Hi

I'm someone who has done both. I won't say where I am now, but I can speak with some experience.

Shifting after 1 year PQE is effectively just resigning yourself to being an in-house lawyer. On average pay is subtantially lower than Tier 1 pay, and increments will be limited (not to mention no bonus).

To summarize:

Law firm pay is largely about survival. The longer your survive (and survive decently), the more you get paid. But ultimately, life and health takes a back seat.

In-house is largely about lifestyle management. If you are already reasonably well off, or otherwise don't want to "migrate up" in class or are content with your station in life, then a good in-house job gives your certainity, work life balance and an overall stablity. It is also the case that you are setting yourself up largely for a life of in-house jobs since law firms will rarely (if ever) hire someone who has been in-for most of their professional life. It will also be the case that the skillset needed to be a Tier 1 lawyer will be lost after a few years of being in-house.

So it's entirely up to you. If you get a good opportunity go for it. But expect compromises on lifestyle in terms of wealth (but benefits in lifestyle in terms of health).

They call final-year students for assessment internships, which happen almost every month. Even if the firm is not hiring, doing this internship counts as an assessment.
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Be aware that the work culture is ▮▮▮, but the pay is good, so choose accordingly. It's above 50k.

Hi, I'm from a T1 NLU with a PPO at a T1 firm in my preferred vertical. I was happy when I received the offer, but the thought of living the way I did during my internships for the long term is dreadful.

Has anyone left a PPO/offer at a T1 firm for greener pastures right out of law school? I know many have pursued TCs/masters abroad, but what are other trajectories people have successfully explored right out of law school in India?

Hi all, I'm an A3 currently working at a T2 in a GC team. Planning on switching to an in-house role. Role is as a part of the Legal Ethics and Compliance team of a company. Interviewers mentioned that work would be quite monotonous, and includes filing and maintenance of varied forms and compliance work.

I have not worked in a compliance team before. Wanted to ask the good people of LI what this role entails. If anybody could offer any practical insights on the nature of work, growth, pay, and job security (given the advent of AI), it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

That's like asking what are the advantages of doing Oxford BCL over Sussex LLM. Just brand value, actual academic rigour, a proper and professional way of doing things, not being allowed to do things in a half-arsed way, having Oxbridge and Ivy League-educated faculty over mediocre TLC products, understanding law on a deep theoretical level (as someone going in an academia direction should).

The best and prime example is Mr. Vikram Nankani, Snr Adv-he was head of ELP prior to designation.

Viyapak Desai from NDA left the firm and became counsel recently.

AZB Delhi has long history-Almost, all past litigation chair at azb delhi turned designated senior counsels. Including many other attorneys also got independent and doing fairly well. Mr. Sanjeev Puri, Mr. Nanju Ganapathy and Mr. P. Bellimoria to name few.

JSA partners also got gown recently. Biswajit Dubey from CAM also left the firm for independent practice. Mr. J. Sai Deepak is also prime example, he left Sai Krishna and now conferred gown also.

For litigation partners, once you enjoy fair face value before the benches they prefer to go independent. Generally, their mother firms brief them as go to counsel.

Largely because, legally even a flimsy distinguishing factor makes it permissible.

The paper is also favourable for engineers due to math, if the paper did not account for math (something which is largely irrelevant for working as an MBA grad) then the difference would be unfair but the end goal is to end up creating jobs and no company would want 80 engineers male as their only management pool, hence why IIMs favour non-engineers and female candidates cause companies themselves want such diversity and if they dont get it from the IIMs, they will just hire from another university.

I will be graduating this year, I have a job offer at an inhouse providing financial services, the pay is average, should i just join this to look for stability, or should i pursue more and try in law firms, I know the scope of growth in an inhouse is not much as compared to a law firm, I know the struggle will be there but that does not scare me, i feel like its easier to choose comfort, the hard choices ask more of you, if I join this inhouse and in future want to switch to law firms i know then i will be treated as A0 because the law firms dont relaly consider inhouse experience. Please, someone in this setup, have any guidance for me, it would be much appreciated.

