deals done. Could include M&A, a promoter's exit, hostile takeovers, anything. Starts with due diligence (legal risk assessment), negotiation of the deal and provisioning for the risks identified and finally drafting transaction documents and closing the deal.

Close friends, about 4 - i.e. with whom I talk every other day if not daily. Share almost everything with these people.

Other than this, about 20-25? These are the people who will know everything about my life; we are always available for each other, but won't have time to interact or meet daily.

Then, acquaintances - with whom I interact once in a few months? These would be a lot. Definitely more than fifty.

Maybe I am categorising them wrong? Idk. This profession needs you to be social, build networks. I feel mine isn't big enough lol.

Relax. It isn't the end of the world. This is a blip in what is going to be a long and interesting legal career.
I got a backpaper and life was fine. 10 years from there, it is what it is, a blip.
You need to just keep working hard and focus on cultivating contacts.
Many people with poor grades do well in law. This isn't a be all end all. Hard work pays off.

Relax buddy, your career is not done for. Believe me, I've been where you are right now. Back when I was in law school (non-NLU), I had to drop a year not once but twice because of my back papers. It was partly my fault because of my procrastination and laziness, but it was also because I have a hand issue which prevented me from completing any of my exam papers. I really regret not taking law school more seriously. After dropping a year the first time, I lost touch with most of my friends in college, and I felt lonely, ashamed and depressed. I cried. I even contemplated suicide at times. I felt guilty for having put my parents through that. I know what it's like to feel like a complete failure and feel like there's no hope. But trust me, it's not the end of the world. There's always a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

I eventually applied for extra time, managed to clear all my back papers and I graduated successfully. It was a long and hard road to get there, but I did it! For the first time in a long time, things were looking up for me. I felt like I had finally achieved something. I didn't sit for placements, but I applied for a job on my own and I got it because someone took a chance on me. Fast forward to today, I've been working for over 4 years. Sure, I've switched jobs, been in between jobs and I've experimented and tried different things in my career, but I think in a couple of years I'll finally be where I want to be. The point is that even after everything I went through in law school, I'm still here and I have a somewhat stable career. I'm very fortunate. And that's all that matters. A couple of years after you graduate, nobody is going to ask you what percentage you got in that one subject in your 3rd year of law school. Your work will speak for itself. And you will have plenty of opportunities to prove yourself.

I've made a lot of good and bad choices, and my failures far outweigh my successes. But without my failures, I would not be the person that I am today. And that's why I'll always be grateful for them. So don't let this one tiny failure bother you or discourage you. Use it as a source of strength. Surround yourself with people you love like your family and close friends, who will always be there for you and support you no matter what. Take the re-exam or re-assessment, whatever it takes, and pretty soon you'll be graduating with flying colours! And you'll get a job on your own steam.

So all the best, take care and do well! And please get back to me and let me know how it goes. Cheers!

At JSA the salary is dependant on the team that you work in as large part of the variable is linked to 10% commissions on billings. So in a good team the PA's can touch around 80 lacs a year. The break up is given below:

Fixed Salary is 2.8 lacs per month = 33.6 lakhs
In a good team the PA will bill around 2.5 Cr to 3 Cr annually. Taking base as 2.5 Cr the 10% commission will be around = 25 lakh

The Bonus is at 12 Lakhs. Assuming you have billed 2.5 Cr, the PA will definitely get full bonus.

Total = 33.6 + 25 + 12 = 70.6 lakh. This is assuming 2.5 Cr billing. Some PA's bill more than 3 Cr as well.

I an average team the billing will be around 1 Cr to 1.5 Cr. Assuming at 1Cr billing then 10% commission will be around 10 Lakhs. Therefore, under an average team the PA will be earning around 33.6 + 10 + 10 = 53.6 Lakhs.

Hpe this gives perspective. As it all depends on your billings.

Impressive but ridden with errors.

The new counsel is not so unknown. He was particularly active in the COVID PILs and took Harish Salve head on.

Defendant had filed O7R11 for dismissal. Judge tried to push his counsel to withdraw or otherwise he would impose heavy cost. Defendant refused to withdraw.

Moazzam Khan's part is all wrong. Nishith Desai had replaced him with Anuradha Dutt last year as he though Moazzam was unable to stop the defendant from sharing the leaked data and the story with Black Money Commission and journalists. But the truth is that this case got messy not because of Moazzam but because of inane strategy of Nishith himself. Moazzam was just made a scapegoat.

"Affirmative Action" and "Reservations" are fundamentally different legal concepts and address different situations in two very different societies. "Reservations" is functionally closer to reparations than it is U.S. type affirmative action. Despite attempts by Black US scholars to appropriate the concept, caste is far different than racial discrimination practiced in the U.S. Affirmative action addresses, fundamentally, discrimination based on protected, immutable characteristics. Caste is in reality just made up shit, not immutable, like skin color. Racial and caste discrimination are very different problems, and so call for very different remedies.

IOE status has got nothing to do with this. How people comment so randomly without having the slightest of idea about something beggars belief! There are many examples of Indian universities having VCs who were not domain experts. In a multi-disciplinary university, do you get multiple VCs then? BCI or UGC does not have any such requirement either. VC is not a faculty member, he has to be a good academic and administrator to do his job, although being a domain expert helps.

Broad observations are set out below:
1. Registration of corporate guarantee as charge with the ROC is a grey area
2. In practice, it is not registered as charge with ROC
3. It has been observed in few cases that the SL/TS has provided for filing of corporate guarantee as charge with ROC as a CP/CS
4. Vis-a-vis public at large and prospective lenders/investors, corporate guarantee issued is a contingent liability
5. It will be useful to also read the Supreme Court judgement in IDBI Trusteeship Services Vs. Hubtown case

Hope the above will be of help.

First they oppress you by not letting you access resources, education, and other privileges. If you do end up amassing any of these somehow, they say you are not oppressed enough to be deserving of constitutionally enshrined rights.

Now that that's out of the way.

Everything exists in a context. There are two types of context, usually:
1. The context of the issue itself. Affirmative action in the US and reservations in India are VERY different.
2. The broader socio-political and legal context of the jurisdictions. US and India contexts for both of these are very different.

Please stop trying to apply developments, positive or negative, in other parts of the world to India.

Also - how do you even define merit? What is merit?

Some examples:

- The way students protested against injustices by faculty, e.g. V Nagaraj and Shortsgate

- The way students/alumni united and protested to get Sudhir appointed, with an alum even meeting SC judges

- The way alumni are lobbying for exclusive National status for NLSIU and got the BCI to support their claim in the Karnataka HC. Alumni and ASG Vikramjit Banerjee argued in the Karnataka HC that only NLU is a National university, other law schools like NALSAR and NUJS are states ones, which the Karnataka HC upheld. The matter is now before the SC and alumni are similarly arguing for exclusive National status.

- The way alumni are donating in recent years

- The Covid airline evacuation of migrants through the then TATA GC

- In general, the way alumni back each other and the institution ,whether in good times (job market, foreign scholarships etc) or bad (#MeToo scandal involving an alum)

Do we see this unity in the case of other NLUs?

Ugh. Study after economic study shows that reservations largely work. They help students who need the help.( yea despite the Dalit kid you know who drives an Audi). These kids get into good universities and they catch up with their peers and work hard and do well. They graduate with the same degrees- same courses passed- no merit is getting diluted. And when they do get jobs they give back to the community.
Literally national bureau of economics research stuff has proven this.
But you saw a rich Dalit once so it has to all be a lie no? Y’all need to read more.

If you're from a T1 NLU, then don't fret, one back won't matter. Yes, it does show up on your report card, but only as a small asterisk in a veeerry long document that most recruiters won't even see. Recruitments happen on the basis of your CV. As long as your CV is strong, the back won't matter, I can say this with complete confidence. Especially since you have more than 50% of your degree left.

What I will say is that study well in the future semesters, try to shore up your grades/rank - it is not the be-all-end-all marker, but it is the first thing any recruiter sees. And build your CV through strategic internships and extracurriculars. Good luck!

First of all, you've falied the subject already. No point of sleepless nights now.
Secondly, if you clear the paper eventually, it won't show up on your final marksheet. Now, what is final marksheet? The one you'd get at the end of your course.
People fail all the time. It's okay. I got a back in 4 subjects throughout my law school, and I did just fine in placements.
I've also seen people getting year backs and then flourishing in their careers later. You'll be fine.

