After NFSU's ₹2254 crores, BITS Pilani to spend ₹2219 crores to fund expansion and growth.

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

https://www.financialexpress.com/jobs-career/education/bits-pilanis-rs-1219-crore-bet-on-new-campus-new-future/3912745/

Where are the state NLUs? They're not even getting the crumbs. Even all the 27 NLUs combined will not come anywhere close to this.

Hey, I don’t want to give away my identity or reveal my company name! 😅 All I can day is that my payscale and perks are common at this level. In terms of work ex, I did a mix of law firm work and even court litigation — yes, slaving away at low wages in dingy courtrooms. I paid my dues!

Anyway, bottom line is that

The AI171 matter will go to the courts for various reasons. The report prepared jointly by the forensic science and law departments will be taken as evidence in the courts. Did you know that NFSU is the only university in the country whose reports are admissible in the courts as evidence?

So much for state NLUs.

Senior advocates shouldn’t work beyond 70 or 75. They have made enough money for their next 10 generations of descendants. They should give others a chance. Also, some people lose their mental balance in old age. Prime examples being Rajeev Dhavan shouting and yelling during the Ayodhya hearings, Prashant Bhushan spreading anti-vaccine propaganda during Covid, and various lousy rants by Ram Jethmalani (claiming that a tall, Sikh man killed Jessica Lal).

I was invited for an interview yesterday. I arrived at 11:00 AM and first had a brief discussion with an HR representative. This was followed by a resume-based discussion with another team member, and then a meeting with the HR Managing Director, who informed me that a senior partner was looking for a junior associate to support him.

I was told there would be a 15-minute virtual meeting with the partner and was even coached on what to say and expect.

I waited at the office until 2:00 PM, after which the Managing Director asked me to take the virtual meeting from home and assured me it would happen the same day.

I waited until 5:00 PM at home and then messaged the HR representative, who replied that she would “put a reminder” for the meeting.

Did I get brushed off? Why go through so much trouble?

Is this India’s answer to Florida’s Stop WOKE Act?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_WOKE_Act

Because interesting how the bill uses the term URBAN naxalism, not RURAL naxalism. Like in the US, the assumption is that there is a far-left urban elite undermining conservative values.

https://thewire.in/article/government/as-maharashtra-govt-brings-bill-against-urban-naxalism-activists-fear-criminalisation-of-dissent/amp

https://theprint.in/politics/urban-naxal-changed-to-extreme-left-wing-ideology-public-security-bill-tabled-in-maharashtra-assembly/2685841/?amp

Women are far more emotionally mature than men. It is but natural for a lady to gravitate towards an older gentlemen when many of the boys her age talk like ▮▮▮ and are dull boring boors. Life really does get quite a bit more interesting as a man once you cross 35 (if you continue to evolve and look after yourself) :)

Look up pupillage awards at some top commercial sets. These are junior barristers, just starting out. They earn as much as £100000 per year - places like Brick Court, One Essex Court, etc. The phenomenon of pay wars in the British commercial law sector, started by the entry of U.S. law firms into the UK market, has extended to the commercial bar as well.

PS: Not really relevant to this discussion, but I do hope, one day, the pay war phenomenon, as seen for UK commercial lawyers, comes to India. While that is a problem (for law firm partners, regulators etc), it is a good problem to have.

Thanks for this, it's a helpful response. But not precisely what was being asked for, I think. This was asking about an Indian LLM. But yours seems like a much more common sense perspective than a lot of hate on LI, which, regardless of the main focus of the discussion, is a good thing.

No point talking hypothetical and create false news and rumours out of apparent heartburns. In today’s world, so easy to see who is offering what in campuses and what kind of deals one is doing by simply visiting linkedin. Facts matter and only they should. Rest all is crap and noise as can be seen here with a few disgruntled ones.

Context: https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/271865-hilarious-exchange-nls-vc-v-the-world-at-india-today-conclave

Since then, we have seen AI grow exponentially and the job market shrink because of various disruptions, economic uncertainty, lack of investment and reforms in India etc. in this scenario, is it important for college graduates (whether from law or other fields) to have some training skills and practical application, to stand out from the competition?

Or, are Sudhir’s remarks doubly vindicated, because AI can do skill-based lawyer jobs, but not intellectual tasks like writing essays on constitutional law, Hart and Fuller etc?

I remember Jane Gardam's fictional character, the barrister whose real name was Sir Edward Feathers but who was known as "Old Filth", with "Filth" standing for "Failed in London, try Hong Kong" because of his move from London to Hong Kong during the time when the British still had an empire (minus India). Always loved the Gardam novels on Old Filth. Seeming like Gopal Subramanium's case is exactly the opposite of Old Filth? :)

The government is the biggest litigator in India and counsels make hundreds of crores representing them. But the BJP has denied central government briefs to pro-opposition lawyers, and instead give them to pro-BJP lawyers. At the state level, this has been done in states where the BJP is in power.

The only hope for pro-opposition lawyers is to get work from certain state governments where opposition parties are in power, like Karnataka, Telangana and West Bengal. But is this enough to sustain the pro-Congress ecosystem?

i dont mean to sound shady at all, but this is 100% true

atleast initially they make a great first impression (until and unless they are extremely bad)

they are well spoken and extremely polished

and being presentable is a big part of working in a corp firm, people really treat you differently otherwise

i’ve seen some very hardworking children not being able to make the cut because they don’t have command over english and dress shabbily.

(being kicked out for not being a “culture fit” is more common that one would like to admit, sly way of saying work on your appearance and your soft skills)

also, we don’t expect freshers to know everything, most of it is taught on the job, so after they’re recruited, they are pretty much all at the same level (brains wise atleast), from that moment onwards your soft skills do take you ahead w considerable amount

in a rather disheartening anecdote, i was told by a partner to not let one A0 sit in a big stakes meeting because of this very reason

i’d like to add this is not just a jindal thing, being polished and well spoken in general (regardless of your institution) gives you an edge, and a big one at that especially in big law

i’ve only interacted with freshers so can’t say about the long term impact but good first impressions, confident speaking and firm handshakes def make me remember their names

He was above average at best. His main practice was in DHC. Used to brief seniors like Kapil Sibal. But slowly started getting his own cases because of political connections. He messed up Advani's case in Jain hawala dairies. So, BJP had to bring in Sibal as Advani's lawyer who also fighting for Jain brothers.

When he became ASG in 1989, Mukul Rohatgi had to beg DHC judges to make Jaitley a sr. which presents a sorry picture.

It’s a practice almost entirely focused on advisory work. If you like research, especially caselaw research, you will like this practice area. Scope is almost always there as you can shift into in-house roles easily. Firms wise, very few teams have a standalone practice so your mobility is fairly restricted. Trilegal Bangalore, Kco Bangalore and CAM Bangalore have the best teams, in that order. AZB Mumbai also does some substantial work in this practice since Vikram Shroff moved from NDA.

It’s a good, interesting practice area with quite interesting work everyday but the volume is almost always very high.

yuck. Have you attempted NET? its the worst exam ever that tests nothing except rote learning and luck. There is ZERO reason to believe someone passing an exam like that is better equipped to PhD. PhD admissions are supposed to be subjective in some senses. There are values other than facial impartiality. Research fit with supervisor for example, proven research experience, clarity in research question/methods all go a long way toward ensuring you actually complete your PhD than simply passing some idiotic exam. We have to get out of this colonized mentality. Not everything is IAS, not every hiring decision needs to be about equity between competing groups, and exams are not the only solution, especially not for high specialisation jobs like PhD. More important to get the best candidate with the best fit into the program.

advanced degree from a reputed university abroad will help your chances to get hired anywhere at all.Think HYS+Columbia+certain NYU and Berkeley programs and oxbridge. But that is not what the question is asking. the question is asking about an ADR LLM from jgls. I have yet to meet a person who will affirmatively say that degree helped them get jobs they otherwise wouldnt in industry. Any indian llm just doesnt have the same value at all.

Hi everyone,

I’m a recent law graduate trying to get my first proper break into the legal field. My CV is pretty average. I don’t come from a top-tier law school and I don’t have a long list of prestigious internships. But I’m serious about my career, willing to work hard, and just looking for the right place to start.

Right now I’m working with a team in any capacity I can, just to gain some real-world experience and keep learning. I know I still have a lot to prove, but I’m committed to growing wherever I get the chance.

I’m open to any full-time opportunity, whether it's in a law firm, chamber, or even a corporate legal department. Pay isn’t a priority for me at this stage. What I really want is a proper full-time role where I can learn, contribute, and gradually build my skills.

If anyone has suggestions on which firms are currently open to hiring freshers, especially those that are open to training and giving chances to people who may not have a gold-standard CV, I’d be really grateful. I’d love to hear about firms that value dedication and potential more than just grades.

Please feel free to share names of firms, teams, or even people I could reach out to. Any advice, recommendations, or leads would mean a lot.

Thank you so much for reading.

First of all how class is determinant of hardwork and dedication...

I believe that it totally depends on a person personality and vision which he or she see's for themselves....

And if you are deserving and passionate enough then definitely you will ace the process don't matter whether one is from jgnu or Jindal...

Law firms turns on screws that (mostly) does not take college into factor.

Getting in is the easier part, going up is not.

Your college may have contributive factor in getting you in, but getting clients, being net revenue positive is for the most part college agnostic.

Happy to be wrong.

Let me share my experience. I am a graduate of a tier 1 NLU. I did an LLM abroad and it helped me a lot. Apart from the experience of studying at a good international university (which you will not get anywhere in India) my LLM helped me secure a job at a niche law firm in India, followed by a very good in-house job at a top MNC. I was interviewed by the GC of this MNC, who is based abroad. I’m pretty sure having an overseas degree helped my selection. I don’t wish to give away my details, but let’s just say that my job is one that a lot of people would love to have.

I see a lot of scepticism, even hate, on LI against those doing an LLM abroad, for some reason. Sure, maybe it doesn’t work if your goal in life is to be a partner at CAM. But there are also other rewarding careers in law and there are also people who have benefited from an LLM abroad.

He always wanted to reach the levels of Salve and Rohatgi but could not. So, he might have thought of getting out of this race which he was never going to win. Not everybody is going to reach the top of the profession.

Dave was one of the top seniors. He should lead his retired life with content.

Quality of life from what I have observed.

Even after earning 100s of crores, senior advocate's have a non existent work life balance add to that pollution, traffic, broken/clogged roads.

Don't forget UK also has many filthy rich Indians which require legal assistance for their company and themselves so Indian lawyers do come in demand due to a strong diaspora.

The direct recruitment is very less. Not sure about Haryana. Delhi is far more regular with promotions, also because there are many specialised courts now which require ASJs and ADJs like commercial courts, POCSO courts, CBI and MLA MP Courts. I know these courts have resulted in more vacancies in Higher Judicial Services in Delhi for sure, again, cannot say about Haryana.

I think people should calm down with the GOAT talk. He was an excellent lawyer no doubt - just that we've had and we continue to have many excellent senior advocates. When you talk of GOAT, names like Nani, Seervai, Fali, MK Nambiar, Daphtary, Anil Divan, KKV, Ashok Desai etc come into play. Jaitley was an erudite and strong lawyer but probably a notch below the stalwarts mentioned above.

No. A tier-1 NLU brand is not overrated. Haters who flunked CLAT/AILET will argue that it doesn't matter, but a brand from a top NLU opens many doors and opportunities . More importantly, it's an indication of credibility especially given the fact that law is longer degree of 5 years. I would personally trust anyone from one of the top 5 NLUs over any other law school, or atleast give them the first-hand benefit of doubt, over any private college including your dear JGLS, Symbi and whatnot. And how on earth is SP Jain and Lancaster, etc., tier-1 for MBAs, lol? These places are the JGLS of IIMs. They suck, basically.

The specific facts of the two cases you cite must be considered - some of this was about more than immediate “economics”/ revenue inflows, i would imagine:

(i) With Manan, CAM effectively consolidated the 2 largest and “highly regarded” cap marks teams into 1. I guess that this has significantly increased their ability to control/increase rates in a practice area that isn’t a money printer by any measure. I would also imagine that Yash and Manan (and possibly Lala ji as well) must have had a chat with their business generating Partners and instructed them to not undercut each other otherwise none of this would work.

(ii) With Nisha, it looks like she capitalized on JSA’s want to not be a T2 firm + the fact that equity was opening up with some of their older partners retiring. Mind you, Nisha may have her own clients, but antitrust teams require transaction teams to feed them merger control work especially the USD/EUR/GBP billing transactions. A single LARGE transaction can yield about 2+ crores for the acquirer’s antitrust team. A single LARGE competitor-to-competitor transaction (which will come along very infrequently) may yield more if the competitors are market leaders. But most of those would be referred to the antitrust team by the transaction team. This makes it tough to quantify the pay bump for Nisha and the value add for JSA.

(iii) There is a high degree of PR surrounding these two individuals which is why you pick them up as examples, presumably. Gautam Saha’s shift to TT&A saw a shift of a higher number of Partners and other lawyers, not to mention the amount of money at play being far in excess. A friend at TT&A joked that their Delhi office has basically become “Gautam Saha & Associates”. I wont be surprised if there are other examples of team movements which are skipping my mind at the moment.

In terms of impacts on As/SAs/PAs, there will not be a significant impact on the large majority since these moves are only driven by the personal motivations of the rainmakers. Some of the PAs might become Partners, maybe everyone gets a slight pay bump but that’s about it. All of this is assuming that the juniors have been asked to move - apparently Nisha didn’t invite her fellow TL partners and the juniors mapped to them, although she controlled everyone.

A few more points -

(i) Factually speaking, 30 crores isnt the highest billed by antitrust teams. There are other T1 teams - some bigger than NKU’s and some smaller - which recover more than 30 crores per annum (also, the metric that firms care about is “recovery” and not “billing”). While I am no fan of hers considering the stories I’ve heard, I will concede that there is a good chance that NKU does/did more than 30 crores of recovery per annum. Anyhow, the highest revenues are probably at SAM competition - with around 12 partners (3x of team NKU). They may have a lower profit per partner but would definitely have a higher revenue figure. They simply wouldn’t keep promoting people to Partner and hiring juniors otherwise - and the suggestion that the team is exempt from usual law firm economic rationale is foolhardy. While Shardul’s lalaji vibes aren’t as intense as Cyril, make no mistake that SAM is a money driven law firm like the rest.

(ii) Saying things like “Cravath scale” is just not an accurate way to talk about this - not to mention that the context in which you’ve referred to it also seems inaccurate (i think you meant lockstep?). The Cravath scale - the highest pay for lawyers in the world - refers to a very specific set of numbers, i.e., what Cravath and similarly placed firms pay their lawyers. While there are firms outside the US that pay Cravath (mostly foreign offices of US firms), NO indian firms pay Cravath (unless youre lala ji’s family) because they simply arent at that level as much as some of these firms pretend otherwise. Some of the Indian Managing Partners’ rates (usually 1k USD per hour) are the same as/around those of foreign Associates (junior Associates in foreign Big Law are charged out at USD 700-850 per hour). One just has to look at metrics such as total turnover (some foreign firms rake in USD Billions) and average revenue per lawyer. There are foreign firms with headcounts similar to CAM and TL which make MUCH more. Lastly, there is also the fact that you don’t have lalajis like Cyril and Zia in these Cravath scale firms sucking up a significant chunk of profits - even from highly profitable teams - because they provide the “platform”. The lalas basically capitalise on the lethargy of some rainmakers in terms of setting up admin processes and taking on the risk of some fixed costs. As someone who knows some rainmakers who broke away from T1s to start their own gig, those guys begin to make a LOT more after breaking away.

(iii) While gender inequities do exist, you need to appreciate how they do/dont play out in context of law firms. Many of these “top-performers” do not have a personal life (no spouse, no kids) and they reach a point of emptiness where they are all consumed by work and the thought process is “control these little shits and make money number go up brrrrrrr”. Of the two mentioned in your post, one doesnt have a spouse and children while the other got a spouse many years their junior not too long ago. There is no judgment here, just a statement of fact. There are other rainmakers who are divorced because their spouse didn’t want to put up with the absence and/or have terrible relationships with their children because they were absent. Mind you, some of these children end up having a bad long term trajectory because daddy (it mostly is daddy) compensated for their absence by making their wealth available to the kids without supervision.

Lastly, I am glad lawyers in India are beginning to have conversations like this. Remember, its all about the money - the “prestige” of having your matter mentioned in the newspapers doesnt mean anything. The fact that you spent your nights away in office / on screen doesnt matter. Most Associates won’t make Partner. Most Partners won’t make Equity Partner. Barely any Equity Partner will be a Managing Partner (and none will in a lala set up). Focus on securing the $$$ while youre in the system. To do that, conversations like this are important. To do that, Partners also need to step up and promote these conversations (even if anonymously through this platform) irrespective of the fact that their lala ji MP promotes a different “culture” - remember, you’re not getting the best deal either. Alternatively, they can always dance at lala ke bete ka sangeet and hope to get a few extra pieces of silver thrown at them.

The biggest problem is that a myth was spread that NLSIU is the Harvard of the East and that NLUs are like IITs for law. So people started imagining themselves to be comparable to the wizkids in tech and business produced by Harvard and IIT. In reality, the first myth was actually spread by NLSIU students/alumni, while the second myth was spread by students/alumni of newer NLUs, who needed validation. The reality is that neither of these myths are true. Also, the legal job market in India is quite poor.

The Nationalisation of NLUs will only happen when an NLU grad is a powerful minister in the Union Cabinet and this will take time maybe 20 years atleast. or if the Supreme Court asks Union Govt to look into it. This is the simple harsh truth. We will just have to wait. Can’t do really anything else.

Bhai tu aata hi upper middle class se hai. People do not realise that law firms make sense for someone moving from middle class to upper middle class. One can shift their entire family of 4-5 into upper middle having slotted 10-15 years in law firms. For those of you already in upper middle these jobs will make less sense. I mean I would borrow few tens of lacks from my dad and start something of my own if I were you. Bank FD karde 1-2 crore ki uska interest will be associates ka salary. For those who need the money they will keep working. It's not bad money by any metric. You keep comparing wrong places and hence will have get wrong answers.

Do they do research/ compliance/ transactions of only tech companies/ data privacy chapter of DD? The main purpose of this question is to know if I can learn as much about deals as an M&A/PE/VC team if I apply for a TMT team? Is it purely advisory? Will they test companies act during interviews? If someone who is interest in both tech laws and wants to gain experience in gencorp aspects too, should they apply for TMT? The demarcations are not clear out there imho, very confused. Or are these demarcations firm specific? Will be super super grateful if someone can answer!!