Dear Guest,
I do not mind being called a 'Clown'. After all, the ability to get others to laugh at oneself can be quite useful and socially productive. However, I do take objection to your use of the word 'Pest'. In line with my training, I am not going to report your comment but respond to whatever point it is that you are trying to make.

Could you explain how I stand 'exposed' and in what context? If you recall, I had publicly supported Prof. Sudhir Krishnaswamy's appointment as NLSIU Vice-Chancellor in 2019. All of my comments and posts in his favour were made publicly in my own name. What was I hiding? This year, it is my belief that Prof. Faizan Mustafa's continuation as NALSAR Vice-Chancellor for one more term (2022-2027) would be better for the institution. I am prepared to set out my reasons in detail as well. I am sure that some colleagues and students have their own grievances and criticisms of FM's decisions made over the last 10 years. Does that somehow bar me from expressing my views and having discussions with colleagues and students? Does that prevent a large segment of our students from submitting their views to the Search Committee? How come there has been no criticism of some of the other contenders and their supporters who are openly reaching out to sitting judges and government officials? I am sure that we can trust the experience and wisdom of the Search Committee members to closely scrutinise the records of all those who are in contention.

Which game of mine do the students know about? The representation seeking Prof. Faizan Mustafa's re-appointment was submitted to the Search Committee on April 24, 2022. The text was prepared by the students. I did read the draft and helped them tighten the language. The signatures were collected through their own efforts. You must note that 565 out of 840 full-time students have signed their letter. Do you think that it is humanly possible for me (or any other faculty member) to beg, cajole or coerce such a large number of independent-minded students to sign such a letter? It must also be noted that nearly 275 students have chosen not to sign their letter. I am sure that they have good reasons for doing so and I respect their decision.

So instead of resorting to anonymous personal attacks, you should have the moral courage to identify yourself and have an open discussion with me and others interested in the long-term welfare of NALSAR. As you may recall, I do have the patience to engage in sustained arguments, even with those who begin by abusing me. If you think that this forum is not appropriate, you can call me over the phone and visit Shamirpet.

Subject: Trilegal revises notice period to 90 days WEF from TOMORROW

Trilegal has sent an official email to the entire office this evening for revising the notice period (which was earlier 30 days) to 90 days citing market practices, protecting client interest, ensuring business continuity and blah blah (you get the gist). This change comes into effect from tomorrow (April 28), just when bonuses are about to be paid by the end of this week. Not to mention the obvious, but suppose if you were to put down your papers today to escape the 90 days notice period, you lose your bonus as per your retainer agreement. Thoughts?

Nalsar prof Sidharth Chauhan said:

Quote:

the present student body has submitted a representation to the Search Committee on April 24, 2022, requesting that Prof. Faizan Mustafa should be considered for re-appointment to the position.

This representation has been signed by 565 out of 840 full-time students, amounting to nearly 2/3rd of the present student body. I am attaching the text of their representation as a PDF file. We seek your help in publicising this statement so that it is read by external stakeholders in the judiciary, bar and academia.

I personally believe that Prof. Faizan Mustafa's continuation at NALSAR will be beneficial for the institution's further growth. Not just because he gave me a job here in 2013, but also for his pragmatic decision-making and consistent contributions to public awareness about our legal system. The student's statement sets out the reasons in a more elaborate manner.

Full representation below:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21748321-sbc_representation_for_nalsar_vc_appointment

I can speak for Mumbai - In most instances, where you live will not be close to where your office is.

If you choose to take a cab, I'd say you can roughly account for INR 400 per day (INR 200 to and fro). Roughly INR 12,000 per month. Not sure if your firm would comp cabs after 9 (which I'm assuming is the hour that most associates will be in office till, at the least). If this is the case, I think INR 6,000 can be safely accounted for.

If you end up taking the local, it's a fair bit cheaper - a first class pass for a month is INR 600. Add to that the cost of taking a share cab/auto from the station to your office, which would roughly amount to INR 50 as an upper limit. Roughly INR 2,100 per month - a great bargain.

If you buy your own car, I'm not very sure how much petrol, depreciation, EMI, etc would figure into your expenses, so I cant really speak to that.

If you want to take the bus, I have one word of advice for you - Don't :)

As someone who worked in a Big four ten years ago. The salaries they are stating how is something around the salary I got as a fresh graduate in PwC Mumbai. I’m sure they pay much more now! Also they mostly hire lawyers for Indirect tax / GST work and their litigation team in Delhi. And the work culture is not chill at all .. and the competition is super high, stressful and is a rat race . Also they pay really well to managers and above but they don’t have a one scale one pay concept . It will differ according to where you are from.. which firm you joined in from .. the clients you bought it etc . When I say differ .. it will differ greatly . Hope this helps .

Hhheeeelllllooooo!!!

The title says it all. I want to know the best software for filing purposes. Pagination, easier redact option, page arranging. Looking for a PDF software that is more accessible and convenient for litigating lawyers.

This is especially important since all filings in the High Court of Delhi (at least I know) is being done online.

Please let me know ya'lls thought and view on this.

CAM grows to 160 partners with latest batch of promos.

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Hey buddy,

It’s not about them - it’s about you and your approach to life. Please focus on yourself, your fitness, your studies and your needs. Joke around, stay in touch with people (including the people who bitch behind your back), make plans and take leads in college events, spend time in library - do research or help people out, do what makes ^you^ happy. Take things like back biting, bitching behind backs in stride and learn to ignore them. This are short term games and people will forget in times to come.

Life is not a zero sum game, and it’s not a short term game either. You please play a long term game - where you have character, integrity, honesty and values. Don’t engage in this shit, offline college offers you so many opportunities to make friends in events and conferences, and Bengaluru in general is a gem of a city. Please keep in touch with people, ignore the noise and - never forget it’s about you!

So much to do, so many people to meet, you study in the best university in the country and have so much to offer to aspirants, to other law schools, to community - if you care about three people (who happen to be young and misguided about priorities in life), that’s just doing yourself and the world some sort of injustice.

Please find solace in books, please create a space for values in life, and please go out and meet with people. You will find we live in a lonely world, and friendship more often than not is appreciated a lot :)

They do not seem like good people.

As someone who was in your position in law school I just have one thing to say. The best revenge is just being happy without them.

This is of course easier said than done.

If you're feeling depressed to the point that you are finding it difficult to function I would recommend that you get help. Bangalore has no shortage of resources you can use. Just walk into a Nimhans. Get treatment. It could involve a short course of treatment, it could mean therapy. Work on yourself and realise that your self worth is not dependant on the acceptance of others.

Of course it will hurt to find the people you are close to don't feel the same way back. But this is just a minor setback. You have a long life to live and will meet many more interesting and nice people who will value you for what you bring to the table. More importantly you got a lot of shit to do while in law school. You need to focus on that.

There are plenty of good people among the seniors and the juniors. Try to get involved in campus activities. One thing I realised I really enjoyed was spending time outside the campus in my final two years. Try to join activities with like minded people. Learn a language or an instrument. Make time for yourself outside law school.

It is very easy to imagine that law school is the world. It really isn't. There is a lot of stuff happening outside.

If things are feeling out of hand. Talk to someone you trust immediately. Don't let it fester inside. Call home. Reconnect with old friends from school if you have to. Don't worry things will get better.

Not that you asked, but just a piece of advice because I’m awake and scrolling. You really, really don’t need to take these services. The application process and the course itself (lol) takes up a lot of money. You can manage these applications yourself. If you have questions just reach out to people who have done their LLMs on LinkedIn. I always try to respond and help anyone who reaches out to me. I’d be happy to help you. You could leave an anonymous email here if you don’t want to disclose your identity.

Tier-1 jobs consume you so much, it’s nearly impossible to find time to actually think about next steps (unless you interview at another Tier 1 and jump ship, which will do nothing to change/improve your situation). I took the plunge and it worked out well for me. Also, it’s a good time as far as hiring is concerned. If you’re truly miserable (like I was), I’d say just quit. Being on your notice period itself will feel like a huge weight lifted off your shoulders, atleast mentally. I don’t mean to romanticise but honestly life is just too short to keep doing what you hate. And if you’re like me, it’s also too short to not take risks. If you can financially afford to ofcourse. If you do things in a certain way because others do or because it seems like the only “right” way, it’s likely your career trajectory is going to be the vanilla path most seemingly successful lawyers take. Not that that approach is wrong at all, it’s vanilla because it works. But from your question it seems to me that you’re looking for something else :)

Get out of your bubble. Young people today are not any of those things. A teen vogue article does not represent India. Indian Youth are turning highly conservative. This is a natural consequence of a lack of jobs, growth or prospects. No one has been able to deliver the India they want to them. So they cling to their prejudices and religion.

You sound like someone who has literally never left the Colaba Woke Circus. Get out in the real world. Talk to people your age who are already working two or three jobs. Ask them what they think of liberalism.

Liberalism died in India cause India's liberals failed to deliver.

HI Litigation Lawyer.

I hope your question was in good faith.

I am moving from a law firm environment to litigation. I always wanted to litigate and thankfully I have some parental support to help me for the next few years. However, the low pay is why I delayed my decision to litigate (as have many of my friends).

Of course, I know I will get to learn a lot more and do intellectually stimulating work as a litigator. But you do know that juniors are not paid enough money in litigation. Think about this. If I could easily pocket north of a lakh a month in a firm (and a good bonus) v. getting barely 25k in litigation - how would I be able to choose litigation.

Assuming you are in Delhi and you are willing to pay 50+ I can put you in touch with my juniors/ classmates who would definitely be a great addition to any litigation chamber.

One major reason people leave firms is to go and work for a good boss - so I hope on that front as well you intend to try hard.

I am serious - if the numbers work, please post here - we can connect outside of Legally India (If you are serious - I would be glad to share my name and number).

Best,
Random.

See Rule 51 of Part VI of the Bar Council of India Rules:

"51. An advocate may review Parliamentary Bills for a remuneration, edit legal text books at a salary, do press-vetting for newspapers, coach pupils for legal examination, set and examine question papers; and subject to the rules against advertising and full-time employment, engage in broadcasting, journalism, lecturing and teaching subjects, both legal and non-legal."

Under 51 you're allowed to lecture as long as it's not full time. Not sure what the terms are at Jindal. But if they are on retainer contracts and not employment contracts, and these contracts allow them to go on with regular practice, I don't see the issue.

Juniors are useless and incompetent cause they don't fully understand their role and why what they are doing is important. I have found the following has helped me over the years in training:

1. Remind them that an Advocate is at the end of the day an independent professional irrespective of where they work. So just like you are liable to the Client, they are just as liable as you. This will make them step up and do the homework.

2. Ethics training. I cannot stress this enough. Make them understand the ethics of the profession. Ethics are not just about morals. They tell you the duty of care that is required and also tell you how to discharge that duty. Once a junior fully comprehends their ethical responsibilities towards the Client, they will step up.

3. Remind the junior that their entire job is is to become so good, that you become useless to them and the client. Your junior's goal should not just be to become "good enough" but the goal should be to "become better than you". Set that as the target. Then they will stop seeing you as a boss and finally start seeing you as the teacher and mentor that you are trying to be.

4. When you reprimand, make sure that you don't make it look like they have disappointed you. Your reprimands should be such that (1) The junior realises that they should do better (2) They realise that they have the skill to have done better (3) The junior is disappointed that they didn't. When reprimands are issued this way, mistakes don't repeat as it creates a sense of personal responsibility.

5. Be magnanimous. Let them know you're taking efforts to ensure they are able to deal with the other aspects of their lives as well. Remind them that if they do their job well, everyone gets to go home on time to attend to the other aspects of their lives.

Travel budgets can be divided into the following bands (progressively more expensive):

Band 1 - Domestic: Kerala, Goa, Rajasthan, Himachal, J&K are popular choices
Band 2 - Sri Lanka, cheap SE Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia etc), cheap ME (Dubai)
Band 3 - Expensive SE Asia (Singapore), expensive ME (Israel, Jordan), west Asia
Band 4 - Eastern Europe, Cheap North Asia (China, HK, Russia), most parts of Africa
Band 5 - Western Europe, USA, Canada, Expensive North Asia (Japan, Korea)
Band 6 - Australia, NZ, cruises
Band 7 - South America, Caribbean Islands, luxury cruises
Band 8 - South pole, Alaska, Greenland
Band 9 - Outer space

Band 9 will be a future possibility. Many partners choose Band 7 and 8 destinations but would also travel to Band 6 destinations. SAs and PAs plan band 3 to band 5 destinations but would occasionally choose to go to band 6 destinations as well (compromising on accommodation). Most law firm associates go to band 2 to band 4 destinations quite easily; some going for band 5 as well.

Disclaimers: 1. These are general trends, don't reply and say I'm an associate but I went to xyz place. Exceptions will always exist.
2. Also, these bands are formulated based on standard 3 to 4 star accommodation and typical itineraries.
3. There will always be people who will back pack to expensive destinations on a relatively small budget. This analysis is not meant to include those people.
4. This analysis assumes you are paying for your own trip. If you come from a rich family, this analysis doesn't hold good.

When you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail. Reservations in moots won’t mean those teams will win any moots no. Not that they will get the prestigious moots or the support to win them.