Our Vice Chancellors "grand masterplan" which involves re-developing significant portions of the college campus is taking its toll on students. The present ongoing works are for the two main academic blocks, portions of which have already been demolished and are now being reconstructed. I am not really sure what was going through the VC's mind when he wanted to introduce such groundbreaking reforms, but he definitely did not conduct a feasability study on student life and their mental piece. Classes (which go on from 9 to 7 PM) have been severely disrupted this entire trimester because of the continuous, deafening, crass, unbearable noises that are created by the hardworking construction team located directly adjacent, above, or below classes. Concentrating in class for a few subjects is already hard enough, and it gets so bad in some cases where we cannot hear the teacher/speaker or content being presented even after using microphones. Ironically, this has happened in classes taught by the VC himself, but this was all in vain - he just continued to wax eloquence on the intricacies of Jurisprudence II and feign indifference What makes things worse is non-action on part of stakeholders, who have been reduced to "passive observers" and just seem to normalise noise pollution. I hope someone who has g**d mein gooda files a PIL in the Karnataka HC challenging this bloody nonsense. Enough is enough.

How is/are SAM litigation office/teams ? Which partner is the best to work with ? How is the work culture? Work hours and all ? Is SAM mumbai like a typical lala law firm or better ? How good is it for lateral hires ?Pay structure for 4-5PQE?

Please if somebody can answer these questions.

Corporate Lawyer A1 here:

I was working on a PE/VC transaction representing the Company. The investor counsels finally gave the greenlight and I was supposed to circulate the document for signing. It was Diwali Time and I was in celebration mood. So I didn't check the pre-execution versions thoroughly and just updated the placeholders, formatting etc. and circulated the transaction documents for signing on DocuSign. The investor counsel calls me few days later saying that clause referencing on the circulated doc is incorrect and to edit it in the final doc. I started checking the document to correct the clause referencing and meanwhile realised that there was a major fuck up - i.e. while I was formatting the document before circulating on DocuSign, I had also deleted several important clauses like liquidation preference, pre-emptive right etc. by mistake. Now the document I had circulated on DocuSign to all parties didn't have these clauses and only I knew it. I couldn't cancel the DocuSign document since majority of signatories have already signed it and also since Promoter had wanted the document executed on Dhanteras, which day had already passed by then. I was afraid that the investor/their counsels/client/ Partner will find out and was super stressed. Once the document was fully executed on DocuSign, I downloaded it and tried editing it. But since few clauses were missing in entirety, editting was difficult since DocuSign had the envelope ID on top - which meant I couldnt add a new page in between with the missing clauses. In the end I finally added pages in between and copy pasted the DocuSign envelope ID to the new pages so that it didn't look like it has been added. But still because of these clauses insertions in between the formatting ended up very fucked up - by which I dreaded my opposing counsels would figure out the manipulation I did to the document. I sent the updated executed doc to investor counsels and dreaded their call regarding the docs. Finally days passed and investor counsel didn't notice and nobody noticed and finally I felt relieved 😅..

Hey Boomer, I actually work at a Wall Street firm and assure you people are not verbally thrashed and humiliated daily. The capitalist work culture actually remunerates you way better for the intense work hours. Which are intense periodically because of actual work not bad management by partners.

While this is certainly the intern's POV, what nobody will tell you is that the intern didn't bother checking the work even once: when he wanted to impress someone to get a job, no less!

Also, forthrightly (we've all done it) blaming IT is the easiest thing to do when you've screwed up; the thing about making a change but it not showing up is probably because the change needed to be made in multiple places not just one.

You are just 20, and have your life ahead of you. Work-hard, prepare for CLAT, if you are able to be in the top 100, then scholarships wont be an issue (not sure, how tough is it to fundraise these days). If money is an issue, then complete your engineering, work for a couple of years and then complete your 3 year degree in law. In any case, talk to your family, plan and execute. Too early in life to feel helpless. If you need inspiration, there are enough and more examples around. Best of luck !

Moreover, I'm confounded by why Juris just doesn't own up to being a router instead of falsely advertising their own proprietary LLM. There is no chance they're using a proprietary foundation model, and disclosing the model actually being called behind the wrapper is a missed opportunity to let AI-savvy users choose a specific model for specific tasks.

Seems like Jurisphere for all its marketing belongs squarely in the camp of a highly exaggerated wrapper. Wish we had better players in the space.

I am a day 0 hire at a t1 doing my first ever pe/vc mandatory internship; i want to connect with someone that can help me understand the whole lifecycle of pe/vc investment and the exact work that these lawyers do. Please help me out, i'd really appreciate if you reached out on verak52248@lawicon.com for a deeper discussion. I know most of the learning happens on the job, but i want to get ahead of the curve and truly understand without bothering my seniors too much for the basics.

Reading such weird emails make me want to never apply to a law firm and just enter in-house right out of college. Why is travel expenses only 3,000/annum? Even public transport would exhaust this in a few months. Also, the audacity to wish a happy new year below the email is insane, sounds like a shitty workplace.

