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Please correct me, if I'm wrong.
I am an A0 in the new competition team. Some of my batchmates and friends have joined competition teams of other T1 firms. Upon comparing notes, our Form Is are often larger than their Form IIs. They do not know whatโs to be written in the form.
Who do you all think it is ?
Wakode, identified as the son of the CJIโs cousin, is considered a nephew of Justice Gavai. However, the CJIโs brother, Dr Rajendra Gavai, told India Today that Wakode should be regarded as a โdistant relative.โ
Wakode completed his schooling under the Maharashtra board, securing distinction in Class 12 from the Amravati division in 1996. He went on to pursue science, earning a gold medal in MSc in 2001. He later obtained an LLB degree from Amravati University in 2004, passing with 60.34 per cent marks.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/collegium-picks-for-hc-includes-cji-s-nephew-101756149015736.html
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/cji-br-gavai-nephew-among-14-lawyers-recommended-for-bombay-high-court-judgeship-2776879-2025-08-26
Meanwhile, at the next NLSIU/NALSAR convocation: "You first-generation NLU lawyers are too elitist. We need Hindi LLB degrees at NLUs. We also need you to stop joining corporate law firms or heading to foreign countries for an LLM".
๐๐๐
Which teams to sit there?
I know it.
Please help if you come across any vacancy, I assure the candidate is teachable and a quick learner.
1.Shivadass & Shivadass
2.UBR Legal Advocates
3.TLC
4.BLC
5.Swamy Associates
6.BMR
7.ELP
8.S & A
9. Huilgol
10. King Stub & Kasiva
11. King & Patridge
12. RSA Legal Solutions
13. Dhruva Associates
โThen in the last year, I had to shift to Amravatiโฆ In Amravati, I think I might have gone to the college maybe half a dozen times. One of my friends, who later became a judge of the High Court, he used to mark my presenceโฆ I was third in the merit list, without going to college. Reading Jhabvala (books) and five-year solved papers.โโฆ.
โNowadays, the focus is more on NLUs and CLAT examination. But I am sure that apart from NLUs, other colleges also produce good students. We have seen students coming from taluka-level colleges, who have reached higher echelons. Though NLUs are certainly important, they represent only a small fraction of the legal education ecosystem in India. The vast majority are enrolled in regular colleges and universities, many of which face challenges in infrastructure, facultyโฆ and curriculum design,โ the CJI added.
๐๐๐๐๐
So is it any wonder that these โโฎโฎโฎ โฎโฎโฎโ TLC product judges arenโt interested in helping NLUs and promoting academic excellence? They probably havenโt used Lexis or Westlaw or Hein Online even once in their lives. Probably never read an article by Ronald Dworkin or Lawrence Lessing. Probably never written a paper on crimes against humanity or international arbitration or anti-competitive practices. Law is just a bunch of bare acts to be memorised for them.
And then they come to NLUs, where people are trying to promote at least a semblance of intellectual rigour, and diss us.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/cji-gavai-law-students-merit-list-exam-ranks-10207029/lite/
The woke movement/ ideology is turning our young minds into a bunch of entitled, slacky, lazy, whiney set of individuals who dream of lavender fields and kumbaya. Reality is far different and when it hits...they scream bloody murder. It is high time this movement gets over. It is destroying everything. Wokes are the most intolerant ones of the group. They go a step further than the radical right also!
You need to just focus on putting in the work. Any conditions will NOT help.
Also, IP in full service firms is not the best place to be in. You would be better off in a boutique firm. If you have a technical degree in engineering, bio or related fields and a patent agent certification, you could possibly be part of a patent prosecution and disputes team otherwise its TM and related work which may not be punchy enough.
ON FILLING OUT THE ONLINE FORM:
1. Be patient with the form- the first few pages of the form are pretty tiresome, but must be filled carefully. You need to fill out all your grades, so have a transcript or list handy. Additionally, you need to give a mark equivalent. In my year, we used the lower mark in the mark range for the corresponding grade. So if you have an A, your mark is a 60, 65 for and A+ and 70 for an O. It doesn't really matter what method you use, but be consistent throughout the batch. You have the option to explain the grading system of college in a box at the end of the page.
2. Please don't lie- they don't ask you to attach your transcript or anything, and expect you to fill out the form honestly. They won't check your grades, but if you get selected for the interview, there is a chance that you may be asked to present your transcript. So please, please be completely honest about your grades. They donโt matter too much anyway.
THE ESSAY:
1. At least in our year, there was just one subjective essay component in the application. This means that you have only this space to uniquely express yourself. Please read the essay question carefully, and make sure you address all components of the same.
2. You can adopt any style of writing for the essay, but it needs to be clear and concise. You should try to give them as much relevant information about yourself in this section. This is the only space in the application where you can show how you stand out in comparison to others, so choose your merits carefully, and always tie them back to a quality that the firm will appreciate. They are looking for people who are academically sound, will work well in a team, can research well, and know how to handle high-pressure situations. Anything that forwards these qualities is a good accomplishment, and should be mentioned in the essay.
3. Get feedback: A lot of people just write the essay in half an hour, donโt proofread or get it checked, and still get shortlisted. If you are confident of your writing, then you should be okay. But I personally prefer getting my essay checked multiple times before submitting it. I got my essay draft checked by my parents, friends, and a lot of seniors who had been through the process. Itโll help you cut down on words and remove superfluous information. If you are not confident of your writing, or even if you simply want a second opinion, please get your essay checked by someone.
WORK EXPERIENCE:
I donโt know if you have this component in your application. We did. There is only one thing you need to keep in mind while filling this section out- always tie back your work ex to something that will be of use in a firm. You can put in all your litigation and policy and NGO internships- the more the better. But highlight them in such a way that the reader knows that the skillset you developed will be useful in a firm too.
MISCELLENEOUS TIPS:
1. Know a little bit about the firm when you are applying- itโll help you formulate a better essay, and channel your achievements into something they are looking for. Know what they do, what their strengths are, and what they are looking for. Youโll have to spend about 20 minutes on their website for all this.
2. Try not to recycle the same writing for all firm applications. They all have their own questions to ask, so answer them individually. Additionally, the HR people who are checking your application are very good at their job, and have to go through a lot of applications. If youโre not keen and interested, they will know, and they wonโt favour your application.
3. Donโt worry about grades too much- they really donโt care about your CGPA or class rank as much as Indian firms do. It is just one of the many things they look at.
4. Be humble in your writing- this is just a general tip, because I think it made a difference in my application. You can adopt any style of writing you are comfortable with. But the aim shouldnโt be to show how you are the best and super awesome and intimidatingly good. You should highlight your achievements, but also add a line about what they taught you, and how they contributed to your growth as a person. For example, I think there a big difference between saying, โI represented my university at XYZ competition, and won the competitionโ; and saying, โI was given the opportunity to represent my university at XYZ competition, and we placed first as a team. Through this experience, I learnt bla bla blaโ. Again, itโs your choice at the end of the day.
5. On time management: I understand you donโt have too much time left to complete the HSF application. Worry not. Only the essay writing bit, and getting it checked takes time. The rest of it you can finish in half a day. Its just painful, is all.
Accommodations are very limited. There aren't sufficient judicial officers' residence complexes to house them all. Although some new ones are being constructed in North Delhi, I don't think they'd still be sufficient to house them all.
From the very beginning, the teamโs attitude stood out to me. The associates were approachable and friendly, and the ice broke almost instantly. What I appreciated most was that interns were not kept apart in a separate area; instead, we sat right next to the associates, which made it easier to integrate into the team and communicate openly. The environment quickly became informal enough that I could share my thoughts without hesitation.
Another aspect that impressed me was the mentorship structure. Every intern is allotted a mentor. My mentor, coincidentally, had also interviewed me six to seven months earlier, and he still remembered me when I joined. That individual connect spoke volumes about the way the team values its interns.
In terms of work involvement, I had the chance to join team calls with seniors and associates. After these calls, the work was divided thoughtfully, and on more than one occasion, seniors themselves engaged with me directly on research. They did not just delegate tasks but actually listened to my inputs and discussed them. That level of involvement made the internship feel meaningful.
Work pressure was balanced. There were a few tiring days, as is the case in any firm, but overall the workload was reasonable. What helped was the teamโs flexible approach to timings: as long as the work was delivered properly, there was trust and space to manage oneโs schedule.
Another highlight was the nature of the work itself. The team handles both advisory and litigation matters, and I found this somewhat equal blend of both to be unique which was not there in any of the other tier 1 firms I interned at. It gave me exposure across two very different but equally important facets of practice, something I have not seen offered so evenly in most other places.