I do agree that it’s awful that Savarna students dominate moots, debates and quizzes. I think what these committees should do is dedicate a huge percentage of their resources ( which they get because ALL students pay into the fund) to helping dalit and Bahujan and adivasi students catch up. Hire language tutors, hire mooting /debating coaches, hire support staff - conduct outreach programmes. They should do this because having a larger competitive pool will only make the mooting, debating, quizzing culture stronger. I don’t think first year students should be sent out of the university to moot or debate. I think we should use the first year to train all the first year students and do selections the second year onwards. When at least some of the drawbacks from different access to schooling and English has been over come.

Clothes - kind of clothes depends on office. No matter what kinds it is - ensure they're clean and well ironed (if possible re-ironed if the dhobi irons crease is still there). Makes a really good impression.

Shoes: clean shoes. Keep black and brown both.

Both of above - try not to have flashy brands. Helps to keep it simple and professional.

Suit - most law firms are chill about it on a daily basis (best to check with the firm). However you will need them on and off for certain meetings. Ensure you have a couple of them clean and ironed to be worn whenever required. Try to spend on a nice suit - it speaks for itself.

Technical requirements - talking to someone in the practice area you want to work may be best

Intellectual requirements - you've bagged the job. You probably have this. Other than that - usual preachy stuff - be hungry for knowledge etc.

Accessories - nothing required as such. A good noise cancelling headphones may prove very very helpful - keeps hands free to take notes on calls and the office chatter out to help focus at work. Apart from that - try a decent laptop bag (not backpack). Looks better in meetings. I use backpacks but have a laptop bag for meetings. Also please wear a belt on a daily basis- irrespective of whether the trousers are lose or not.

Mental preparedness - read up as much as possible on "imposter syndrome". Please keep in mind almost everyone you will work with during your career goes through it. You also will everyday. Don't worry about it.

Your ability to cope with issues will make you a fine professional and not whether you create the issues. The good folks deal with issues that you create. So learn from them on how handle an issue.

Just my two cents.

One more thing - everyone in a law firm is looking to dole out free advice (quite ironical of me i admit). Be smart to know what to take seriously :-)

1. Clothes (formal or semi formal- do's and don'ts) - have pastel colored shirts (4/5). Keep two nice white shirts. have matching pants. 2 pairs each of black and grey would be fine.
2. Shoes (brand recommendations, how many pairs) - buy one nice shoe. buy more if you can. but buy one good shoe. a 3-4k amazon bought Carlton London lasted me some good 3+ years without much wear and tear. Cheap ones look ugly and get uglier by the minute. you wouldn't want a shoe emergency in the middle of a meeting now, would you?
3. Is a suit required? - have one nice black suit at least. if you can, buy more. Suits look good. Make you look better. Follow Barney's advice from HIMYM.
4. Technical requirements - get a signal booster in your house if you have network issues. Get a wifi. If you are financially constrained, ignore.
5. Intellectual requirements - have an open mind. read a few books. Fiction / Non Fiction. Read about deals that happened recently where your team was invovled.
5. Accessories etc. - have a nice tie or two. Get these from a small boutique. No need to buy 5k ties as A0s. Rs. 250 ties are more than enough.
6. Mental preparedness ( things other than "get ready to work 11-12 hours a day") - have an open mind. You might be right, but mostly you wouldn't be. There will be a pattern - follow it and stick to it. If you can see a pattern, don't change it. Question it. understand why it is there. If you can identify 10 wrong things, take it up with the person who has been in the team for the longest. An SA might have served more time in that team than the partner themselves (funny, but true).

Don't judge. Don't repeat mistakes. Be kind. Don't talk.

Good luck!

This is coming from a male who is around 25 and works at Mumbai office of a law firm.

1. Clothes (formal or semi formal- do's and don'ts)

- evergreen basics > fast fashion for both formal and casual
- match belt with shoes
- shirts light solids > dark solids (naturally go with dark solids)
- Fit > unfit (fit check = sleeves not extra long, pockets on shirt not too big (don't buy with pockets actually),collar not too loose, trousers be fit too)
- Some brands are just ideal - you want simple shirts without complication in multiple shades - just walk in to a Westside if nothing works.
(You will have to budget some amount to do all this)

For casuals - you can sport evergreen basics again - Chinese collars, polos, with light shade trousers, etc.

Keep it simple, ultimately your neighbourhood Trends, H&M, Westside, etc. are idle quick stop shopping that you can do and not waste a lot of time. Start off with a minimum of 6 pairs (definitely own 2 whites, and off-white shades in grey, blue, green, pink, (or) light stripes of these colours for shirts - trousers can be repeated but do get 2 blacks, 1 dark navy, 1 dark grey). Add on a pair every month.

2. Shoes (brand recommendations, how many pairs)

Minimum: (i) one black formal; (i) one brown formal; (i) one white casual; (i) one sports; (i) one non-white casual.

Brands are irrelevant - they should look clean AND fresh, go for the evergreen choice. Own a belt of the shade of formal shoes. Get the socks that look clean.

Brands are relevant only if you are choosing something exotic to my mind - nobody expects an associate to spend a bomb.

3. Is a suit required?

and a tie as well. You should have a black colour, navy blue (and if possible - dark grey). a light grey and blue tie helps as well. These are specifically for client meetings only usually, but they can happen at a moments notice. For an A0 - even one might be enough.

4. Technical requirements

Get the basics required in your practice area polished. Become well read - but at the same time, explore and have some personality. There are no technical requirements and nobody expects you to be Einstein, but every product delivered should be (i) on time; (ii) diligently done; (iii) ready to handover to client (styling, proofreading and grammar wise). This really helps set up trust in you, but if you can't do this, nm.

5. Intellectual requirements

See above.

5. Accessories etc

None - can show character by wearing a ring, watch.

6. Mental preparedness ( things other than "get ready to work 11-12 hours a day")

Its not as bad as they make it sound, but you'll have to eat well, live well, exercise well (and this often gets missed in a law firm lifestyle). So please get these things sorted, move in the city in advance and ensure you can focus on work - when it starts (please enjoy yourself during orientation).

So before joining - please (i) get your place sorted and furnished - make a house, you are a professional now, get proper wardrobe/bed/table chairs - and setup ready; (ii) if possible - check the traffic to office and avoid anything more than 30 mins (though people survive working all over the place); (iii) good food, lunch box, cook, maids, laundry; (iv) gym; (v) access to eateries.

If possible, don't be single.

Cheers!

I love (/sarcasm) how all of the answers to this question seem to give the benefit of the doubt to the junior in question, without considering whether the senior in question might already have tried everything that he/she could do to get the junior to up his/her game.

While I agree with the response by "SA" to the extent that he/she advices against yelling, and concede that to a good extent, success may very well be contextual (in that a person who might flounder in one setup might succeed at another, where the environment is more conducive to his/her success), it is also very important to acknowledge that there might a legitimate problem with the junior in question that cannot be ignored or reflexively dismissed.

As a high performing mid-level at a Tier 1 setup, I have come to learn that the ability to succeed in a Tier 1 law firm (and I imagine this might be capable of extrapolation to other setups as well) is a function of two things, at minimum: (a) competence; and (b) the ability to build and maintain a functional professional equation with your colleagues (regardless of your personal like/dislike for them as individuals). Competence in turn is predicated on: (a) having more than a baseline level of intelligence; and (b) having the ability and willingness to work hard, even in the face of difficult deadlines and tedious tasks that come with territory.

Where a junior is either not smart enough (and this is the case often enough to be a problem -- though this has no bearing on the worth of said junior as a human being) or unable/unwilling to work hard, he/she is bound to struggle in a law firm setup. Of course, even a smart and hardworking junior might struggle in certain setups, but it is disingenuous to assume that the latter is the situation at play when it could be just as likely the former.

The bottom line is - not everyone is built to work in a law firm, and law firms by their very nature are organized in a manner that effectuates an up or out dynamic. Some people are simply not a good fit for law firms and this becomes apparent from their inabilities or attitude. On the one hand, I have had the privilege of working with juniors who are an absolute delight to work with: they go out of their way to understand the underlying issues and requirements of the task, seek guidance in a timely fashion, and pro-actively engage with the material available to them in the firm's internal records and legal databases before coming up with thoughtful work-product that reveals the effort that they've put. While the work-product of even such juniors is scarcely error-free, the errors are typically of a kind that takes a more experienced hand to detect and address, which is completely fine. These juniors are also incredibly receptive to feedback and mark-ups and tend to rise through the ranks quite quickly. I have also had the privilege of working with interns that have provided me with deliverables that have by far surpassed the output that A1s and A2s have managed to churn at times.

On the other hand, I have had the displeasure of working with juniors who have a pathological disregard for instructions, refuse to put in even the bare minimum effort before turning in their work (such as reading provisions of the relevant laws before drafting documents, or looking for precedents before putting pen to paper on aspects which require an examination of precedents), do not respond to messages on time (or at all, at times) and have to be followed up with numerous times only to get shoddy work product from them, are unreceptive to feedback and are more concerned about their ego and image, and are whiny. Such juniors are terrible to work with, and exhibit scant regard for the importance of the work assigned to them, and later whine about how their seniors are difficult to work with.

It is very much possible that the junior in question falls in the second basket and not the first. In such case, my advice to you is this: avoid working with them, and flag the issues you face while working with such juniors to your partner(s) for them, to action during appraisals. It is not worth getting your panties in a bunch over hopeless cases and as tedious as it might be, it's better (for the sake of your own sanity, first and foremost) to do even the more clerical aspects of your matters by yourself rather than assign them to a useless junior only to have him/her fuck it up, and then, having to clean it yourself (and waste hours that could be spent more profitably elsewhere).

However, if the junior is struggling because you have not trained him/her well, then, a part of the problem lies with you. The fact of the matter is, even if one is smart and pro-active about learning, one does not enter this profession well trained as law schools do an awful job of imparting the skillsets and core competencies that are required to function (leave aside succeed) in real-world practice. Most law school faculties even in elite institutes are the sorts who can't get placed in a firm even if they try, and don't know their knuckles from their ankles. While it is not strictly speaking, your job, to train your juniors, it is very much in your interest to do so, so that you end up not having to shoulder the burden of your matters on your own, especially as you become more senior. Having a well oiled machine with competent resources at all levels is of crucial importance for life at a law firm to be palatable.

1. I don't run a business to advertise or a skill to sell online, so it's not going to earn me money.
2. It didn't make me happy either. I was always comparing my life with others and being the competitive mess I am it didn't sit well me.
3. I do not see the app adding any form of value addition in my life. I have a group of l my childhood friends on WhatsApp and I share my good moments there - unhinged and without judgment, it feels good.

"Why should I pay them when they are under me to learn?"

That question is the sole reason no decently talented/sincere person wants to be a litigator anymore. Food delivery agents get more salary and perks than these so called great lawyers offer their juniors.

Please do not argue on this like a retard "but in litigation, sky is the limit". No, it's not. 95% of litigators in this country will never make more than 1L in their entire lives. But a basic engineering graduate from a tier-3 college working in Infosys/TCS will after a few years at least. And btw, they will also "get paid to learn" in their initial 5 years.

This idea is so badly framed that it looks trollish. But I am going to call your bluff. Yes. Weaker sections have an uneven playing field when it comes to moots. It has to do with access to resources more than anything else. I would say that we may give them a 5% head start instead of reservations.

Like a handicap in Golf, a person from the weaker section should start with 5% of the total score.

The moot organisers could also provide them with additional resources, such as Manupatra Access (Jessup used to do this for everyone though, not sure if they still do), free printing facilities (printing for moots used to cost us an arm and a leg in college) and maybe a 3-5 day extension on Memorial submission deadlines.

Not all forms of affirmative action is reservation you know?

Remfry pays 65-75k for freshers. Khurana/K&S/Lall/Saikrishna pay 40-50k to A0s. The worst of them all is Anand and Anand which despite having such a huge name pays peanuts as low as 35-45k to freshers. Naik and RK Dewan pay about 55-65k to freshers. However, the growth trajectory is huge as SA 2s and 3s earn as much as 20-22l at these top firms and a lot of people have an upward curve to become In house counsels since a major chunk of legal work at large conglomerates revolve around IP and Company Law.

In my book, there are three things to worry about, your appearance, your face-time and attitude. Let's break those down.

Appearance - you look like the job that you want. Not the one that you have. In the first few days, wear full-on formals. This means a shirt and trousers. Tie optional but preferred (maybe coz I like ties). If you look at yourself in the mirror and ask, is this ok to wear to work, it probably isn't.
Use this time to analyse what others are wearing, particularly SAs. Adjust accordingly. One pair of comfortable formal shoes should be enough. Just make sure it's something that lasts and that you can wear for hours every day.

Face-time - justice must not only be done, it must also seen to be done. Same with A0s in T1s. Come in before anyone else, leave after your team has left. People will be divided on this, some will claim that a work life balance is important. I agree. Make yourself invaluable at work, life will follow.

Attitude - there's no such thing as too much work. Even if you're drowning in it. You've got multiple seniors giving you random stuff to do, get it done. Dont complain, atleast not to colleagues. I've been of the firm view that no matter how toxic a work environment is, the one thing that firms value in the long run is well, value itself. Partners and MAs and PAs will get a sense of how much value a person brings to the team. As an A0, you wont be bringing much value to begin with. How about learning all you possibly can on the job, to get to be valuable as soon as possible?

Lastly, the work environment at law firms can be unbelievably toxic. You will probably get picked on. It's not going to be easy to navigate, but a sense of self-deprecatory humor and a little bit of humility will go a long way.

To use a certain Rudyard Kipling's words.
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
etc etc.

But of course, this is my book. Feel free to write yours.

Take it. It's the worth the chance because of two reasons:

1. The 2-week period is standard for a start. Ask any intern at SAM. You can always get it extended, or ask for a callback later if vacancies aren't there. Extension is dependent on the team recommending it. So ensure to do good work, be visible to the lead partner and your training guide (your mentor), and ask for an extension. If the team recommends, it's practically a given. If there's vacancies, you'll get an extension. If not, a callback after some time. Try to ensure your callback internship is for 4-6 weeks, so that they have an aggregate of 6-8 weeks to evaluate you. That's the minimum I suspect they will need to evaluate you for a PPO.

2. Assuming you're into a transactional practice, virtual work really shouldn't be that much of a problem. SAM is working hybrid now, and their tech ensures you can do all work from home that you could have done in the office. The only downside is, your interactions will suffer. But that's a small downsides, if you ask me, considered to the potential benefits.

Source of information: Personal knowledge, and conversations with other SAM interns.

As an A0 that joined a T1 last year, here's what my experience has been like so far:

1.Cothes: Western formals- For men it's usually straight forward: Formal pants and full sleeve formal shirts. Ties and suits overall are not mandatory but of course this varies firm to firm. For the first day if you're in doubt either ask the HR before joining or just put on a tie, better to be over dressed than under dressed. Women have more options when it comes to clothing but this also varies firm to firm, some allow formal Indian wear as well. As long as it's not flashy it should do, you'll see a lot of blues, Greys, whites etc. It would be wise to own a couple of suits as your firm may require you to wear them for certain things: physical client meetings, events etc.
Shoes: Anything considered formal wear.

Technical and intellectual requirements and mental preparedness:
Going to bundle these together. Barring mental preparation, these depend entirely on your practice area.

The general advice I can offer is that if you're fortunate to have access to seniors ask them about the day to day of an A0 and what kind of documents and forms they have to review. If you don't have seniors to reach out to then I recommend that you try to gauge what is important from a practical perspective in your area. So if you're in GC don't go through the entire act, just focus on things like private placement, ESOPs, issue of securities, share capital and debenture rules and the forms that come along with day-to-day practice: PAS3 PAS4 MGT14 etc. Read a standard template SHA or whatever standard document your practice sees a lot of and see what purpose each clause serves.
Knowing compliance requirements helps as well payment of gratuity ESIC, POSH etc.
Intellectually your first few months in all probability will not be "exciting". A lot of doc reviews, proof reading etc. It's tough work in terms staying focused to not make silly errors so just try to be zoned in while working. This of course gets harder the longer your hours are but it is what it is.
As far as mental preparation goes, you need to have a system in place eventually. The hours are probably going to be long so you need things that keep you sane and supported. Talk to other A0s when you can, it will make your experience less isolating and if you mess up at least you'll know the other people are having a rough time too, it's just the nature of the job. Your peers can also help you out for small things that they might have come across and you haven't. Try finding friendly seniors whether A1 or SA or Partner doesn't matter, everyone has more experience than you so all of then would be able to help you. Don't bother them but maybe occasionally you can approach them with a trivial question (this is hard to do in a fully wfh set up) and they'd be able to guide you.
Aside from this know that your job isn't just about doing the job, a lot comes with it. You'll have to manage work load so as to not over commit but also not push away work. You'll have to manage yourself in stressful situations i.e. manage your reactions, don't beat yourself up over small things if you get yelled at take the criticism you can use to improve, give yourself some time to feel sorry for yourself and then move on. These are all soft skills you'll need to survive which are probably as important as technical prowess, you don't want to burnout too quickly.
This is all I can offer
Good luck!

if you cannot get recommendation letter from a SC judge, then be in the top 5% in your batch, oxbridge will take you, SOP needs to be decent, just tell a good story as to how LLM is going to help your career progress, publication and other co-extra-curricular help but does not override academic ranking

outside Oxbridge but in next top 3 will be LSE, UCL and KCL. They will like you to have more than 65% marks and some extra-co-curricular achievements (participation in one moot, one publication etc.) marks can be below 65 but must be more than 60

then we have QMUL, SOAS, Bristol, Edinburgh and Warwick and rest of the Russell group. They will take you in if you have more than 60% marks. nothing else needed

I don't think this person is as incompetent and useless as you think. Take a pause and see, maybe its just your frustration and stress making it worse?

TRAIN, DON'T YELL

Been in both shoes, had my then PA now partner not been patient and kind, I would not have been where I currently am and trust me, I kick ass!

As others have already said, it all depends entirely on your team. I'm basing this answer on my personal knowledge, I've interned with SAM last winter.

The practice now seems to be to assign a Training Guide (fancy term for essentially a mentor) to each intern. Your TG will typically be an SA or a PA, basically the seniormost person in the team below a Salaried Partner.

The TG has to fill a feedback form at the end of your tenure. Three things can happen thus: (1) you get recommended for a PPO interview, (2) you get recommended for a callback, or (3) nothing. Practically, I suspect the TG will consult the Partner on the team before they make any recommendation. So, the key is: do great work for, ask for feedback from, and ensure you're noticeable to, both the Partner and the TG.

There's no hard and fast rule that you won't get a PPO without a callback. I know because I got recommended for a PPO interview after a single 6 week stint. However, to be fair, a PPO after a single stint generally appears to be rare.

Please try to get your internship extended, to an aggregate of at least 6-8 weeks. A recommendation from the Partner, or TG, will practically guarantee it.

Seeking genuine advice from people who've been in the same position (don't really have anyone to talk about this so trolls kindly spare this thread):

I am really confused about my current position at a t1 law firm and on multiple levels - I haven't been able to enjoy the practice area, I also think I might want to do something outside law, and also don't really want to move to metro cities.

Thinking of taking a career break and figuring out my options. I feel like I am unable to explore my other options while working because it takes up a lot of my mental bandwith. Would you advise taking this route? Pls share if there have been similar experiences in your life.

https://www.nujs.edu/careers/ford-foundation-chair-at-nujs-11042022.pdf

The position was advertised on August 2021. Now it is being re-advertised. Several questions arise:

1. Why was it re-advertised? That too after so long?

2. Who will be on the selection panel?

3. The first Chair occupant was Upendra Baxi (when Chimni was VC). Then former Supreme Court Justice Ruma Pal and Prof Uday Raj Rai (when MP Singh was VC). Then former Chief Justice of India Althmas Kabir (during the transition from Singh to Bhat) and then former Supreme Court Justice Tarun Chatterjee (a questionable appointment, but nevertheless a former SC judge).Will an illustrious persons like Baxi or Justice Pal will once again occupy the Chair, or whether it will go to an underserving person handpicked by the TMC.

I just wanted to let everyone know that there's a version of Data singing Blue Skies. If you haven't checked it out, you need to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LydlTSshr3w

Live Long and Prosper!

https://www.barandbench.com/news/lawschools/nalsar-hyderabad-invites-applications-post-vice-chancellor-university

Here are 3 strong candidates who qualify. Feel free to add to the list!

1. VC Vivekanandan, PhD (NLSIU), HNLU VC.
- Had applied to NUJS. After being rejected (because of politics) joined HNLU. May apply to upgrade to a better NLU.
Strengths: Already an existing VC, prior to that also had admin experience (Dean of Bennett and IIT Law School), has taught at NALSAR as a professor, technically counts as both a TLC and NLU alum
Weaknesses: Below par publication record, teaches IP and not public law

2. Ved Kumari, PhD (DU) NLUO VC
- Currently VC of NLUO, long tenure at DU.
Strengths: Panel members will like a DU person, woman, public law scholar, smart, some international experience, well published
- Weaknesses: Strict disciplinarian, clashes with some students because of this

3. Srividhya Raghavan, LLB (NLSIU), LLM (KCL), PhD (GW). Professor at Texas A&M.
- Had applied to be NLUD VC, did not make it. May throw in her hat again.
Strengths: Well published, NLSIU alum, woman, smart, long international experience
Weaknesses: Lack of contacts and pull in India, TLC panel members (expect Baxi) may root for TLC alum, neither of the panel members have much idea of IP law and may favour a public law scholar.

I write this as someone who is disenchanted with law as well.

Whether you continue at NLS or move to DU, you will graduate in 2025, so both paths will take the same amount of time before you get your first attempt at UPSC.

Normally, I encourage people to leave law school if they don't find it to be to their liking, because that is what I wish I had been bold enough to do. But in most of these cases, a BA.LLB has no value addition to offer to their true goal/interest. I always had doubts about joining law school and I think it would have been better if I had quit after first year and joined DU, I had the scores to get the course and college I wanted. But that is because I wanted to do something I couldn't with a law degree and could only do with DU. That is not the case for you.

NLS as an institution, IMO, FAR outranks most colleges and degrees from DU in terms of prestige and marketability. And the crowd is also likely to be better at NLS. As someone from Delhi who almost went to DU I can tell you a VERY significant chunk of DU students consists of vapid airheads. That is not to say the entire University is necessarily worthless, no, far from it, but NLS, esp at the undergrad level, is more likely to provide an intellectually stimulating environment.

Coming to your goal of UPSC, a law degree is a VERY good bundle of subjects for UPSC. You will have a very solid grounding in polity and the Constitution, more so than a Pol Science honours student. And studying these from a legal angle gives you the analytical skills needed for Mains.
Also, this may be a slightly controversial opinion, but as an optional paper, law is a great choice. The syllabus is VERY easily doable, even if you don't particularly like law and tbh kinda interesting.
Even after selection, there are several postings that are reserved for people with a background in law. So a BA degree, unless in economics or something, is unlikely to open any additional doors for you in terms of what roles you can get, but a law degree will. Even if you apply for other government services like Class B officers with the MEA etc, a background in law can help you get placed in the Treaties Division or related offices.

Delhi offers a lot of advantages, sure, but you are in your second year. You have three years to go before you take a stab at the exam. So you won't (and shouldn't) be joining physical coaching right now anyway. If you earnestly start you preparation now, you probably won't even need classroom coaching, just a test series. Besides this, Delhi doesn't offer any other advantage.

TLDR, I am all for shifting, but when the course you're shifting to gives you some specific advantage, something you cannot do from your current path. You have invested significant time and money into NLS. Also, your goal may change eventually, and the opportunity cost of leaving NLS is very significant. So consider all this before you make a decision. Good luck.

1. (i) Every firm has to accommodate nepo kids for internships even if they dont have vacancies.

(ii) Interns sometimes can be used for redundant tasks like citation, numbering, preliminary research (the person asking you to do this needs to do it all over again anyways to be sure).

(iii) firms closing down internships because they are not looking to hire is just going to be lose-lose situation. They can at best clarify whether or not they are looking to hire. But if they do this senior students will probably avoid the internships leading to a natural decrease in quality.

2. I believe Khaitan has this policy, Not sure though. Honestly I cant rule out the Tier 1 HRs saying this just to get rid of that conversation.

3. (i) Unprofessional because they aren't the best at their job. Why would an MBA join the HR department of a Law Firm? They have to be bad at what they do to get hired here.

(ii) Unprofessional because they know there aren't going to be any consequences. India me kisi ko thoda sa bhi power de do toh woh khud ko PM samajhne lagega. Try going in through a client contact or something and see how they're attitude changes. They will be at your feet willing to accommodate you for the month/time/practice of your choice and respond promptly as well.

(iii) A lot of times these are not even proper HR people looking after internships, they are just secretaries. Prospective/ Interns are the only people they can probably mistreat. (Check JSA)

Law practice in India has become excruciatingly difficult for first generation lawyers hailing from humble backgrounds.

What has made it even more despicable is the sheen with which lawyers converse about it - that "a young lawyer is necessarily supposed to struggle, so much so that he/she has to give up on her peace of mind and sustain themselves with the pennies that their senior has to offer."

It is disheartening that lawyers are perpetually fed with the thought that they need to learn and learn before they earn.

This has made their lives more miserable. Earning happens simultaneously with learning. With law as a profession, which is the most dynamic, considering it changes by the minute, learning never ends. So, it is logically untenable that learning has to precede earning. Learning cannot be objective.

The senior members of the bar, unfortunately, have perpetuated this systemic oppression and exploitation.

There are a lot of new lawyers who are not capable enough but they do not set the standard for remuneration.

The good ones, who have the required skills, should not suffer from this deliberate vortex of being underpaid.

Litigation is becoming like a Gymkhana club, where members have ultimate monopoly and only those with means can enter.

Privilege should never decide what one wants to commit herself to.

Talent, merit, hardwork, capability and competence - these should be the only factors that make or break a career.

Hi I'll be joining a T1 in a couple of months as an A0. It's a completely new world and I'm sure many people every year face the troubles of adjusting to it. Can this thread please be dedicated to helping out with what all essentials are required before joining in? Especially because I've never worked at the firm in person. It's all been WFH during my internship too. Also moving to another city for the job (Delhi). Hence a lot of things are new and i need to sort them soon.

Please guide us on-
1. Clothes (formal or semi formal- do's and don'ts)
2. Shoes (brand recommendations, how many pairs)
3. Is a suit required?
4. Technical requirements
5. Intellectual requirements
5. Accessories etc
6. Mental preparedness ( things other than "get ready to work 11-12 hours a day")
(These may make me sound trivial and may attract comments like why I'm asking about accessories and stuff which may make me look less serious about my work but i understand that it's important to fit into the law firm environment, and a lot of these contribute to it)
And anything else you wished someone told you while joining in. There's enough law firm bashing in other LI threads so no sarcastic comments or trolls here please.

So I had similar aspirations when I was in college. To have my own litigation practice in Delhi. So did many of my classmates. Very few actually succeeded (15 years since graduation). I have actually thought about this quite a bit and these are my observations, for those who are 1st Gen Lawyers.

1. If you are a 1st gen lawyer, without rent free accommodation in New Delhi (and some amount of financial support from family), you will have a hard time making ends meet on the basis of what a chamber litigator pays you. You may think you can do it, but 2-3 years of brokedom (if you are lucky), when you see friends and batchmates be more successful, can be heartbreaking and demoralizing.

2. If you are a 1st gen lawyer, with roots in New Delhi, (therefore say rent free accommodation and an existing network of people who may in time push work your way), the above is very doable. It will be less painful than 1, but is no guarantee of any amount of success. It could be many many years before you are able to save any meaningful amount of money or feel that you are progressing up the ladder with your work.

3. If you are a 1st gen not from Delhi, and you want to practice in Delhi in the future you effectively have 2 options -
a. Go back to your home town and practice there for the 1st few years. Cost of living will be lower (depending on your home town), and therefore making monthly ends meet will be less of a concern and the quality of work you are doing will be more front of mind. Work with a good senior, who teaches you the ropes. Once you have established a reputation within your home town and home state, find a lawyer in Delhi from your home state, who does insourced work in Delhi (whether it be SC, tribunals etc). Only then make a move to Delhi, to this new senior to continue learning the ropes and trying to get work in your own name from your home town into Delhi. After a few more years try for AOR etc.

b. Join a T-1, T-2 litigation firm in New Delhi which can pay you a living wage where you can afford the rent and general cost of living in Delhi. Save enough money and work your ass off within this T-1/T-2 firm (and believe me they will make you work your ass off). Once you have achieved some amount of financial security and work security in your career, then make the jump to a private practice in Delhi. The savings and the goodwill (hopefully) of the people you have worked with in the past will allow you to build your own practice within the city.

4. If you are from Delhi, but 1st Gen, w/o any large network which will pump work to you over time, then 3 (b) above works for you as well.

Salary comparison is one of the most common topic of conversation. Yet, there is little authentic info, I have created a spreadsheet with some law firms and 0PQE salary. The spreadsheet is fully editable by anyone and it does not keep any record of contributors (so no ip check/track). Feel free to add more law firms. May I request everyone to check and contribute. Have kept it from 0PQE to 9PQE as after that comparison becomes meaningless due to complete non-standardised compensation structure. [...]
Have not used google sheet for privacy reasons.

[LI: Have copied updated backup copy shared by pi in a Google Sheet. If you open it in an incognito / private window, anyone can edit it completely anonymously and we get version control also: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ltk2xnERP1OWklq60BEsJFhl3eSuQX7nQEdo_v37ggs/edit?usp=sharing
If we should use another platform, please share]

I am a Litigation lawyer, in a non - metro city, no contacts or family connections. Just a decent education from a (then lower rung) NLU.

Making decent money now. More than 2 lakhs after expenses.

How? Add value to your clients. Always think of them like you would of your own siblings or kids. Make sure that they never get into any sort of trouble. Make contacts, ensure that you are noticed within the lawyer community. Show up at your Caste /Community gatherings. Make friends, you are ready to go.

A difference between having no family or connections is extra 5 years of hard work.

This thread had digressed in a direction which does nothing to answer the OP’s question. Anyway, there’s good news for you here. Amongst all practice areas, capital market lawyers are the most likely to bag jobs abroad. When I say abroad, I’m specifically talking about Singapore & Hong Kong office of international law firms. I’ve never completely understood why that’s the case, but I am personally aware of individuals who have moved laterally (without an LLM). For the UK, debt lawyers from India are most likely to get jobs. Reach out to some recruiters and try to find people on LinkedIn who have successfully moved. There are plenty.

Been there and done it. Joined the judiciary now. A lot also depends on the city you are in.

By the way, if you are passionate enough and can find a senior who can pay the subsistence allowance (I mean it), you may work for a year and evaluate the prospects then.

Be careful with your finances, for you would be 23 and would be still dependent on your parents even to go back home.

Litigation these days is not just about your passion and will, but also about the patience of your family in feeding you for another half a decade.

Good luck !

Hey, I gave the interview last month and promptly received a reply in a week about my selection.
The interview was very technical as the firm does not have an HR team and the lawyers themselves look into recruitment and internships. There were two people who took my interview and both of them were very calm and understanding.

They grilled me based on the subjects I had previously studied and on the basis of the work I had done in my previous internships, be it research or drafting or due diligence. They were well-versed with a wide variety of laws and clearly wanted to know if I knew the basics or not.

The main topics you must cover and know on your tips are Contract Law, Sale of Goods Act, Company Law (Meetings, Related Party Transactions, and other basics), and lastly the basics of PE/VC like the stages of start-up funding, promoter's obligations, etc. The interview will be based on your CV entirely but it can get technical depending on how the direction goes.

All the best, I am sure you will ace it!!

Entirely my fault. Didn't brush through my CV. Didn't collate (in my head) the end results of the researches I undertook. Fumbles a bit on basics.
I couldn't make it to the questions outside CV, because I bombed it so bad.
PS: appeared for a few other firms after that, brushed my cv, reworded it to my strengths while sending them out and safe to say those interviews went great and have gotten an assessment

The Local is a way of life here. Everyone takes it. Plus, there is now an AC Train (check timings if they make sense for you) and generally if you leave early (like I like to be in by 8:30 cause I'm in lit) you'll find enough standing room in the First Class on Fast Trains to travel quite comfortably.

One thing most Mumbaikar's do is that they carry their formal clothes with them in their bag and wear more comfortable clothes (T-shirts/Jeans) while travelling in summer months. Then they get to office, go to the restroom, wash up and change. They repeat this on the way back. (Think of it like people using Gym clothes or something).

The best part about taking the Local is that it allows you to truly experience the sheer diversity of people in Mumbai. You will soon develop train friends and that will give you a good exit from having to spend all your time socialising with lawyers cause when you land in the city your law school people are usually the only people you know.

IP Law Firms in India generally pay only 1/3rd of what's paid in a corporate law firm.

So IP team within a law firm won't get same as a general corporate team gets.

There is a thread about this issues here on LI.

https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/218992-Fresher-Salary-at-Intellectual-property-lower-

The general advice you’ll get on this is to join a law firm before joining a fund. The reason for that is because when you’re working with the fund, while there’s a lot to learn, the actual drafting of transaction documents will mostly be done by outside counsel. One could argue that, that’s learning in itself but really the only way to become good at it is by getting to draft yourself and unfortunately only a firm can provide that kind of exposure.

Having said that, if you have an offer from the fund in hand and no other offer, I’d say take the offer anyway and maybe continue to interview with firms? Joining the fund will likely introduce to a host of lawyers at law firms anyway.

The advice I’ve given you is quite generic and based on how people normally do things. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t choose a different approach but just wanted to explain why the traditional route is more commonly followed.

Good luck!

Get in touch with some advocate and work under him/ her. Then you can switch to a law firm job anytime. Also getting a law firm job straight out of law school should not be the goal in the first place. Law firms pay well I agree but as far as experience goes one can gain that anywhere. Hope it helps and all the best :)

Sorry to hear that this was your experience. We've had almost everyone in the team getting bonus in the top percentile.

Also, yes, based on client feedback - clients have given thumping feedback for the work done/responsibility shouldered by A2s in our team on significant transactions, and that has been factored into bonus payments. In fact, some of them will also be receiving an additional managing partners discretionary bonus (MPB).

Nor do we expect our juniors to be yes-persons. We encourage them, in fact prefer them to question us and give alternate view points. Not only does this help in ensuring we aren't getting too comfortable / complacent with views, but also that's what training a junior involves making sure they learn how to think. We do work hard and we do enjoy discussing world and office politics, but haven't ever received a medal for the latter.

I am cognizant that this may not be the culture in all teams. But taking that you use 'kiddo' pejoratively, you must have a lot of experience behind you, and are possibly in a place to set the right culture. If you're actually in CAM, happy to discuss over coffee and share with you how we've managed to do just that in our team.

- PA2 at CAM (you can call me 'kiddo').

Absolutely, this covers most of it. But there are a few things I'd like to add to this.

1. Environmental Law is a vibrant practice area here. CRZ Regulations, Forest Matters etc are all busy fields and there seems to be more than enough to go around.

2. Property Law here seems to stretch beyond the usual title disputes+specific performance etc. Zoning + Planning + Building Regulations are all common place.

3. I don't practice much on the criminal side but there's a lot of NDPS work.

4. The Bar here is one of the nicest things. Friendly, accomodating, everyone knows everyone etc.

5. Professional Quality of Life is definitely better. Not everything is URGENT.

I disagree with a few things Guest has said, but that's my personal experience and I'm dont want to run anyone down without hearing more.

1. The figure of 1-1.5 lakhs a month for someone with two years experience sounds unreal, I have about four/five years experience and I make a fraction of that, and I'll go out on a limb and say that I have decent skills as well. I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong!

2. Offices closing at 7:30PM sounds like a dream, and most lawyers I know shit shop only at 9PM or thereabouts. Saturdays are generally working, and the occasional Sunday is not unheard of. Not bragging about overworking or anything, but just stating it as I've seen.

P. S It's nice to see Goa evoke a response on LI!
Also, I am going to be up all night wondering who Guest could possibly be!

As someone who's been working with a bank for 2+ years, here's my take.

Cons.
1. You need to be sure which team they're putting you on, a few of my friends are in corp banking and the work is tedious and uninspiring, for those of us in litigation it's even worse cause crappy work + often we have to go for visits to remote places and deal with all sorts of people.

2. Pay is not gonna be good, unless you're working with the behemoth that pays 12LPA (ykwho). The rest of us started at slightly better than what an Infosys trainee engineer gets.

Pros.

1. Work life balance and n number of holidays as people call it quit by 8PM at all costs, and usually by 6 so there's a lot more time to do other stuff if you want to.

2. More WLB allows you to venture for other things, or follow your passion if making money isn't your sole ambition in life.

Eight Indian teams had qualified for Jessup international rounds this year - Jindal, NUJS, Symbiosis, GNLU, NUALS, ILS, HNLU and NUSRL.

Six of these had moved into the advanced rounds which were a round robin in this edition of Jessup. These were - Jindal, NUJS, Symbiosis, GNLU, NUALS and ILS.

Four of them have made it to the Round of 32 which shall be the first knock-out round this year. These are - Jindal, NUJS, Symbiosis and GNLU. The knock out rounds begin tomorrow.

Incidentally, these are also the same four teams which had made it to the Semi-finals in the India national rounds. This underscores not only the strength and consistency of the teams, but also the quality of judging in the national rounds.

...

The Indian teams will be joined by seven from USA (including national champions Harvard), the two usual suspects from Singapore (including 12-time international finalists NUS), and only two from Australia (three time winners Queensland and New South Wales).

Also in the fray are four teams from China, three from Germany and two from Philippines (including 1995 winners University of Philippines).

Others still in the running are a team each from Brazil, Canada, Indonesia and United Kingdom. These are joined by two-time Baxter and three-time Evans award winners Universitaet Wien of Austria, 1998 winners Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2016 winners Universidad de Buenos Aires of Argentina and 2019 winners Eotvos Lorand of Hungary.

...

The strongest teams remaining, by pedigree at this competition, would be NUS and Queensland. However, luck of the draw can sometimes be an important factors in these latter rounds.

I wish the Indian teams best of luck. Hope at least one them can join NALSAR, NLUO (both two-time; 2006 & 2010 and 2017 & 2021 respectively), Ambedkar GLC and KLA (1995 and 1997 respectively) as Jessup semi-finalists. It would be even better if one of them can make the finals or maybe even win it to join NLSIU (1999 & 2013) as World Champions.

...

The info shared in the post is to the best of my knowledge. The intention behind it is two-fold: to re-kindle a greater amount of interest around mooting generally, and to celebrate the performance of present and past teams at Jessup more specifically.

PS: LegallyIndia - please don't wait 48-hours before allowing this post to go live.

Just thought to share a word or two about the way the names of some of the people listed on here has been upvoted or downvoted.

Whether or not someone is a "good" or a "bad" attorney to work with is partly objective and partly subjective. Some objective parameters that are material to this assessment include how knowledgeable and articulate the relevant attorney is. The subjective parameters vary to an extent, depending on whether the reviewing person is a report to the relevant attorney, or is the manager to whom the relevant attorney reports. A junior colleague might rate his more senior SA/PA as "good" based on parameters such as how clear his/her instructions are, or how willing he/she is to help the junior colleague perform the tasks assigned to him/her particularly in the face of tight timelines to which the junior is unacclimated, or unfamiliar territory (e.g., during an employment law diligence by a corporate law A1/A2, or finding sectoral laws for a memo on structuring and what not). A senior colleague might rate an SA/PA in his/her team on parameters such as being able to drive the deal while preserving (to the maximum extent possible), the morale of the juniors, etc. Also worth noting, even the sort of SA/PAs that some might regard as generally amicable to work with, or collegial, might be found to be incredibly difficult to work with by others. For example (and note that it is just that), a SA/PA who tends to be a perfectionist might not be well liked by a junior who is not attentive to detail (either for want of ability or the desire to churn out well put together drafts) and might easily be labeled as hard to work with. It is very possible for disgruntled juniors and seniors to project issues arising from their own inadequacies (especially when the contrast is immediately apparent) onto their colleagues (and needless to say, this applies in the converse as well) because it is far easier psychologically to brand someone as difficult to work with, than introspect on whether that is generally true, or particularized to a given person (or set of persons).

Bottomline: it is not a simple answer, and classifications of "good" or "bad" without the proper context are not very helpful, and therefore, must be viewed with some skepticism. During my time working as an attorney, I have had both the pleasure of working with, and being mentored by some incredible SA/PAs, as well as working with and being treated really badly by some (the latter being individuals that I believe to be truly bad human beings, despite being exceptional attorneys -- a correlation that is all too pervasive in this profession). With all that being said, it is crucial to note that subjective indicia in these sort of online forums by far take precedence and not much thought is given to the implications of listing out a person's name this way. I feel disheartened to see colleagues (many of whom I don't know) have their names downvoted by tens and more of people in what appears to be a lamentable mud-slinging exercise permitted by LI.

To clarify, it is not my suggestion that these downvotes are necessarily incorrect; they might very well have (more than) an iota of truth to them, but it is worth trying to view them against the backdrop of the context I've hoped to provide.

Genuine advice only, because I am in same shoes, we have been together for 10 yrs, my bf is in stock market and I myself (not judicial officer) but will go out for studies, so I can relate 100% with you.
I think you should stick to the job for a while, while figuring out your other options, like applying in law firms etc, I know you said you didnt like working long hours but that is the only reasonable option which will guantee you your life with your partner and stable income, it might be the hardest decision to make in your life, but if you are giving up something for love and have a strong head for it, I think you should see for other jobs since you are a judicial officer people will hire you easily and if you say that you are not inerested in law as a carrer then I think you'll eventually even get bored of your current job as well.
First of all above everything you need to weigh down your options like what all probablities you have concerning you present and future life and then make a calculated move, and it will require compromise from both side ( you and her). First atleast secure your job then go for the marriage immediately so that you can join soon after the marriage, remember always to think about yourself too and not just blindly making any decision on the present circumstances.
Lastly, if it she is meant for you, if you both are meant for each other, it will eventually happen no matter what.
I hope you have the strength and courage to take a calculated and wise decision, all the best ahead !

I'm only an A0, so there's a good chance I rank below, but I believe it depends on your level of seniority and how long you plan on taking the break for. A year-long break is a little difficult to explain. But I do know of a few A2-A3s who took a sabbatical for 3-4 months, started applying for jobs in the fifth month and resumed work in the sixth or the seventh month. From what they told me, the recruiters didn't think anything of it.

The important thing to consider tho is are you prepared to return to the soul-sucking world of corp after the sabbatical.

Read this if you want to understand most of the commercial dynamics which impacts funds documentation: https://ilpa.org/ilpa-principles/ They've got model templates as well but don't get into those because you'll get lost. A lot of advisory work will make sense if you go through the ILPA doc. See if you can understand the basics of funds fees waterfall - ie. the 2 & 20 waterfall for example.

Along with this, read the AIF Regs and PMS Regs. Focus on Cat I and Cat II AIFs and leave Cat III AIFs (although the regs don't really have all that much any way). Even in the ILPA doc, don't get into funds which are "open ended" (people can put and withdraw money any time other than when the fund winds down). Take a quick look at the PMS Regs - I'm not a funds lawyer so I'm not sure how many PMSs are being registered these days. A funds lawyer can may be give you some insight.

Cat I and Cat II AIFs are tax transparent pursuant to 115UB of the Income tax Act. Tax for Cat III AIFs is 160-164 (representative assessee + indeterminate trust). Read these sections.

Ideally, read the trust act and understand it. Loads of people don't fundamentally understand what a trust is. None of this is rocket science, it's just that it's boring shit, so people gloss over it and continue with their life.

Also, realise that there is a lot of jargon which ultimately translates to simple concepts. For example, "LP" or limited partner is just a term for an investor in an investment fund. "GP" or general partner is the manager (the person who makes the investment decision).

I think if you read all of the above and take 6 months to figure out the registration process and draft a couple of Cat I/II equity and debt funds each and 2-3 Cat III redeemable hedge funds, that's really all there is to it. More or less. Then it's just a slog of doing the same shit for a different client.

Dear LI readers,

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All the best!

- R

Err...you do realise that you contradict your own statement? If multiple kings are holding sway over a piece of land, then by logic, it does not remain akhand. No king even in the scriptures ever held sway over the entire landmass that is represented by India as we know it now. I have actually read my history as well as my mythology, including all the epics and vedic texts. Whereas you seem to be merely peddling random things without understanding what they actually mean. Incidentally, Aryavart left out a considerable portion of NE India and South India of today, in all its iterations. Once again, the landmass was divided into multiple kingdoms and different nations, mahajanapadas, whatever you call it. Their laws were different, their governance structures were different, as were the cultures and languages. That's one of the reasons why they never managed to band together against subsequent invaders who wanted conquer all of these kingdoms one after another. At least read and understand the mythology and ancient texts that you refer to. Read critical editions of the epics, know about concepts like recension, vulgate etc. instead of reproducing lines from whatsapp forwards and random blogs. I am as far away from being a 'leftist' as it gets. However, I still read and follow logic.

They have a very structured internship programme. If you manage to attract their interest through your CV and cover letter, they send you a long SOP-style questionnaire. The favourable outcome in the favour of the candidate is usually on the basis of their answers in this questionnaire. Back in 2019, it took me almost two weeks to complete the answers and share across for review. A couple of weeks later, I got the confirmation mail.

It seemed to me that they try to assess candidates the same way those magic circle firms do. So, to secure a TTA internship, it is essential that you showcase strong commercial as well as legal sense vis-a-vis the specific practice area of your liking (ofc, this must be an area of law for which they have a team in place). Another point that you should focus on is clear articulation. Do not be verbose. Send crisp answers. As a student, it is quite difficult to develop a commercial sense to interpret the law, but they know this too and you only need to show them that you have some idea of it. If you can somehow showcase a genuine interest for commercial law, they'll most likely take you in.

I work as an A1 for another firm.

>How will you feel if everyone started roaming around in ski masks in the name of freedom.

I will not feel any different, lmao. The fact that you had to mention this as an example has me laughing - sorry.
Why do you think someone else dressed weirdly would bother me? And the fact that it bothers you is really a personal problem at your level.

Hi my dude - All depends on the following:

1. Office location;
2. Lodging location;
3. Average number of hours you spend at Office during a week;
4. Does the office provide perks such as food coupons and taxi services after 8.

Rents can start from 15 to 20 a month. the quality wont be ideal, very few legitimate hostels around also. so you should budget this much for lunch. If you question is survival, well you can survive on as less as 200 rupees on food a day. I did that for my first 12 to 15 months while working at SAM, right after law school. If you plan on going out - then you can safely budget about 1500 per outing. have an average of 3 pants and 4 shirts, they can cost on average 1200 per item, maybe less if we get it stitched from home town. I did that.

45K plus should be enough for 'survival.'

I wish you all the best my dude.

Don't focus on career growth, etc. I understand that as juniors that's the only thing that's visible to you, and that's saying for many of yous; so you all end up asking very generic questions like growth, salary increments and potential, all of which just doesn't make sense at all.

Do what you got in your hand. Optimization should be your mantra, and not chasing the perfect ideal (apart from the fact that there's no universal definition of a 'perfect ideal').

One bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.

I feel corporate law practice is a natural moat, because it's humongous and complicated. Also corporate law practice is not easy for everyone. Additionally, it is something that you can apply to every company irrespective of sector, while having sector specific expertise makes you face even lesser competition.

Media & Entertainment is enjoyable only because it makes you feel very current and contemporary because of the subject matter you deal in. But I see that since the entry barriers for getting into this field are low, sooner or later, it's going to become commoditized. I don't see any differentiating factors. I've seen average joes make good of themselves only because this field is nothing but contracts. Also, since media industry is a tight knit industry, and as the subject matter value is not huge, (after all the entire media industry is smaller than Tata group's capitalization), litigation and arbitration is also very less - because of which absolute nutjobs with poor contract drafting skills are able to survive since their shortcomings never come to light.

1. Realizing the value of life after losing loved ones during the pandemic
2. Money has a finite marginal utility.
3. I can't waste the golden years of my youth sitting in front of a computer for a 1L salary. It's just not worth it.
4. If you look at it, you don't need so much money when you are 24 cos most of it would be spent on rent in metros and also on unnecessary lifestyle expenditure cos they have to live upto an "image".
5. Some people would rather earn in the range of 60-70k back in their home towns, enjoy work life balance, save a lot of money on rent and don't have to put up with the pretentiousness of the hustle culture back in the metros.
6. The saved money can then be utilized for travelling during long weekends or holidays (which one doesn't get in law firms cos after getting more than 1 lakh salary, the partners assume they own us for 24hrs). One gets time to be around family and people that really matter. And they can go to the gym at 7pm without worrying about a deliverable or a call with a precious foreign client at 11pm.

7. So yes if you really see the maths, middle class A0s from tier II towns working in law firms are losing a lot more as compared to the salary they get. The opportunity cost is way more. Many are hyperfocussed on the numbers in the paycheck but that's a very myopic approach
As amartya sen said quality of life is determined by freedom. Income definitely helps one to have certain degree of freedom, esp financial freedom. But in law firms, there are millions different ways in which we give up our freedom and we never bothered to actually quantify it.

In short, money cannot buy freedom after a certain point and we need freedom to live our best life and realize our true potential.

Disclaimer: this may not apply to those having their families in metro and those who are truely passionate about corp law and don't mind conflating their identity with being a corporate lawyer.

Quit my tier 1 job with nothing in hand, worked independently for awhile and kept interviewing on the side. Got multiple offers which didn’t feel like a good fit so passed them up. Finally found an in-house role where their vision and culture seemed ideal for me. I was hired at double the salary I was drawing at the Tier 1. (I have a foreign LLM and bar qualification and that was one of their pre requisites so it definitely helped). I am in a much better place in life now and have elitist problems like not feeling challenged enough. A problem I can happily live with after the trauma the tier 1 left me with.

All the best! Be patient guys. It’s all possible.

Among the other delusions you entertain, the FTA with UK (or any other subsequent FTA) will not liberalise legal services in India.

The Govt. held consultations in 2016 /1 with a view of opening up the sector for the entry of foreign firms to provide services in India. SILF agreed to the proposal subject to reciprocity and a transition period./2 Reciprocity is absolutely impossible, of course, because it involves a question of qualifications (great to discuss later). The move was staunchly opposed by the BCI (one senior official termed it a 'U-turn'), in essence sinking the plan anyway./3

Legal services sector is one of the most highly protected services sector in India, which obviously allows a small set of Law Firms which are competitive within themselves but averse to international competition, like most Indian businesses (see history of Tata / Birla lobbying for favorable trade policy). The people who suffer are most of those on retainers, low pay in a highly concentrated market. Policies, especially trade, don't change overnight because of elections. Must is to build broad consensus among stakeholders, give a correct timeline for reforms and then do it.

/1 https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/education/government-looking-to-open-education-legal-services-for-foreigners/articleshow/48639907.cms?
/2 https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/government-mulls-legal-services-liberalisation-115062900875_1.html
/3 https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/plan-for-liberal-legal-sector-hits-bar-hurdle/story-YDKYrX1xtvg6K8jtGeCWAN.html

This is a personal pet peeve. I understand what you're trying to say and this isn't about you, it's about me.

The word "revert" doesn't mean "to respond" or "to reply". Unfortunately, it is 99% times used incorrectly.

It means to "return to (a previous state, practice, topic, etc.)".

For example, "he reverted to making kombucha with the older SCOBY". But not, "has Rahul reverted to your email?". Or, "please revert in case you have any queries".

When I started working, I thought, oh cool, this sounds like a fancy word I'll use in my emails. I felt smug and professional. I never bothered checking what it actually meant and I used the word incorrectly for years.

But there you have it. You now know what it means and how it is to be used in the future.

So

You find likeminded people. You can easily find 2bhks for 7-10k in and around Mayur Vihar, Patparganj, IP Extension, Laxmi Nagar area [I am not referring to Apartment complexes. Go for builder flats]. Share it with at least 3 other people. have the simplest food. You will find a lot of people preparing for CS, Judiciary etc. in the region.

Rent - 2k
Food - 2.5k for 3 meals (you will get dabba walas in the area) [or you guys cook amongst yourself].
Tea / Coffee - 300
Travel - 1.5k [Take a DTC Bus pass. you can travel in AC buses too. Don't use metro / auto. Walk / bus.]
Electricity - Thanks to kejriwal, you may not have to pay anything.
Soaps, deodarants, shoe polish, Water, phone bill etc. - 700

Save 3k for emergencies. Don't spend a penny elsewhere. Look for advocates / jobs which will pay higher, and make a switch ASAP. Spend as much time as possible in Court. Start appearing for misc. matters for other lawyers and clients. Read as much as you can. Take tuition classes on weekends. Take classes online if local students are not available.

Use office stationary and office amenities (books, internet etc.) for EVERYTHING.

Lakhs of families live in Delhi for a budget much less than 5k per person. These are decent localities (ones mentioned in Para 1). You will get edible food. If you can, try having lunch at office's expense. Do whatever you can at office's expense.

If your office has sufficient stationary, help your roommates with basic stuff. they will always extend favors and share snacks. Develop yourself. There are endless opportunities in Delhi. You just need to have the patience to ride the hard waves out.

All the best! Do well!

Since I quit working in a law firm and eating and sleeping well, I realised my adhd tendencies have really reduced.

It's a mixture of good sleep (which included learning sleep hygiene and actually prioritising and valuing sleep), good healthy food (I've stopped eating outside except really occasionally), exercising daily, and ensuring my B12, VitD3, Omega 3s are all in order.

As a starting point, get a blood test done and see if you need to focus on any specific thing first (Vit D, B12, etc). If you feel this is a recent thing then it could be your body telling you something is amiss.

Cheers

They would have mentioned about base retainer, bonus cap, billing Share
Assuming your
(a) Base retainer = 15L
(b) Bonus Cap = 5L (if you make 100% of it, again not easy at all in JSA and rare)
(c) Bill Share = 8% and assuming you bill 1 cr (not easy for an associate in JSA even if you are in the top performing team)
Then your annual CTC should be 15 + 5 + 8 = 28L
What you must know is that the billing share is entirely dependent on your partner bringing in enough business and staffing you on lucrative deals. Even if you bill 10 lakhs in a matter, but if your partner decides to shave off the invoice and consequently, only 5L of your time is billed, then you would get 8% of 5L even though you have worked for 10L. In India, it is pretty easy for law firms to shave off 30% to 50% of the invoice for the clients. Go open with your eyes wide open
Hope this helps.

Hi Fellow Lawyer, I don't think anything has been started as of yet.

Do you have any ideas on what forum we can use?

In the meantime, I've been reading Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate. It's very informative and helpful. Also gave me a perspective that I may only have a mild ADHD. Especially when compared with others. Probably why I could do without medication or professional help. However, somedays, the motivation just runs out. I'm finding it increasingly hard to battle procrastination, keep myself focused and abstain from over-indulgence (food/alcohol).

Even tried being sober. Successfully completed a month. It did not help with my low motivation problem though.

https://assets.airtel.in/teams/simplycms/web/docs/Particulars_of_Employees_as_per_Section_197_of_the_Companies_Act_2013_27072020.pdf

Bharti Airtel GC at INR 3 cr in FY 19-20. Pretty sure data for other listed companies can also be found.

List below. Feel free to complete.

I think this is an interesting issue to discuss because it is very rare for Indian judges to study overseas. Most of them are graduates of traditional law colleges. The bigger question to ask is this: Does foreign education help these judges give better quality judgements? For example, greater reference to foreign case law, or expertise in the field in which they did their LLM? The second question is true for Justice Chandrachud and Justice Pratibha Singh, I guess?

Another question to ask is whether an LLM abroad improves an advocate's chances of being selected as a HC judge. For example, if one has a specialist LLM from New York or London in international taxation or IP, or a big brand Oxbridge-Ivy League LLM.

SC:
- Justice Chandrachud, LLM, SJD Harvard

Delhi HC:
- Justice Pratibha Singh, LLM, Cambridge
- Justice Prateek Jalan: LLB Cambridge, Bar at Law from London, LLM Michigan,
Awaiting confirmation: Saurabh Kirpal: LLB Oxford, LLM Cambridge

Bombay HC:
- Justice KR Shriram: LLM King's

Cal HC:
- Justice Arijit Banerjee: LLB Cambridge, Bar at Law from London
- Justice Moushumi Bhattacharya, LLM Cambridge
- Justice Rajasekhar Mantha, LLM King's
- Justice Ravi Kapur, LLB Leeds, Bar at Law from London
- Justice Sekhar Saraf (NLSIU) alum: Chevening scholar, University of York, UK

Tripura HC:
- CJ Indrajit Mohanty., LLM Cambridge

Did I have days when I had less than 4 hours (2 is too less!) work on a weekday? Most certainly. Comparatively, more frequently during this WFH.

The problem, however, is that even if you have no work, you cannot do anything apart from staying home because a a client mail may pop in any minute and you're expected to be available no matter how late. So unless you can actually do something 'fun' with your time off other than cooking or watching youtube videos, it isn't really much of a time off!

Even this does not exist in a WFO situation - where even if there's no work for the day, you're expected to stay till a minimum of of 7 or 8 PM. This is one of the primary reasons why so many are feeling exhausted after returning to office post pandemic.

If law firms could figure out better time management frameworks - where employees can clock in their hours with no daily/weekly targets and have the flexibility to clock out when they want, it would genuinely make the job a lot better.

If you're calling them 'retainers' then treat them as 'retainers' for once in this case - not employees who have to sit for a mandatory 12 hour at the workplace.

It's not that difficult to have such a system either - a simple planner/calendar sync-ed for the whole team where people can mark their available hours for the week (subject to minimum hours annually) would serve the purpose.

Law firm partner here. First this is not a unique or insurmountable issue, don’t panic and don’t be embarrassed. I went through a similar thing early on, and the following things worked (and work) for me:

1. Recognise Patterns - I missed “be” all the time while typing and never caught it, and had minor dyslexia type issues particularly ‘l’ and ‘I’, ‘N’ and ‘H’. Once you spot your patterns you can make sure to check for them.

2. Develop a system: I made it a habit to re-read everything at least a few times to make sure nothing is missed and I haven’t made any silly errors. Similarly, I bought large computer screens, worked with docs and emails in very large font or high zoom and also went through a phase of printing and reading docs before sending them which seemed to work for me. Experiment around with such changes (particularly getting off a small laptop screen to large one) till they become second nature and you’ll see lots of these issues go away.

3. Seek support: If docs can be proof-read by a peer, junior or intern - budget 30 min to seek support of another review. Plug the mistakes you’d made back into the database for 1. above.

4. Seek Time: the above will slow you down a little bit to start. Set timeline expectations with a bit of a buffer for the above and explain the rationale to reporting personnel - “I like to triple check the work so that no silly mistakes creep in - please allow me an hour or so more”.

5. Be patient, be calm - this aspect of corporate legal practice is muscle memory, patience, neural connections - like any other skill. Some people jump on the bike and are racing away, some take time to find balance. It’ll come .

6. Be confident - this can become a negative feedback loop - remind yourself of your positives and focus on those. Treat these issues as minor challenges to overcome.

Hey,

I don't know why my comment got a lot of hate.

I haven't worked in her team. I don't know how she is as a person. I am talking from a client's perspective. My boss is a client. No client usually cares about work culture within a firm or team - as far as it doesn't impact deliverables or work you want to get done.

If you are a client - she is the best lawyer on the market despite the excessive highly inflated bills. She gets things done - on time. Available all the time, work is premium. If you outsource work to them- you don't have to worry about the same.

There are dozens of anti trust lawyers in the Indian market. If clients are paying a premium for her - it obviously means she is somewhat competent. Remember, Legal departments across Asia have a lot of pressure to cut external costs these days.

In addition to it bringing of you tad load of reputation at the nearest tapri.

The impact would be of such magnitude that selfless billionaires would extend their Rolls to chauffer you from your piece of sh*t 1/2bhk apartment in a tier 2 city to the city civil court or court of small causes, if in Mumbai. Such is the grandeur of law degree from a pedigree-d law oskool.

Cannot put it more succinctly than this.

My family was not in a position to fund my NLU education. I studied at an NLU after taking a loan, did freelance work to support my expenses, got offers from a few top firms after graduation, worked at one for a year and a half, saved money to pay substantial part of the loan, got a full scholarship to a college in UK for my LLM, came back, cleared UGC NET and joined one of the NLUs as a teacher. Been teaching there for a while now. The money isn't that bad, especially after 7th CPC. The hours are excellent and flexible. I can still freelance outside at my choice for legal consultations if I wish to earn extra. I'm paid around 14 lpa now after 5 years. Quite happy teaching too, and have got an excellent work life balance. My needs are less and I don't regret my choices, despite occasional bouts of frustration at the usual inefficiency of the NLU admin.

There is a firm called A-Z-B
There's an A & a B, most important is Queen Z
Don't believe the fake news that you'll see
So much talk depicting fantasies
In the end, the answer to everyone's needs
MS Office is what it will be
MS Office is what it will be

Head shake
Blink Blink
Sign off
Byeee

For Direct Tax -
1.) Basics of Accounting - Methods of Accounting (Mercantile, Cash, etc.), a basic understanding of the Balance Sheet, etc. Please don't stress if you aren't from a commerce background. Give yourself time and you'll get the hang of it. Ask a CA/CS friend if they have their Level One notes for accounts. Or go to the ICAI/ICSI website where you will find the entire material.
2.) Read up on Faceless Assessment/Appeals since a large number of the Writs being filed in Income Tax matters currently are pertaining to this. (Go to the CBDT website-You'll get all the info that you need)
3.) Income Tax provisions are lenghthy so during the internship you will feel the urge to skip reading the bare act and directly skip to articles and case laws. I implore you to not do that. Might be draining but it will help build your skills of reading a bare act and will serve you well in the long run. To read those provisions- brush up on your interpretation skills.

A few more things -
1.) Ask - Ask - Ask for work.
2.) If you're given somehting to draft try to stick to the Font, Line Spacing,etc. the firm uses. If not try and stick to the usual fonts (Times New Roman,Cambria,etc.) line spacing at1.15/1.5 and always justify your paragraphs.
3.) Read Justice Gautam Patel's internship starter kit. Had leaked a few years back. I dont know if it;s still available on the internet but if you do find it, please do read it.

Hope this helps. Goodluck!

Litigation pay (for freshers) sucks across South - Pay is even lower in Kerala because of the lack of good quality work (Commercial Litigation/Arbitration)

Corporate Law Firms don't exist (with a few exceptions of representative offices) as most work is outsourced to Bangalore or Mumbai based firms and lack of industries or Businesses in the state. Most chambers do a mix of civil & some criminal Litigation. Even Arbitration matters of big Kerala companies happen in Mumbai/Chennai - not in Kochi.

The best paymasters for freshers are -

Menon & Pai - 25K
Veritas Legal - 25 K
Senior Advocate Kaleeshwaram Raj - 20K
Other Designated Seniors - 15 to 25K.

There are Designated Seniors who don't pay more than 5K per month, but you can always jump ship after getting an year of experience.

There is tough competition for these jobs - as 3000 students graduate from Kerala's Law College's an year - and several others from College's LIKE NLU's, Symbi & Christ who have good language & research skills also try to land in the same jobs.

Perceptions are changing. As many would be aware, transitioning from a clerkship in the US courts to US Law Firms results in a high signing bonus and some perks (not aware, but its well incentivized). On the contrary, there is no practice like that in India.

However, depending on which judge you work under, the transition to a litigation chamber (easy) or a law firm (tough and depends a lot on who your judge is) can be workable. Judges elevated from the bar maintain a good relationship with the bar and can definitely help your application to any chamber in that HC or the SC if you ask them to help you transition out. For Law Firms, judges, who in their time as counsels have worked with big law firms, will be able to give a good assessment and recommend you to law firms.

So, if you are planning to go down this path, then perhaps be a little more mindful of the judge you are going to work with. A little more digging may be required if you want to transition out to a law firm. Litigation chambers, in my assessment, should be a lot easier transition to (and is very often the practice among former law clerks). I have only heard of a handful of law clerks who transitioned out to a law firm, tier-1 or otherwise.

As to whether Disputes Teams value the experience, I look forward to listening to other perspectives. I am not an insider but in my assessment the profile of the team i.e. where is the majority of their work, would matter for how well they can integrate you (and you can contribute) into their work.

Hi, I guess I am the "[redacted]” (clearly derogatory!).

I know this is me because this is a regurgitation of complaints already made to HR and known to me from two years ago. But here it is again, after two years – wonder why? Hmmm.

For three days after being shown this, I thought I should take the high road. I thought I should let the vile pettiness and clear professional jealousy go. To be honest, I’m not that person. I won’t let accusations made by someone unhinged, and which are garbage, stand unchallenged in a public forum. So I will use my right to reply hoping the moderators let this through.

So, I’ll take this head-on and take this apart - one by one. This will be my only comment on this goss column site, where a lot of salty and disgruntled ex-employees seem to lick their wounds while carrying around their grudges as their little axes to grind.

- [redacted] works at night.

I indeed worked nights. I did the most amount of traveling in the entire team prior to the pandemic, up and down during every week, to attend hearings, attend client meetings, and assist in briefings. Clearly, someone in their wisdom thought it was worthwhile to get me to go up and down and was worth the client’s money. Work spilled over. I am not superhuman – in fact, two trips to the hospital showed that.

Plus, as law firm lawyers, most people know that you have little agency in making a schedule. Working at night depends on when you receive drafts from the junior, from the client (possibly in a different time zone), or external counsel (who work late into the night) to take in inputs. You clearly have excused yourself from disclosing facts and relying on broad generalizations.

- [redacted] makes people stay up at night

Of course, when you have deliverables and ongoing back and forth with a client across time zones, you are going to have to have some bad nights. It’s also usually understood if a matter is live, you wait till your immediate senior is done with it before you push off. That is a basic courtesy extended across the board. It may be different elsewhere, but it wasn’t here. If you have not figured this out – good luck. Some poor sod is clearly doing the work for you anyway, while you are being deadweight and pulling your Calcutta-style siestas.

- [redacted] is extremely average

Here is the thing – I really don’t care about your views on me professionally. I’ll take the validation I get from the work I do, and the tasks I am assigned. I value the feedback I get from the counsels I brief, the seniors in the team, and the partners I report to, even my former employer for that matter. I also take feedback from the juniors who are worth their salt and aren’t “operators” who slip away from the job for a million breaks and dump their work slyly on someone else.

Maybe I am average, maybe I am not. I consider the job a constant learning experience. I don’t think I am god’s gift to the law like you seem to think of yourselves. If you do think you’re some hotshot - congratulations and thank you very much for your useless feedback.

- [redacted] has bad English

If you’re a junior associate, your job is going to be proofing documents often – if you haven’t figured that for yourself, you need to come back down to earth a little bit. As you go higher, you’re expected to air your views and give higher-level inputs. As a junior associate, you are supposed to assist in the process and watch the process if you can. So, the junior associates will end up finalizing drafts and be fixing typos. I’m sorry you didn’t get the memo on this. Thank heavens you’re now elsewhere.

- [redacted] only makes tables

Part of the job, in a regulatory setup (especially merger control) is presenting vast amounts of information in the most lucid manner, which is understandable and discernible for a regulator. Tables are one way of doing it. It’s a pity you stood there, didn’t learn, and just sat in spite during the duration of the whole process. Hello? If you didn’t realize it – I was doing your job as well, and not getting paid for it in the bargain. What a waste of time for me and what a waste of space you were.

- Accusations of being a POSH candidate and being a “creep”.

It’s extremely worrying that you lot try to weaponize POSH and throw words like “creep” to scare people. I’m not scared of this. If anyone has the guts, please walk up to the HR department and make this a formal complaint. I’ll be there to make my case.

Even if you have left your jobs – please go ahead. Who knows I could be in a whole lot of trouble if you can make your case? And what was the basis of the complaint again? That I made you work late when there was a client deliverable. That I made you wait till I figured out, with your help, on what was to go to a client? Please go ahead and complain. Make my day.

In fact, the worst thing about this is this – not only is this unsubstantiated, but it is also hearsay which is twisted so deliberately and raised after two years with sheer malice. How so?

(.....)

Full disclosure - I have spoken to the person (who has now left employment here) and got the clarifications myself. There isn’t anything here to dig up here, no matter how hard you try.

Incidentally, both these people are now people whom I think I can reasonably call a friend. Honestly, you lot should really consider joining the NCB at this rate - you have the talent to run a nice smear campaign.

*****

P.S.: A word of advice to random third parties reading this and liking muck being thrown – especially those students, vying for jobs in a law firm. I’m no hotshot, but I know some truths and understand a few things. Law firms are transactional spaces – where you need to bring some value to the team and the firm to be paid for it. This can be by having a good attitude to learn, or being a team player, or being well-read on the law. Honestly, the first kind is the most appreciated, because law firms are a grind, the little you have read up on, constantly changes, and being a team player in a team with a heavy workload is essential.

The initial years in a law firm are unlikely to give you any satisfaction. It's only as you rise a bit that you get to do work that made you initially consider working in a law firm. You will feel like a cog in a wheel, but this is a process. Law firms, inevitably weed out chaff who are only there for the money or are just difficult to be part of a team, because those people are not worth investing further on.

The hard hours are the function of demands placed by clients. That 1 Lac salary you’re pulling is not growing on trees, it's someone else’s sweat (most of the time). No one – even the partner - is enjoying ruining your plans, dates, or movie nights. For all the money, the job has real downsides - it isn’t great. It’s up to you to decide if you wish to do it or not. Two reasons to stay – to earn or learn. If not – just leave. Do not come to do “Andolan” here – you’ll just piss people trying to make a living and getting the job done.

And for heaven’s sake - get off these pages. It’s an absolute waste of time, where a lot of failures, sleeping beauties, goggle-eyed numpties, and entitled prissy folk enthral us with their insecurities and air their professional life laundry. You rather get dysentery than work with these people. These are people who haven’t grown out of their college-pride days. These people will go around to tomtom the name of the college that they graduated from while they’re knocking back at the first decent-paying jobs. Some of them haven’t faced a setback in their lives yet.

There are too many of these who are too proud of their college - it’s usually laughed at discretely. It’s also detested by the mid-level because they literally create a caste system for themselves, while they go about being "woke" in life. It makes teams unworkable and most of us don’t give a damn where associates come from – but just want workdone. They’re best rid of at an early stage.

So, you will learn nothing here – just witness their deflated egos, and the bitterness as some folk handle their first failures in life.

Nice to hear that young scholars are interested in international law!

Can tell you about international law certainly:
1. I would first suggest beginning with Malcolm Shaw for the basics, and then reading Malcolm Evans. This gives you a very technical (Eurocentric) view of international law which you can then use to understand the treaty texts. Beginning with the treaty texts devoid of context will bear no fruit.
2. Once you are done with learning international law, it is also important to learn that it is the creator and perpetuator of colonial subjugation. BS Chimni, Usha Natarajan, Antony Anghie and M Sornarajah are people whose articles you should refer to. However, I suggest you refer to this book before going to articles: https://www.routledge.com/Third-World-Approaches-to-International-Law-On-Praxis-and-the-Intellectual/Natarajan-Reynolds-Bhatia-Xavier/p/book/9780367889234.

As for writing papers, I can explain in steps:
1. Do not write a paper to write a paper - write a paper to contribute to knowledge. Quality over quantity. A bad paper will forever stay on the internet to haunt you - do not make that mistake for an imaginary boost to your CV.
2. Always begin with literature review on a topic that you are interested in. 'Why does international investment law have arbitral tribunals enforcing the law, and not international/national courts?', for e.g., but this issue has been extensively covered. Read up everything there is on the topic and then, and only then, try to formulate what the literature does not address.
3. Begin with framing the question - what you ask defines what you search for, and how your article looks like.
4. Then only write the article and always make other people read it to give feedback. Publish drafts on SSRN so that other people can see.
5. Submit it to a journal on the topic - start with a really good journal relative to the quality of the article where you know that even if the article is rejected, the peer review will be immensely helpful. Rinse and repeat.

That's a great and relevant question for the times. Since a lot of such good questions are coming up, we have decided to host a LIVE Q&A session on our social media pages - LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube at 5 pm IST this Friday. Below is the link to our Linkedin page that contains all the details. This LIVE Q&A session will be open to Indian qualified corporate transactional lawyers (all levels) and to law students aspiring to a career in corporate law. Please attend, and enrich the discussion with your great questions. Thank you.

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6863693525087846400/

"accepted all over internet" is the same as proclaiming something on behalf of the entire internet?

If anything, your comment tells me you've not been using internet for long enough because (i) such comments comprise 90% of the internet and (ii) bruh "/s" has been in usage for at least ten years, I can't help if your idea of internet starts at Outlook and ends at hotmalluaunty.com

Recruiter here. I don't ask too many questions about the law when I am interviewing candidates. I try to find out if they can think for themselves, are not afraid to push back or challenge things, and know how to handle pressure.

The law can be learned. It's my responsibility as a senior to make sure my juniors learn what they are supposed to know.

That kid who can talk Foucault and Ambedkar is more interesting to me, and more valuable, than someone who has mugged up the latest press note, and regurgitates it at interviews to impress recruiters.

Explain to me why bathrooms need to be gendered at all? Have you ever been on a plane? Do they have gendered bathrooms? What about in our homes and communities? Do you think every workplace you’ll work in will have sex segregated bathrooms? Did you know that sex segregated toilets are actually a fairly new historical phenomenon that traces its roots not just to moralistic movements aimed at keeping women out of the workplace but also at racist movements that tried to segregate white and black? How many people are assaulted/ harassed because of trans people going into the “wrong” bathroom anyway? And how many trans people are harassed because are made to feel unsafe if they go into the “wrong” bathroom?
Replace urinals with stalls and make all bathrooms gender neutral. As a cis woman I can assure you that after 35 years of living in metro cities I have never in a public restroom seen anything that men could misconstrue as being sexual.
Surely predators aren’t deterred from preying on young women because they are in a bathroom? And surely you know that trans people are much more likely to be victims of abuse than perpetrators. Do I need to carry a photo of my genetalia to identify myself every time I need to pee? Or is there an inspector that will check? Or a birth certificate? It’s all so freaking arbitrary. All that matters is that there are adequate facilities for people who need them.

Most universities across the world don’t have sex segregated hostels. What are we nuns and priests? We won’t be able to resist ourselves if we live in the same building? Are male students that unreliable that they can’t live in the same building without raping and assaulting women? In 2021?

This isn’t being woke at all. This is just common sense. Sex segregation creates a lot more problems than it solves. I honestly think toxic boys hostel culture would see some moderation if there wasn’t this isolated consequence free playground for depravity in every law school. And I think it’s about time we treat young adults as young adults not as ticking sex bombs about to explode at any moment. Don’t make women trade away their freedom for protection. And don’t displace blame / responsibility from perpetrators of abuse to victims of it.

That hypo you propose is literally so rare it’s not even worth engaging with. The fact that trans students I know got beat up in sex segregated hostels is not rare. It’s an epidemic within the community.

I am the Managing Partner of Lexygen. Several recent posts and comments on LegallyIndia have been brought to my attention which purport to offer comment/information on the pay numbers at Lexygen. On going through those comments, I got the clear sense (as some of you may also have) that several of those commenters were adopting an approach of malicious and ridiculous embellishment of our pay numbers so that the very credibility of other comments, where our numbers were quoted more or less accurately, would also be tarnished. This kind of misinformation hurts aspiring candidates a great deal.

I am therefore, posting this to officially clear the air, and to help those of you lawyers and law students that are genuinely seeking credible and accurate info about our firm to help you make that choice as to whether you’d like to apply to us for a job or not. The accurate information is below, “from the horse’s mouth” - you all decide whether our pay structure is Tier 1, Tier 2 or Tier N, and most importantly, whether you’d like to consider applying to Lexygen or not.

Associate Entry Level Pay – We pay fresh law graduates a fixed retainer of INR 1.25 lakhs a month, or INR 15 lakhs per annum. We also pay a bonus that could range from 0 to INR 1.2 lakhs per annum. We hire fresh grads ONLY through our internship programme.

Senior Associate Entry Level Pay – We pay entry-level Senior Associates INR 24 lakhs to 27 lakhs per annum as fixed retainer. We also pay a bonus for entry level SAs which could range from 0 to INR 15 lakhs per annum.

Partner Pay – We don’t currently disclose our Partner pay publicly for various reasons. So, please don’t believe all those numbers and posts that claim our Partner pay to be INR 4 to 5 crores. It would be fair to say that currently, our Partner pay is not even close to those numbers. Our entry level fixed retainer for retained Partners is around INR 51 lakhs. The bonus can be quite huge there, but completely depends on performance.

Work-Life Balance – Yes, we DO pride ourselves on being a firm that offers reasonable work-life balance, but we also are a firm that does a LOT of great-quality work, so it does mean that we all have to put in the long and hard hours necessary for delivering at that level. But I can say with honesty that we do our best to be considerate of our people’s time, personal lives and health (physical and mental). We work very hard to retain our non-toxic environment and trust me, that’s not easy!

Hope this helps. All the best to all of you! Happy Diwali!

Vijay Sambamurthi

Hello everyone, i hope you guys are doing fine in this messed up covid life. After, devoting 4 years and not able to make into final holy pdf, I think it's time to move on from the vicious cycle of upsc. Hence, few questions:

1. What are the chances of getting into corporate considering the gap (I'm from tier 1 law school)? And is it advisable to spend few years in corporate, if litigation is the end goal?

2. If Litigation is the way forward then Delhi or parent high court?

3. If Delhi then can you please list some good Lawyer's to hone the skills?

4. If parent high court then what all skills should I hone which I must be missing by not working in Delhi?

5. Any other advice.

Thanks.

Several people leave because they want a change of team that's not possible in some firms. Some of them shift to another city, maybe to other firms or the same firm. Some join other T1 firms hoping that the scene will be better. Some join boutique firms for slightly easier workload and occasionally greater variety of work. Some try in-house. Some need a break from work and stress and try to get one via a foreign LLM. After that they may come back and join firms/academia, or stay over abroad if interested and have options available. Some sit for exams like UPSC or judiciary. Some go to policy bodies like Vidhi. Some try out entrepreneurial ideas if they have got the resources. Some of course try their hand at litigation. Those interested in foreign LLMs especially often do a judicial clerkship first to better their chances for scholarships. Regulators like SEBI, CCI, TRAI also hire some at times.

The thing with in-house roles (when looked at from a law firm lawyer's perspective) is that we tend to look at the problems with law firm life (e.g. brutal hours, difficult partners & PAs / SAs) and seek to address those concerns without fully appreciating the challenges that are unique to an in-house role and which a law firm lawyer is not as likely to face.

The biggest challenge with an in-house role is that your work / life is completely pegged to how the management of that particular organisation behaves (i.e. the CEO, CFO, COO, Board of Directors). Some leadership teams are very professional, a lot of them simply are not. If the CEO / MD that you report into (or that your GC boss reports to) puts unrealistic deadlines for closing M&A deals or pressures the legal team to take very aggressive legal positions on a dicey matter (I have faced this a LOT of times!), then being able to go home by 5:30 pm isn't exactly a consolation. One common problem (especially in industries that are not doing great) is to show revenues that are not exactly in existence. In situations like that, it's the finance team (and many times even the legal team) that gets co-opted into all this. Decide for yourself if that is worth the easier hours. Feigning ignorance of accounting practices doesn't help!

A lot of senior management (and I'm not talking about the typical la la outfits, I'm talking about some of India's biggest listed cos and international MNCs operating in India) basically take pride in making outlandish commitments internally, to shareholders and most of all to the public at large on their growth and financial performance. There is a deep, dark and very murky undercurrent of .... stuff that floats beneath the rosy picture a lot of them paint. Joining the in-house team (for some companies) basically puts you at the receiving end of it. Sooner or later when the next big corporate fraud is unearthed, the in house legal teams would also start facing more responsibility / flak. When the Kingfisher fraud was unearthed, nobody expected the finance team of the company to land up behind bars. But it happened....

The other thing to consider is the office politics. Unless the top level GC is well respected (or at least feared) in the system, usually the in-house team has little or no leverage in this area because the perception of the in house team being a cost centre makes a lot of other departments dismiss the importance of the legal team. More importance, ironically, is afforded to the external counsel. I've seen this myself many times. The external lawyer at least carries some importance in the system; the in-house lawyer, no matter how experienced, often does not get that respect. It's not always the case but it does happen often.

Another thing to consider is that the industry in which your employer operates is crucial too. Some industries, especially financial services, pharma, healthcare, being heavily regulated require the in-house teams to have a near god like visibility of all laws, regulations and legal updates. That is a notoriously difficult threshold to cross which a lot of in-housers genuinely struggle with. Related to this are the turnaround times, which are usually a fraction of what they are for law firms. The same 7-10 days that's given to a firm to generate an SHA gets reduced to 7-10 hours (maybe less) in a corporate in-house role (I have faced this personally), all on the assumption that you have nothing else to do with your job (forget life) other than frame that document.

Another thing to remember is that in-house roles have only become popular in the last 10-12 years and serious money has only started flowing into this space in the last couple of years (at least in the mid/higher levels). More importantly, it again depends on the company, its management and the industry in which it operates. But a lot of industries have been badly affected by the Pandemic and have gone through tough downsizing. Several in-housers that I know of (I'm talking folks with 10+ years of experience), spent a good part of the last 18 months desperately looking for jobs after the cull.

There is of course great fun to be had in having the partners of all of India's biggest law firms fall at your feet for work (assuming you are in-house in a major corporate behemoth) and to have people falling over to grab your visiting card at those legal seminars (which feel more like tacky Filmfare awards). There is also a great deal of growth when you have joined the right team and report to a genuinely capable management. And yes there are several positives to highlight about going in house. Becoming an industry specialist (which I believe will be a valuable skill in the next 10 years) is more realistic / possible in an in-house role.

But there are some important considerations to weigh when looking at in-house roles. And simply asking what the work hours are like is an incomplete or deeply misguided way of evaluating such a role.

Is it just me, or has everyone been down in the dumps and sort of lost their will to do anything (including work)?

I used to take interest in painting / reading / exercising before I joined a law firm. Now it seems like I have no hobbies left. And it's gotten much worse since the pandemic.

All I do nowadays is either work or complain or just be sad.

If I am sitting at home, usually I am yawning and scratching my privates.

If in office, I make a apologetic face but am smiling in my head imagining him naked while shouting away. Once he is done, go out and catch a ciggie with someone.

Either way, no need to take stress more than 3 minutes if you want to continue working at a firm.

Actually, I'm a leftist who loves to mock everyone, including you. That includes deities and figureheads from every religion. If I'm right about them not existing, then they won't mind. If you are right about them actually existing and being Gods who gave us life, knowledge and free will and who are beyond our comprehension, then also they won't mind, just like you won't mind the ants residing in your house gossiping about you. Therefore, I fail to see what this hoopla about hurt religious sentiments is all about. Pop a painkiller if it hurts so much.

Dear friends and seniors, I just wanted to give you some insight into how the Jindal students have responded to this situation. Nobody gives a rats ass about it. She has had no support from the student body, regardless of their political inclinations. Leave support; there is no discussion of this matter in Jindal, and I'm not sure how there are three posts on LI discussing it; what are the moderators doing? Even if you're defending the professor, this isn't the prudent thing to do since you're exaggerating the issue by blowing it out of proportion. Professor Shruti has not for the first time made an unfounded allegation to intentionally harm someone's emotions, which has resulted in a lack of support from the JGLS student body. Now since there is no student support, a group of JGLS students (or/and possibly non-JGLS students too) are posting on LI and Facebook, calling for solidarity from other institutions exploiting the fact that these students/professionals have no knowledge of the professor's past conduct (not that anyone except JGLS students give a shit about JGLS). Please don't show any reverence out of sympathy for her unless you actually second her opinions in that case your support is your personal choice. It's not like the professor is being bullied or anything, which would be something we would have collectively resisted. She is being criticized by a rather biased segment of the media, but rightfully so. Even if her remark was misinterpreted, she had the opportunity to retract it, modify it, or at the very least offer an explanation, but she has deliberately chosen not to do so. Your solidarity would only imply that you back her position now that she is holding strong on her remark when she could have ended this with a simple explanation. I rarely visit legallyindia but I came here and composed this because certain students are assuming the authority on behalf of entire student body and begging for solidarity from other institutions when 1) they do not have the authority 2) the issue is not big enough to require solidarity from respected law schools of the country 3) the people you are asking solidarity from do not represent their student body either 4) even if they did have the authority, I doubt they care about Jindal's internal affairs.

Moreover, this issue is being blown out of proportion, this certainly doesn't deserve three conversation threads. Dear moderator, please make a provision to merge threads for a better user experience.

Yes - but it only means that you have to learn more broader, inclusive and an un-programmed way to order your consciousness in a manner that lends you happiness.

Religion - with its closed loops were perfect for this, but since we now realize that it was just a mental program to condition folks, we don't have the benefit of such a psychological luxury.

I identify as a dalit. And, given that I am clearly a Hindu, how am I to practise untouchability?

I've seen a definite effort to dissociate Dalit and Hindu identities via these debates, not just on LI but also in other political venues. I am aware of what foreign forces are attempting, and let me state unequivocally that you are worse than the Savarna who enslaved us. You see us as a large political organisation and uninformed voting bank that can be mobilised for solidarity. I'm particularly disappointed in all the Savarnas who posted here since not a single person said, "but Dalits are also Hindus." It's seems like everyone has duly accepted and normalised the notion that Dalits do not follow Hinduism.

My identity is not a dice that you may roll depending on the propaganda that is most convenient for you at the time. I come from a community that has endured thousands of years of struggle to have my religious identity trivialised and limited. We are aware that some religious communities and organisations do not want for us to be connected with or referred to as Hindus. Your vote bank politics and effort to normalise this concept would fail here, and most definitely would fail on me. I am a Hindu, and I see the flaws in the faith; I want to remain here and rectify them. I am not switching parties.

Hi, what do you guys think about coming out to your coworkers? I'm an A1, have not even met my team once yet, and not sure if any of partners/teammates I work with are homophobic? Everyone in my college and family have always been supportive!

Wanted to understand the general status around this in law firms and if someone has faced something positive/negative?

January starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
February starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
March starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
April starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
May starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
June starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
July starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
August starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
September starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
October starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
November starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.
December starts off well but by the end feels like the worst month of my life.

You’re 19. CLAT results come out today and you will finally find out what your future looks like in just a few short hours. Against all odds, against everything you knew yourself to be, you actually managed to sit down and work hard these last few months. Your friend had made it to NUJS the year before and you’re hopeful it works out for you as well. You’d never admit it but you secretly believe you’re just a tad bit smarter than your friend. It’s time, someone just messaged you that the results are out. Your heart’s beating faster than you ever remember it beating.
You didn’t get the rank you were sure you were going to get. Your friend did and now they’re going to NLUJ and you’re going to a “Tier 2" NLU. You’ve tasted disappointment yet again — but it is worse this time. This time, you actually really did work hard and yet, it didn’t work out. And there’s nothing you can do. There is nothing you can do. It’s not all bad though. A few weeks later you’re convinced you did well enough. You’ll be fine, you think. Life has finally just begun.

You’re 22. You’re in third year of law school. You’re in your room. You haven’t done much today but yet, you feel tired. You haven’t really done much this whole past week, to be honest. And yet. Your friends are planning to buy beer and keep calling you to come join them, but of course you won’t go. You really do like your friends but not tonight. You’d rather just lie down and stare at the ceiling tonight. Wonder about a million different things and yet nothing at all. You wonder if you’re wasting your life away. People you know tangentially have been mooting and debating and interning, things you’ve been told you’re 'supposed to be doing’. You really would rather not, though. You’ve never really understood the point of mooting and you did try your hand at debating that one time just to impress that cute girl in your batch — that didn’t work out so neither did your brief debating career. You’ll be fine, you think. It’ll be okay. There’s still some time. You’ll figure it out. You’ll be okay.

You’re 24. You’re in fifth year. It’s serious now. They’re asking you to wear your nicest blazer and tie and get your photo clicked for the class placement brochure. You don’t get the point of that — everyone knows nobody really hires from your NLU. But you do it anyway, and so does your entire batch. A friend tells you about that one guy you were briefly friends with for a month in first year four years ago being placed at AZB. That gives you pause. You think about all those times you crossed him in the hall as you slowly drifted apart through the years. He’s a smart kid, you think. Good for him. Yet, you’re afraid for yourself. Deep down, you know you’re not good enough for a firm that fancy. You wonder if you’ll ever be. You’re once again reminded that there are no guarantees in life. For a brief moment, you’re 19 again — staring at that computer screen that told you where your life would go. The photographer’s loud flash brings you back to the present, but not before capturing how you feel about an uncertain future.

It’s the last day of law school. This campus you’ve cursed and raved and ranted about for half a decade is suddenly asking you to leave, to venture out into the vast unknown, to make space for another batch of young, inquisitive kids with bright eyes and brighter futures. It’s time. The real world awaits. You tread slowly towards it.

You’re 27. You’re fat now, but that’s okay. You met someone and they’re great. You’re really looking forward to a future with them. You’ve changed two jobs in the past two years and work 13 hour days. Your first boss wouldn’t win any prizes for being a good person but that’s okay, you’re in a much better place now. You don’t make a lot of money but you’re happy with your work and so is your boss, you think. Somehow, you know you have it good. Somehow, you know it won’t last.

Maybe it will.

You’re 32 —

Are you a law student aspiring to join a law firm?

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This mentorship program is a great opportunity for law students to get to speak to someone already in the legal industry and receive guidance from mentors who themselves have gone through the struggles that almost every law student faces. As we have limited number of seats, we are unable to select every applicant. But we try to prioritise students from private colleges or newer NLUs which lack a robust alumni base or don’t have seniors to guide them.

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Law students who are currently in their 3rd/4th/5th year of college

HOW TO APPLY?
We are currently accepting mentee applications for Batch V (Oct 21 - Dec 21). Application form is open till October 01, 2021.

You can apply through this link: https://lawfirmready.wixsite.com/lawfirmmentoring
For law firm related tips, you can follow us on LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/company/law-firm-ready

Fun fact about us: Although we are not officially associated with Legally India, Law Firm Ready was born out of an anonymous thread on LI.

Is it possible that R has caused some harm to Kian...tied him on a bed with ropes or a chair and taken control of LI? Some kind of a hacker. Else Kian would have replied by now. Disappearing for months isn't what Kian does. We don't know if R has really chained him to take control of this website

Well, if you look you at the LI threads its all about
1. What law school should I get to? Who should I date?
2. Where should I intern, where is PPO chances? Can I hit on older women?
3. Oh should I take Tier 1 or no? What are other options
4. Very toxic culture, where do I get paid the most?
5. Its not so toxic, some places are good, money aint so bad.
6. What is work life balance, where will I find it?
7. Should I become a writer or continue here?

Then there is this person - moving to the city of great food, with friends families, an undoubted work life balance, and what he done for a long long time, and has answered all those questions, having done it all. Now lets ask the questions again.