Because the people in charge dont have any worthwhile ideas, or the ones with worthwhile ideas cant secure investors. You cant start a business on a novel idea these days, only way to secure funding is to either make a Zepto/Swiggy clone or make a (insert buzzword) gpt wrapper and make it all be excessively "Indian" instead of investing in good branding.

1. Don't waste your time at Saikrishna & Associates. The firm is currently on a hiring freeze, also if you're scheduled for Delhi/Noida office, the scenes are horrific.

2. Plan your internships accordingly, look for places that have vacancies (specially if you're in your 4th year), don't just apply and intern.

3. Stand out in your internships from the other candidates, make your face value, be sharp and consistent. Dress Well.

No Govt Counsel in their right mind will refer to Modi as 'Three-Time Consecutive Prime Minister, and Hon'ble CM of Gujarat the Model State' or some nonsense like that. Why would Guruswamy even remotely think it was a good idea to suggest that an ASG refer to Mamata Banerjee as 'multi-term CM' is beyond me.

You have been saved by the hair from (genuinely) unsustainable work hours and a complete absence of work life balance, and toxic colleagues all across the board. If you're in a profession where you can expect to have some WLB, that's all that matters. Be happy with your choice and work hard there.

CESTAT isn't actually hearing and disposing off many matters. Plus their remit in Excise and Service Tax has already come to an end now. So, no, I dont think its lucrative, unless you also cover GSTAT. Also, big importers and exporters as a client doesn't matter unless the matters are complex which would give you high fees.

Exactly. Why create such a fuss. Don't you know that SC has a long history of showing farcical concerns and doing absolute zilch later? Judges, politicians, charlatans, you, me etc come from the same cesspool.

If the judiciary was really concerned it would have taken action when Grassroot and it's lapdog police openly facilitated the denigration of the judiciary and a certain judge. Also if there was substance to the allegations made by the Grassroot against that judge then SC should have inquired and settled the matter.

We can rant, fume, call out. But SC and others in power will always protect and nurture their interests. Ofc with rhetorical flourishes that it is all for aam admi.

But CJI was clapping and nodding away. Meghwal squirmed. Audience was amused and many hooted. CM rightly doesn't care because no one else if significance does. The talking heads will act according to scripts on TV. Because if you win elections then you get away with murder. Don't single out CM. This rule applies everywhere and everytime.

And don't lionise the SC. It is part of the same rotten system. Just wait for the hearing on Feb 3.

Opposition left with the British. Since then opposition has always been co-opted or had a setting with the ruling regimes both at the state and central level. Some opposition did come up with the alleged Red Terror but they were sold out by their fellow travellers who later ruled for 34 years. However when the regime change or Poriborton happens, it is near permanent. Just look at the GOP and Reds in Bengal. Better found in studios and social media and a sprinkling elsewhere.

It will repeat for Grassroot too and later Saffron Bros. For now Nagpur wants Grassroot to continue. Everything else happening is entertainment, such or otherwise.

I am Groot.

- NLSIU topper

- Rhodes scholar

- Fellow at Columbia University

- Internationally acclaimed for her role in the 377 case

- First openly LGBTQIA++ lawyer in India to be designated as a Senior Advocate

- Fighting fearlessly against the BJP on behalf of liberal and secular forces

And yet nobodies on LI criticise her. 😅

I always wanted to be lawyer, but didn't have guts ,connections , financial help so ended up choosing engg and now I just can't get over the fact that I'm not going to be a lawyer like y'all. I'm already 20 and in my second year so I can't change my mistakes now. I wish I had taken law instead of this hell hole

There is very limited option in prosecution. You can consider doing contractual work in the media industry and/or do assignment related stuff. I am in a T1, but it is not worth it. You put in longer hours and the salary is not at par with other teams (unless it is CAM).

In-house they usually look for prosecution + contractual work. But honestly, those kind of jobs are very limited. Cause unless its pharma (B2C) or FMCG company, they usually do not need an inhouse dedicated resource for IP.

So best bet is to do something apart from IP.

Not sure where your attention was. Actually ASG was continuously interrupting by continuously to speak. So its not completely kosher from his side too. And you haven't seen them arguing or their language when arguing about alleged offenses and offenders. Lastly, would your comment be same if the PM is referred to in these arguments by his name without his post?

Appalling and unethical misuse of a platform! She was supposed to simply inaugurate a circuit bench and not politicise the occasion. She did the same when invited to NUJS. In front of the SC judges she blasted Modi.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/i-pac-raids-trinamool-chief-justice-on-stage-mamata-banerjees-protect-from-agencies-appeal-10771248?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll