Yesterday night, exhausted from drafting contracts, with tired eyes and a dizzy mind, I was traveling back home in the Mumbai locals after a long day. It felt like a wounded warrior retreating after a day full of battles. Amidst this, my attention caught a young boy in distress sitting next to me, with teary eyes, wiped away with the sleeve of his shirt.

Out of concern, I gently asked him why was he crying and co-incidentally, he was a law student who had just completed his 3 year llb course from a private college, and in a scared tone, he explained that he had failed to convert his law internship (1 month) into a pre-placement offer or even an assessment internship at mid-sized tier II law firm. He shared how he was the only son of a family, and belongs to a lower-middle class background, with limited contact in the legal industry. The pressure from his peers and family overwhelmed him, and he broke down further in tears.

As a lawyer who had faced similar struggle early in life, his pain felt personal. I shared my own story the trauma, the confusion, and the setbacks I endured and offered him some valuable advice on overcoming challenges and focusing on his goals.

But this isn't a story about how I helped someone. The real message here is about kindness. Everyone we meet is fighting their own battles, in most of the cases invisible to us. Taking just a moment out of our busy lives to offer support, encouragement, or even a kind word can make an immense difference to someone struggling.

So, next time you see someone in despair, pause. Be the hope they seek. Because in the end, if not us, then who?

It is already well known that BCI has put a complete moratorium on any new law schools, new courses, and even seat expansion in existing law schools.

Hence, the number of places available will remain constant, while the number of aspirants and test takers will continue to increase by 10% - 15% every year. The competition will increase, so will the fees (cost of education) year on year.

Is taking a drop still a viable option?

I have spent few years working so sharing couple of points basis that:

1. Work on building patience. These days due to various reasons, attention span has reduced a quite a bit. It takes a little practice to keep yourself focused and not to distracted so that you don't lose your chain of thought.

2. Try and read more i.e. the law itself and case laws. Don't rely on articles and secondary research available online. Secondary research is someone else's view (which may or may not be accurate) and lot of times, people have different reasons for writing such stuff. So please don't take it all on face value.

3. Work on your English so that you don't have to necessarily rely on online tools to spot/fix errors.

4. Pick up a hobby. It could be anything - painting, reading, dancing, running, gym etc. basically anything. This will help you blow off you steam when you start working.

These are all very basic hygiene checks which should be kept in mind. Feel free to discard/disregard.

Heard correct. Major pay difference based on law schools, not just at a fresher level, but also at SA, PA levels. NLS is King for Mr. Saraf. Then come other NLUs and then the remaining colleges. All experience written off if you’re not from an NLU and the pay discrimination is jarring.

Hey everyone. I have been interning for the past 8 months wherein I was offered assesment internships at top tier firms in disputes team. I graduated 2 months ago and have been rejected on the ground of no vacancies. I know I'm capable but I'm from a private university. I'm really interested to work in Disputes team of law firms but all I have rn is a 25k offer from a chamber. I have certain financial and family obligations and therefore can't afford such less salary. What do I do? How easy is it to shift from chambers to law firms in delhi in disputes team?

hi, im bo2026 in tier-3 nlu, interned w them in the noida office this feb, got a callback but i let it go because there is a very very blatant t-1 nlu bias going on there. Hiring is based on college as well. associates from my team told me about the diff pay, so that is absolutely correct and its different to a laughable extent and absolutely not justified. Same goes for stipend to interns, people from non-nlus or those who came through reference do not get any.

hi, i did an internship at trilegal mumbai in june and ive gotten a callback and been asked to pick a month. so my ques is - should i do the callback or not? im bo2026 - tier-3 nlu with a top 15 batch rank, got the internship through the hr route, no referral. is it too late for me to have a shot at hiring in trilegal, should i let this go and intern somewhere else?

main character syndrome. These BCI regulations likely have nothing to do with government run NLUs and probably have much more to do with the explosion of private universities starting law programs without being equipped for them in the least. How do I know? because when BCI accreditation process happens at NLUS they barely ask any questions and sign off nearly immediately where as private universities have to go through a whole rigamarole. They clearly think these government run universities are the least of their problems.

Not everything is about NLUs.

Yep.

All this is known. Precisely why not training people early to earn their own clients is doing a great disservice to them for their future.

Hiring people solely for executing matters and deliberately keeping them away from client engagements should be a red flag.

That is how this law firm world functions. Never trust a word uttered by senior management. Many are run like Ponzi schemes.

You lot keep read half of things or watch reels. What did she actually say? Don't go by the soundbyte - please learn to get the full context.

Below is the CBS transcript from the Raging Moderates podcast where she spoke. Don't just read half and give out hot takes.

×××××

"Honestly, if he could bring about the end to this terrible war, where Putin is the aggressor, invading a neighbor country, trying to change the borders — if he could end it without putting Ukraine in a position where it had to concede its territory to the aggressor, had to, in a way, validate Putin's vision of greater Russia, but instead could really stand up to Putin, something we haven't seen, but maybe this is the opportunity," Clinton said.

"To make it clear that there must be a ceasefire. There will be no exchange of territory. And that, over a period of time, Putin should be actually withdrawing from the territory he's seized in order to demonstrate his good-faith efforts, let us say, not to threaten European security," she continued. "If we could pull that off, if President Trump were the architect of that, I'd nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, because my goal here is to not allow capitulation to Putin, aided and abetted by the United States. I think that's a terrible, terrible precedent."

Clinton added: "I'm dreaming that for whatever combination of reasons, including the elusive Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump may actually stand up to Putin on behalf of not just Ukraine and its democracy and its very brave people, but frankly, on behalf of our own security and interests."

Clinton on Friday said she hopes Mr. Trump remembers that he's at the very military base "that has to send up fighter planes to watch and fend off Russian bombers that routinely harass our military assets, do overflights, engage in provocative behavior in the skies above Alaska."

"I hope he's reminded of that," she continued. "He is not meeting with a friend. He is meeting with an adversary, and an adversary who hopes to play him. And the best thing that could come out of this, frankly, is probably nothing, nothing agreed to, except a real strengthening of President Trump's understanding that Putin is not someone you can make a deal with an expect it to last."

Quite good, considering that the batch still has many months left to graduate. Let's also remember that probably the majority of NLSIU students are not eyeing Indian law firms. Most want to go abroad, join the IAS, join litigation etc. Their role models are people like V Niranjan Tarunabh Khaitan, Menaka Guruswamy, etc. Congratulations also to those who have secured UK training contracts!

Overall, great performance, so well done!

https://www.barandbench.com/Law-School/recruitment-tracker/rectracker-nlsiu-batch-of-2026-bags-61-placements

Unfortunately, in 90% of my internships I got no useful work and was literally sleeping. 😢 Only time I did some useful work was one internship with a tier 1 firm (where I researched on a dispute and the partner appreciated my work) and one with a very small firm (where I drafted some documents that the firm used).

I possibly face the same bias that other JGLS students face: "Dumb, rich Jindal kid. Why give him work? Why is he here? Let him go to his summer house in Switzerland and chill there." ☹️

P.S. My family actually does own a summer house abroad, but in the UK and not Switzerland. 😑

Absolutely shameful for a community of law students to not recognise the pogrom against the Palestinian people. Putting your head in the sand like an Ostrich will not stop the orchestrated starvation, stopping of aid and wiping off of Palestinians. This is not a left wing or right wing issue, even our former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had spoken out against the atrocities faced by Palestinians. This is an issue of colonialism, not right wing or left wing politics. Free Palestine.

This profession often attracts mid-academic performer, who could’ve managed the sciences but chose law instead, for reasons ranging from curiosity to rebellion. Now, most of us are locked into a jurisdiction-bound career with limited mobility and few realistic pathways to relocate or transition out. The top-end options are riddled with toxicity and offer little autonomy. Law firm partner tracks hinge on countless unpredictable variables, and client acquisition isn’t a skill one can just “learn.” In-house roles treat you as a cost center, capping your growth and value. An MBA pivot is a high-stakes gamble and even then, the compensation often mirrors top law firm salaries, at least at the start. So essentially, it feels like a dead end. The only real perk? The tax treatment for lawyers.

Should have been 5 years. Also a limit on batch size, nothing more than 100. Even NLUs should have been one per state. Limit it to 30 overall, and centralise them like IITS and IIMs. Make their rankings different. Top 30 NLUs + 20 central and private ones like iitkgp, JNU, DU, Jindal, Symbi, GLC, ILS..And you have top 50. Ban everything else.

It’s not class hatred. It’s accurately assessing the consequences of showering your children with too much wealth and not enough attention.

Whatever it is you’re learning at your IB school- it still doesn’t help you crack a silly little exam called clat. Really it should be left hands play for folks who had that much advantage. You don’t crack clat- you go to Jindal. You know and I know and the world knows the rigor is not there. You pay ten lakhs a year you cannot buy an education but they will give you a degree. So you barely have skills or knowledge and you’re never hungry enough because everything in life has just been handed to you. So you stretch your arms out again for foreign llm. No one minds but you don’t study there either - you just waste the seat partying your face off and taking courses in bullshit. But it’s not like you got into a very selective program anyway- who cares if you spent a year at qmul or whatever. Will you get a job after that ? Considering you haven’t invested academically and a phd is not forthcoming if you don’t shell out more money ? You can try- come back and work at a Lala shop or at dads firm or heck go back and teach at Jindal cause what is it you’re supposed to do anyway ? And you soon find the rigours of work aren’t for you. So you’ll try and pass off the work of your juniors and your colleagues as your own. And dad will promote you when he has the chance.

And you have the GD audacity to sit there and tell us to work hard when you don’t even know what it is to work for anything at all. And you have the audacity to portray your consumption choices as matters of merit or effort. You cannot buy virtue.

This doesn’t apply to all rich kids. Some are parented well enough that they work hard and clearly know their stuff and zero people have a problem with those guys.

Hey guys

I am an experienced lawyer having 2 years of experience practising before NCLT and NCLAT equipped with the qualification of a Company Secretary. However, I would like to expand my practise area more and include the areas of commercial, real estate, white collar crime and regulatory authorities practise. I plan to shift to Delhi for that matter. I have been researching firms and I feel karanjawala or Agarwal would be fit for me, but I am feeling insecure as i don’t have any experience or knowledge other than Companies Act or IBC so I think no firms would hire me at all

Yes. NFSU is currently enjoying the ₹2,254 crore funding (2024 Independence Day gift). In 2029, it will receive more. So chill.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/cabinet-clears-2254-crore-for-national-forensic-infra-enhancement-scheme/article68308747.ece

▮▮▮???

This comment of yours reflects a serious lack of understanding. Please educate yourself before making such careless remarks.

When did wiping out an entire population ever amount to a “war” between two nations? When did demolishing another community’s sacred sites, erecting your own structures in their place, and performing rituals to advance your religious-political goals become “war”? When did depriving millions of civilians of food, water, medicine, and basic necessities, deliberately starving them to death, become “war”?

When an unarmed civilian population is bombed in their homes, denied refuge, and stripped of every means of survival, it is not “war.” When children are buried under rubble, when hospitals are destroyed, when entire families are erased, it is not “war.” When settlers are brought in to replace the displaced, when colonies are developed on stolen land, when cultural and religious identity is systematically erased, this is not war.

This is genocide. It is the calculated destruction of a people, their lives, their heritage, their future. To label it merely as “war” is to sanitize the reality, to mask crimes of the highest order under the false neutrality of military terminology.

Ofcourse not. We are literally manufacturing lawyers like crazy which is promoting unemployment. Maximum chunk has no option than to join lit nd then get exploited. It will actually improve the unecessary competition for upcoming ones. Also many sub-standard colleges are just taking students for the sake of monetization and offer no facilities or internship / placements. And above all BCI isn't dumb.

You start getting bill share, A1 onwards. Compensation for A1 comes out as:

14.4L + 4-6L + 3.5L = 21-24 lakhs (bill share is dependent on your team, practice area and billing)

You need to bill 3x of your compensation for 100% bonus. For example, if an A1 is making 21 lakhs, he/ she would have to bill 63 lakhs for 100% bonus which is not that difficult to do. Have seen A3/A4s bill a crore too

I am a 5th year law student from a (barely) tier 2 NLU, interested in Gen Corp. I am looking for opportunities to better my profile in this area of law - anything reputed and credible, idk, courses, virtual internships, etc, that anyone is aware of? Not from a hiring perspective at the moment, just want to build a good profile

Yes, some people go to IB schools.

Then they go to Jindal.

Then they go to London or New York for an LLM.

Then they apply to AZB, JSA etc through a contact and get accepted.

Then they may well find the work too straining/tedious and join a think tank or invest in startups, living comfortably off family wealth. ….

And so? Deal with it. We are not North Korea.

Also, I hope you know that when middle-class NLU grads become HNIs, their kids end up doing the same.

So stop hating. Study hard, get good grades, get a good job. You too will become an HNI. Don’t slack off and then come to LI to vent.

2025 batch here, joined in May 2025 at a T3 firm. i would like to switch to a T2 or T1 within this year, how is that done, i am a first generation lawyer and got in the firm through a ppo. i have no idea on how to make a switch- do i hire a recruiter or approach firms directly. currently my pay as a trainee is 45k i would like that as a A1 i get near 18-20. My area of interest is general corporate

Not all of them are released. I will only start asking serious questions about Israel's conduct once each and everyone of them is released - that is, when the living are returned home and the dead bodies are with their families and berried with dignity. Oh yes, and when Hamas has disarmed and left Gaza for good. Until then, I will continue, among other things, to be critical of the British for suspending arms export licenses to them.

Return the Israeli hostages first. Get Hamas out of Gaza and make sure they can't come back. People have been saying it for a year. Then we will talk about what the Israeli government does.

If selfish people like you stopped being a disgrace to the name of humanity and a blot on the landscape, and actually gave a fuck actually about Palestinians, you would be blasting Hamas left, right and centre every day, bombarding and flooding social media to call on the return of the Israeli hostages. Even if you hate Israel blindly (as you clearly do), the logic can be that return the hostages and that will be the moral high-ground to start accusing the Israeli government afterwards.

And as for your last argument, that's anyway what they want to do (read the Hamas charter - actually read it). According to you, Israel has been not so much bad and horrible as foolish, legitimising the actions of them when that is what they want to do anyway. See? Israel keeps looking bad. Even those like me who are totally unwilling to go along with this woke nonsense can't help but scratch your 'I-hate-Israel' itch, because the world (and that includes you) is psychologically conditioned to hate them.

▮▮▮

This is true, however, note the fact that NDA pays only to some NLU guys, even when the ones who does not possess necessary skill set. It is not a firm, which respects hard work. Trust me, I had been with this firm as an intern for very long time, worked with the team for long hours, weekends and was dumped, why? because I'm not from a Tier-1 law college. Please consider twice before thinking of wasting your important months and months of time on this firm.

Watch a few episodes of the BBC comedy show 'Yes Minister' and its later incarnation, 'Yes Prime Minister'. Even though that is a satirised representation of the British civil service, many of the fundamental principles of how a civil service should run, as articulated by the (fictional cabinet secretary, Appleby, played beautifully by Sir Nigel Hawthorn) are equally translatable to India. Hope this is helpful.

I was once able to get a reply from a partner at ▮▮▮ but he said my application is too early, and when I reached out at the suggested time he didn't respond. Same happened with ▮▮▮ once so I have developed some trust issues with cold mailing tier 1s, altho it has worked with some reputed advocates and tier 2s. Would it be feasible for you to share what you include in you cover letter ? I usually do this -

1. my intro with year of study and desired month and team at the firm.

2. relevant past internships

3. small para about why that particular team/ partner

it is so difficult to get a reply :(