Finally, I was fortunate to have a brief interaction with HSS sir towards the end of my internship. Despite being busy and having several people waiting to meet him, he generously gave me time. In that short interaction, he went beyond discussing matters at hand and recommended blogs and books to read, stepping into the role of a mentor instantly. For someone so deeply engaged in practice to also have such an academic perspective was inspiring.
All in all, I found the team to be collaborative, approachable, and enriching to work with. My internship there was a genuinely positive experience.
2. Regarding that other comment: It was very unfortunately and disappointingly worded. It fails to capture the nuance of the position by quite a wide margin. Proviso: before explaining further, this explanation is written kind of assuming that when you say you are from a "very small town", that implicitly should also be understood as meaning you are not a rich person from a small town but a person of average means. Should choose to engage further with my response to your question, you do not need to state whether this a priori assumption is correct or not, and I hope it has not offended you, and apologise if it has.
What tends to happen is that many people from larger cities who aspire for such things are also people from economically stable to privileged backgrounds. Therefore, with all the costs that you have to take into account for such a venture (multipleliving in London, clothing, food, accomodation during your vac scheme (your firm is likely to help you with accommodation during your SQE studies)), people from such backgrounds tend to find it easier to take up such opportunities (and therefore, now that there is this level of awareness about such opportunities, aspire towards them). Also what tends to happen is that such people, even if they have non-lawyer parents but parents who work in related fields (investment banking, e.g.), can get tips, advice, ideas or perspectives from their families when readying themselves for such SJT type situations. For example, take me: my dad is from one such field. When I took one of the firms' SJTs for the first time, I went home and wondered to my dad aloud why was it they would ask the types of personality questions that they did. My dad had had only vaguely heard of the law firm I was applying to and has never studied law (engineer + MBA) but without a second's pause, he was able to tell me: "They are doing it to see how good a fit you'd be for them and how good you are at crisis management kind of situations". However, people from quite working class backgrounds with other categories of marginalisation impacting them as well, have got through, and done well in, international law firms. I suggest that you ask the graduate recruitment folks at the big international law firms about this. They will be outraged at the suggestion that comment makes and in fact encourage you to apply - they aren't like the shitty HR in Indian law firms, they are actually good: they even act as readers and (online equivalents of) scribes for blind applicants taking the SJT-type tests if the blind person finds the test format to be inaccessible (I have this personally from an associate in a European office of a magic circle law firm who did a TC in London and who cannot see).
What you have to remember is that as far as your merit is evaluated, the vast majority of applicants for stuff like this, regardless of whether they are from economically privileged backgrounds or from disadvantaged ones, are eliminated at the application stage itself, because their intellect or some other quality essential to what the law firms need (whether that be drive for working in commercial law, fit with a firm's ethos... whatever, is lacking). Take another example: I know a very smart person (born an Indian citizen but who recently took up a foreign passport, having lived abroad now for so long) who studied law at one of the best universities in the world, located in London. This one worked at an international law firm in London for several years post the studies and is now in-house. This person came from an economically privileged background and was almost at the top of their law cohort at the prestigious London university, from which the best law firms regularly recruit (with the father working in an investment-type field in India). She secured multiple vac schemes in her second year of university (in the British three-year LLB system). Now that's a huge achievement and has to be noted because I have it from the person's own mouth that regardless of all they had going for them, the hidden cost (from a personal/mental health perspective) of going through that law firm application process for multiple firms, prior to the vac schemes, was some four or five rejections for every one vac scheme offer that was given. The world doesn't see that: they see the bells and whistles of investor/top Indian business school MBA dad, smart kid who did fantastically at Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Maths at school, got a Russell Group uni degree (where also the performance academically and in CV-boosting activities was excellent), vac schemes, TC, associateship... in house and all those stuff. But the pain and tears of going through this process for anyone is alarming. Don't do it if you aren't ready for 95 to 99% rejections, many of which will come at the last stage of an individual law firm's processes (written application, SJT, interview... all will have gone well, seemingly, suddenly at Assessment Centre, they see something and decide you ain't for them). It is this that that comment doesn't capture: a working class kid and two rich kids could have this experience in common. They apply to six top world-class law firms in a particular application cycle. Four of those applications for all three of them come with a rejection stamp after SJT itself. One more application comes back for all three of them with an interview/assessment centre invite. Two of those kids then get rejected at that stage, with one going onto the vac scheme. Now there is even a not insignificant likelyhood that that one vac scheme student will get rejected by the firm for a TC, because they say that upon evaluation of how he performs in the actual workplace, they think he may not be ready for a law firm career yet.
Therefore, that comment inaccurately describes a phenomena. I hope this is more helpful. It shouldn't discourage you from applying, please do that if an international law firm career is what you want. But please know the scale of the challenge before you go in. That comment you asked about doesn't explain that properly.
I would suggest contacting alumni of the program,they can share first hand insights relating to internships/placements.
โฎโฎโฎ
Let's agree to disagree on this. Maybe it pays well outside but definitely not in India.
At the end of day, political trolling and bona fide debate are a bit like obscenity: you know it when you see it (and we regularly seen a lot of attempts at the former here).
Canโt say the same for Ananya and Pallabiโs team. Known to be partial and personal
KCO have heard different perspectives - driven by internal politics and favouritism
nice
The website does not offer much information, and the one that's provided is not sufficient enough to clarify doubts.
Asking as a newly graduated law student, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
But the news report shows there is some hope, if people can form such groups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXcMgL2G0Aw
1. There is a genuine problem with certain scholars' views being suppressed while others are cited too much. In British, U.S. and (as has been pointed out by another comment author) even Indian academia, that bias is totally in favour of the left. An equivalent article could (and should) be written if academia in any country goes in the opposite direction (as it did in Germany, 1933-45) and people like Butler are suppressed/almost never cited.
2. Lawyers partly help shape, and are partly shaped by, the social context, as McCrudden has pointed out. Therefore, as Cotterrell says, viewing the law (and the world) through a "sociological imagination" is very important. This means requiring to think from an interdisciplinary perspective. Therefore, the precise opposite of what you said (that this is unlikely to be helpful) is true. People such as Jonathan Sumption, the former UK Supreme Court judge, who read history at Oxford (and even taught it there for a while before moving to law) already accuse lawyers (or at least those who took a law degree as their first degree at university after leaving school) of lacking awareness of the world in general and lacking culture, cultural knowledge and cultural sensitivities, leading to Graham Virgo (the former Cambridge VC and a trusts law scholar of formidable repute) responding with a funny (but ultimately ludicrous) defence of lawyers and their cultural engagement by talking about their engagement with the world of film. Therefore, the situation in terms of how our intellectual strength is viewed (even among our colleagues in other humanities and social science disciplines) is not fantastic. Why would you, of all people, want to make that situation worse?
You would have been aware of these perspectives and still could become aware of them if you read some of the books in the Cambridge University Press Law in Context series. The best advertisement for the series is what is written on the book covers/jackets for each book in the series:
The Law in Context Series Editors: William Twining (University College London), Maksymilian Del Mar (Queen Mary, University of London) and Bronwen Morgan (University of New South Wales). Since 1970 the Law in Context series has been at the forefront of the movement to broaden the study of law. It has been a vehicle for the publication of innovative scholarly books that treat law and legal phenomena critically in their social, political and economic contexts from a variety of perspectives. The series particularly aims to publish scholarly legal writing that brings fresh perspectives to bear on new and existing areas of law taught in universities. A contextual approach involves treating legal subjects broadly, using materials from other social sciences and from any other discipline that helps to explain the operation in practice of the subject under discussion. It is hoped that this orientation is at once more stimulating and more realistic than the bare exposition of legal rules. The series includes original books that have a different emphasis from traditional legal textbooks, while maintaining the same high standards of scholarship. They are written primarily for undergraduate and graduate students of law and of other disciplines, but will also appeal to a wider readership. In the past, most books in the series have focused on English law, but recent publications include books on European law, globalisation, transnational legal processes and comparative law.
Your thinking, as evidenced by your response here, is the precise opposite of the "contextual approach" advocated for in that extract.
3.
(a) To the extent that the OP has used their own words, I agree the tone does seem rather on the rough-edged side. But considering how polarised this debate has become and your levels of complicity in making it even more so (see your response here, e.g.), isn't that something we can cut some slack for?
(b) The tone might sound jaded, but to accuse them of propagandising or trolling is a very, very big statement. I cannot see any evidence for that in the post. Therefore, unless you are maintaining observations on IP addresses of those using LI and see this as (in and of itself harmless) post as part of a pattern of (cumulatively) more harmful content with an agenda, you should so state.
4. Finally, your statement, "... and this wokeness thing only such a disproportionately big deal because MAGA and the anti-woke activists have made it their main thing", is very interesting, not because it is incorrect or untrue, but because it is an incomplete account of what's happening.
(a) MAGA/Reform UK and others are partly getting away with what they are doing because we, as liberals, have allowed them to do so. We have created the conditions for that to happen. We have pushed our philosophies to all sorts of new limits at breakneck speed which has been too much for the overwhelmingly centrist populations of most countries, who have, because of feeling left behind by that, have gravitated to the right. It's not just cost of living or other economic issues that's doing that, it's other stuff as well.
(b) It is also, in part, factually incorrect. Major liberals have sounded alarm bells about this for a while now. These have included Brian Leiter, the great legal realist at the University of Chicago. A very good (if very angry) example of him doing this is an article he wrote called "Mindless jurisprudence-bashing on Twitter". It was in response to a lot of criticism of a scholar called Stephen Sax, who, in a Harvard Law School jurisprudence class's syllabus, had included many very cannonical legal philosophers, such as Hart and Dworkin. The response by Leiter to all that criticism is available at:
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2023/09/mindless-jurisprudence-bashing-on-twitter.html
And if you think people like him are soft liberals and at-heart conservatives, just read his blog properly. Always found the subcategory of posts called "Merciless rhetorical spankings of fanatics, villains and ignoramuses" to be quite entertaining reading and very revealing. Here's a sample:
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2017/03/smear-merchants-at-campus-watch-object-to-being-correctly-described.html
You might also want to read his book, Naturalising Jurisprudence, where he is very critical of Hart.
And he is not one of a kind. He's one among many liberals who believe the world has gone too far. One other is Sir Kerr Starmer, the current British PM, who is pursuing a strategy based on that philosophy being correct (himself a Leads man as an undergraduate, and spent time at Oxford doing the BCL, while also being the author of a leading human rights law textbook). And yet, he is pursuing Palestinian recognition, which is not a traditionally conservative position, therefore showing that he hasn't, in his efforts to meet conservative folk where they are, "become rightist" himself.
For more about this philosophy of relaxing a bit on the woke front, taking it more slowly and meeting people of our societies who don't agree with our stances half way, look up the writings of Maurice Glasman (the founder of the so-called "Blue Labour" movement and of J.D. Vance - especially the profile interview of Glasman that the same newspaper the OP cited and quoted, The Times, did.
The good thing about USLLS is itโs locational advantage and the time and freedom it offers you to pave your legal journey on your own, which the other aforesaid law schools may not offer. USLLS does not have the resources that a lot of other aforementioned institutions may offer its students to equip them with necessary skills and knowledge and the college also doesnโt really help you with your career in anyway except maybe a few internships (itโs all based on how you manoeuvre through the next half decade). Also, the crowd is seemingly ambitiously, academically and intellectually bankrupt barring 15-20 students in a batch of ~130 so the classes arenโt something to look forward to. So if you look forward to an academically stimulating environment, this is not a place for you. However, if you want just a degree, locational advantage of easily interning in Delhi for being employable without the help of the law school, and a little bit more freedom than the NLUs, USLLS might just be okay.
Evidently, thereโs a lot of weighing in between the little differences and advantages that other law schools might offer.
Any leads will be helpful!
You haven't been selected for DJS, yet.
It's the toughest judicial exam in the country. Please don't waste the prime years of life chasing a competitive exam.
Besides, how can you be so sure that you'll survive the first 3 years of litigation (experience needed); if you feel that even a firm job is stressful.
This right now isn't about "settle for less", people are not even getting jobs in this day and age regardless of the degree or skills they hold. If you find job in a firm, please take it.
P.S- I am asking this here instead of a mail for both transparency and the benefit of anyone who might be interested in working with you
https://www.takelegal.in/network-for-lawyers/
https://digilawyer.ai/
https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceIndia/
https://www.worldbank.org/en/about/unit/human-resources/HQ-AND-CO-COMPENSATION-SCALES
The exposure to diverse kinds of work here is truly uniqueโespecially if you are part of the Himanshu Sinha sir's team.
PS: Himanshu Sinha Sir has expertise in both Direct and Indirect Tax. He handles Indirect Tax litigation as well as advisory.