Great Idea. Lets become like China. Abandon the arts and social sciences for topics with practical application. Anyway, Marx and Ambedkar are irrelevant now, aren't they?

In my BA, LL.B course, I only learnt useless quotes like this one by Bertrand Russell:

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

Half of the “pros” you have listed aren’t good enough to justify joining NIFT. Also, you’re making a huge blunder if your source of information is their official website instead of audited placement reports by IPRS (for context, NLUJ’s website lists a few large cap companies and even Porshe as past recruiters!!! Got me super excited before joining but obviously it was misleading).
Nevertheless, if you’re interested in fashion and money isn’t a factor, go for it.

Overall a good place to work. Both the founders are very ethical, true feminists and are good beings. If you are in Delhi, you will get to interact with PV Dinesh more. He is an AOR and also the Co-founder actively involved in LiveLaw. Salaries offered are good, way better than other organisations. They offer remote working options and promote young lawyers working in smaller towns.

I need not take names as everyone’s aware that one of the ex employees of livelaw have made it really big in the industry and is at a top position in a top law firm at a very young age. Another young ex employee has become a household name with her current stint in a leading media organisation.

Hope this information helps.

Today was a substantive hearing after more than a year.

1. Bajrangi has changed his lawyer who does not appear to be well known (have not seen him previously)
2. This new lawyer was complaining that the defendant has not been supplied with a copy of the plaint even after 3 years. Anuradha Dutt appearing for Plaintiff refuted but the judge directed her to provide defendant with the entire case record. Anuradha Dutt strangely said that Plaintiff has annexed the firm profile of NDA in a sealed envelope and does not want to give it to the Defendant even though they have relied on it in her plaint. I could not understand why is NDA's profile in a sealed envelope and why does Plaintiff want to keep it confidential.
3. The counsel for the defendant also asked the Judge to dismiss the suit because there is no substance in the plaint and the Plaintiff is refusing to supply the complete plaint. The Judge was furious and threatened to impose heavy cost on the Defendant after which the counsel backed down but said that he will move O7R11.
4. Anuradha Dutt started arguing that the Defendant be put behind bars for his persistent contemptous conduct. She started narrating some long story on how the Defendant had stolen data from one of the lawyers of NDA who happens to be his estranged wife and now using this data to target his wife. Defendant's counsel refuted and stated that the Defendant is a whistleblower. Then Anuradha Dutt read some orders of the predecessors where a contempt notice was issued to defendant for handing over a hard disk to black money commission, but this order mentioned that Defendant had filed complaints with some statutory body through another advocate. She also read another order where J. Harishankar had recused himself. At this point the Judge said that this matter is going to take time and put it up for next year in January. Anurdha Dutt protested and asked for a short date but the Judge did not oblige.
5. Anuradha Dutt also mentioned that Defendant was making a movie on this case and that he should be restrained but the judge ignored. She also mentioned something about Mozzam who was the Plaintiff's counsel earlier which I could not understand. She said something like that Mozzam had written to Defendant that he had gotten him fired from this case.

This suit is some drama. Bajrangi was present during the hearing. I was hoping that he would be some hunk given the pseudonym ▮▮▮

To be very honest, if you have a generic name, it doesn't matter. But if you have a name through which your gender cannot be determined, it saves a lot of awkward email salutations if you just mention your pronouns. I personally prefer pronouns which will help me write emails faster without wasting time guessing the other person's gender. Wokeness blablabla aside, it has a practical utility.

I was recently trying to hire a writer from livelaw, here is what I found while interviewing:

Clarification: never worked there and I do occasionally run ads there. This is an outside perspective.

1. They offer remote work and very good pay compared to most litigators and small law firms. Fast salary growth.

2. Most people don't want to leave livelaw even for a substantial pay hike which probably says a lot about their culture

3. They hire a lot of people in small towns, so attract a lot of very talented people who don’t have big city options. We also do that and occasionally found livelaw making offers to the same talent, matching us or offering better

I didn’t expect this because I was of the opinion that they probably don’t make much money. But it appears they do pretty well.

There were rumors of SKDR departing doing the rounds since March this year. Today (30th October) he has written a mail to the student body informing them of his departure. Now, in light of this, who will be the new VC? There have been some names that we have heard about, these include, G. S. Bajpai (RGNLU VC), Professor Ved Kumari (NLUO VC), and the current registrar Professor Harpreet Kaur. Does anyone know anything, speculations?

90s are not celebrated because there were things or lack thereof.

They were celebrated because it was the age of promise. It was the age when people started looking forward to things. It was the iphone decade of the century where everything was coming together and things were just preparing for launch.

There was purity, innocence and optimism. There was real hunger to do and to achieve. There was a lot to create and build. There was discovery and adventure (precisely because there were no distractions).

Perhaps you are not aware that a GC and in house team does way more work and very diversified work that the "ONE job" you have written about. Just so that you know in-house teams do not outsource more than 20% of their work. The reasons for outsourcing in decreasing order of priority are as follows:

1. Lack of in-house resources due to size and speed of a transaction.
2. Requirement of an external opinion to buttress view of the in-house team.
3. Requirement of an external opinion by a counter-party.
4. Litigation matters where an external counsel is required for arguments. (note: many in house teams prepare their own plaints etc. and there is need to hire external counsel as in-house counsels cannot argue in courts due to Advocates Act and BCI Rules).
5. Expert advise on a matter where in-house team does not have expertise.

I believe that frustration of the author is from the fact that many law firms (including several tier 1 law firms) claim expertise on certain matters but when it comes to delivery it turns out they have no idea. Their expertise was based on an individual who has long moved on from the firm, or some deal/ due diligence they did a while back where they came across a similar issue. This is frankly a rampant and unfortunate practice.

Frustration might also be coming from the fact that hourly rates of T-1 Indian law firms are not very far from Magic Circle law firms, and the quality is no where close. Also in many cases it is unfair to pass on costs of learning onto a client as a law firm had claimed to be an expert on a topic and then tries to charge 100s of hours in research time as they realised they had no idea what they were upto.

From what I can see, there are 2 types of media coverage on this:

1. RW media houses discussing it up front and bashing the Wire (e.g. Republic, Times Now, OpIndia etc)

2. Liberal/LW media houses limiting the coverage (e.g. NDTV, NYT, WaPo etc)

However, some important questions have been raised on Twitter which unfortunately both RW and LW media are not bothering to discuss . These are:

Questions the Left is asking:

1. Could the Wire have been the victim of an elaborate trap? Just like Nidhi Razdan's fake Harvard offer letter?

2. What will happen with Amit Malaviya's defamation case? Since the Wire has been constantly criticising the judiciary, could the judiciary now "teach them a lesson" and slap a huge damages award on the Wire? Which judge will hear the case?

3. Also, why has Malaviya said he will file both criminal and civil cases? why the need for a criminal case here? Will the Wire editor be arrested?

4. What the is role of star NLSIU alum Pranesh Prakash (CIS founder) in all this? In many respects, it is he who demolished the Wire's story by contacting cyber experts. He has also been taking sly digs at liberals in recent tweets. Why is Pranesh doing this? Is he/CIS batting for Meta? Or has he shifted his ideology to anti-woke libertarianism, similar to Elon Musk and Joe Rogan?

Questions the Right is asking:

1. Why has the blame been based on a relatively low-level reporter, when the report was in the name of someone senior in the Wire and this person defended the story vigorously on Twitter (Jahanvi Sen)? The theory put forward by some Twitter users is that the junior reporter is a humble non-nepo kid from Bihar, whereas Jahanvi's lineage makes her influential in the Delhi liberal ecosystem (according to Wikipedia, she is the daughter of Jayati Ghosh and the late Abhijit Sen).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhijit_Sen

2. Many liberal think tanks and newspapers declared India to be an autocracy and ranked India low on press freedom based on the Wire's Tok Fog report. Will those claims now be revised?

No. Amity Delhi, Symbiosis Pune and various other non-NLUs participate in the best moots in the world like Vis and Jessup, and often break too. Lloyd Law college recently reached the final of the ICC Asia Pacific mediation competition which is one of the top ADR competitions in the world.

The likelihood of this is just rarer, because NLU students have access to better resources and more successful alumni who help them out. But there's definitely no "wretched schemes" as you are alleging, most international competitions are run by independent organisations and judged by international lawyers who honestly probably can't even distinguish between NALSAR and NMIMS.

The pay is much lower than corporate teams
If you want exp for litigation later on, going for litigation directly may be more useful. If you want to have a corpus before you jump into litigation consider corporate because the pay including bonus will be much higher as to what you get for a disputes team. Tier 1 disputes A0 salaries were as low as 8 lacs.

Who is running the debate does not have any impact on the price that one puts on lives. The rest of your comment speaks of proportionate response , whereas culling is anything but one. Nobody has said that a dog that has gone mad cannot be put down mercifully. At the same time, most dogs including street dogs love human beings and would never do them any harm unless provoked badly. Asking that they be put down to make you feel safe is also like saying that men should be put down because almost every woman in the world feels unsafe around us and with far more legit reasons compared to one's fear of street dogs.

Indians' attitude towards desi (pariah) dogs is similar to what British had towards Indians. (And what partners have towards their juniors.) So, first of all, Indians need to depart from this colonial mindset and must stop reducing dogs to status symbols. Indian pariah dogs are best suited for tropical climate. Anyone with a husky should be shamed publicly. Nothing can justify having a husky in a tropical climate when they're made for siberian climatic conditions.
If you're a dog lover, adopt, don't shop!
There is a dire need to regulate breeding and sale of dogs.
Sterilization of stray as well as pet dogs is important.

Yep.

Once I prepared an invoice and gave the hours consumed.

Partner outrightly told me to increase the hours by two or three times.

I did.

The Client paid.

The reality is that these law firms are stuck in a time-warp. They used to charge such inflated bills for consuming a good number of hours in the pre-internet era. However, the internet era generation needs lesser time (almost by 50%) to find out about things.

So we get things done quickly and cheaply - something the older generation is not used to.

Now their client-relations have been going on from 90s since when their bills would have made sense. They look inflated only to the present generation who is benefiting from a lot of advantages of access to faster and comprehensive information.

However, the leading law firms are not realizing this and they are stuck in their own zone.

Either they wake up and stop over-charging than what makes sense in today's time. Clients shouldn't be paying the bill for their old habits and anachronistic working styles. Else you know a new buster scruggs is out on the horizon hunting for their clients.

I think the seniors on the matter should set realistic expectations for both clients and juniors. Diwali is a big deal in India and there should be no shame in saying you aren't working on diwali. If it's foreign clients - tell them it's as important as Christmas /Chinese New year or whatever else is as important. If it's Indian clients most should understand - except the ones who are doing the work once in their lifetime types (sign / close a deal during Diwali) - tell them you have already lost a few diwalis for work and it's not once in a lifetime for you. Push back otherwise they will keep assuming you will do their work no matter what. If there is more work than you can handle - pick the ones that suit you.

For fees quoted by these firms, I find them in the habitual practice of over-promising and under-delivering. They always come up with excuses to justify their failure to deliver within the agreed timeline.

I often come across the first cuts of the draft which on the face of it are riddled with errors (typo as well as conceptual) as a result of which I end up spending half a day doing a page turn with the external lawyers, which could have been easily avoided only if someone in their team bothered to have a re-look before sharing the drafts.
What I do not understand is lawyers use market practice as a justification for their ill-thought-out and under-researched advice. When I questioned a lawyer for blatantly questionable advice on the applicable stamp duty for our transaction, I was given a list of ‘so-and-so’ of the market who in past have happily taken such views on applicable law.
Dealing with the dispute partners is a different ball game altogether. For them, everything borders on the principle of uncertainty and “you know how Indian courts behave sometimes” advice. As a GC, try explaining these to your investors or your board.
I think there is an inherent quality issue in the legal practice irrespective of the big names involved.
"Allthatglistersisnotgold;
Oftenhaveyouheardthattold...."

Firms throw tantrums during every Day Zero. What matters is how they leave. I was also involved in the process and I have seen the firms leave after praising the CRC for their efforts. In fact, alumni involved also confirmed that later. Every process has the occasional goof up. Green students make mistakes, especially those who never got to see Day Z for over 2 years because of the pandemic. The fact that a record Day Z took place itself is enough to debunk all your allegations and impact thereof. You want to ask juniors to be careful in electing CRC members, do so internally. Stop doing this shameful thing anonymously in a forum like this to demean people who have actually worked hard.

I’m not trolling in the least bit. As a young woman working in Indian academia and a nujs alumna , I’m astounded how often students dehumanise us. Put their interests ahead of everyone else’s. You’re either a feminist for everyone or you’re a feminist for no one. Won’t do to pick and choose. Dyou know how often me and my colleagues have found harassing behaviour from students ? From other fellow faculty? Do you think the experience of harassment gets any better because you’ve aged a few years? Do you think when senior profs harass us they don’t have control over our careers? What are you even saying? Why is this generation so self absorbed!

This is why none of your concerns get sympathy from others- cause you don’t demonstrate sympathy for anyone except the image in the mirror. This is what breaks movements.

You should be able to have more complicated multiple discussions at the same time. If you want to boil everything down to your specific complaint- you’re just never going to learn how to be in a society.

I dont have any horror stories to share. Been smoking pot for almost 20 years now. Made me more patient and a good listener. Helped me relax from stresses and to think deeply and laterally about difficult subjects. Less agitated and aggressive than I used to be. I've mostly stayed away from alcohol while preferring a joint, and that has been great for my health.

There is always a dearth of good A0s in the competition law field. If you learn / read the law during college (on your own, of course, do not overly rely on the curriculum) and can demonstrate your knowledge and understanding during your internships, you should be able to get recruited. Unlike other corporate law fields, I have noticed that associates for comp law teams are required to know the basics themselves. It is not rocket science (any above average person can understand the law if they apply themselves to it), however, it is a bit different from the general legal commercial or corporate law knowledge required for other teams. So learn / read as much of the law as you can on your own. This will be appreciated during internships and make you stand out.

So the argument is that unless you’re doing first principles jurisprudence type work it’s all useless and not worth recognition? Smh. I’d rather be an indira Jaisingh and win victories for vulnerable communities and change the shape of Indian legal system than be a tarunabh khaitan and write books and bills that only show how much of an ivory tower we live in.

The world has come a long way since analytical positivism of the HART/ Raz variety. Recent advances in legal theory take place in the critical legal theory realm- a Kimberley Crenshaw or an Ambedkar in the Indian context have said far more interesting things about the law than most of the folks named on this list.

Yeah why this false binary though? What else are you doing that’s so important that you can’t do both these things properly?

I think the relationship between good performance at both is more related than not. If you’re a good student , you likely know more than the average intern and have more discipline and better work habits. Hence you’d be a better intern.

At the outset, it must be stated that on first glance, nobody as such comes to mind.

But let's examine this more closely

So, depends on a number of factors.

If you're talking about intellectuals who deal primarily in first principled arguments and maybe jurisprudents in that regard, especially when it comes to the strength of their assertions, the first name that'd spring to mind is Chhatrapati Singh. I would contend that his work is much better than Hart's work will ever be. But then again he's no more so I guess that wouldn't qualify as "today's academia".

If you're talking about scholars who influence the law in the way the mentioned have, the answer would be none. Nobody has done that sort of work in India or maybe even abroad for that matter.

Or if you're talking about the mere popularity of their work, even then nobody has the status of that of Hart.

So, based on all these factors it would appear that our intuition is right. Nobody today has the status of Hart or Dworkin and appears like nobody will in the near future.

However, it must be stated that there is a lot of scholarship from India that is great in it's own regard. The mere fact that they're not like Heart or Dworkin doesn't take anything away from their work.

I started in fourth year. At that time it was once a month or so, mostly when friends insisted on some special occasions. By fifth year, it was 2-3 times a week. Overall, it made me calmer, happier and frankly helped me deal with some stuff better.

Did not smoke up for a year after graduation. Frankly, that was a stupid decision - coping with all the stress and the completely changed life (and lifestyle) would had been easier if I could relax with a joint once a week.

Now, I smoke up once in 2-3 weeks, mostly with friends or occasionally alone/with my SO after a dense week. It hasn't affected my work in any manner. It hadn't affected my grades or social circle in college in any manner. Overall, I find it a decent recreational activity to chill with - the key is that you have to balance your normal life along with it, like with any other recreational activity (say, gaming, partying, or whatever helps you cope with this profession).

I wouldn't want 'mass culling'. Humans kill humans everyday. Shall we call for that kind of lazy solution here as well?

Solutions are so obvious they need not be stated, and have actually been described well by commentators 1.1 and 2. Please read those if you haven't already.