It felt weird because only one person(the Chair-VC) asked questions, and the rest stayed silent the entire time. I cannot comment on the questions, but they didn't ask me anything about my subject area, but something entirely different. I also felt that the short time was a hindrance, as how can you judge someone within 12-15 mins....

I have my internship coming at SAM in april. I am looking for something in the corporate field but I am unsure if I should take GC, PE/VC, M&A, or etc. I have prior exp in GC, funds, financial regulation (one internship each). Can anyone help in terms of hiring + able to move somewhere else (like inhouse or other field/team)

PQE-13

Net Worth-18 crores. Made money during the covid market crash. Took everything out from the bank and put it in the market. Defense stocks zindabad. But otherwise my post tax annual saving right now is about 65 lacs annually (including bonus). Ensure that me and my family have a comfortable lifestyle.

Honestly, answer will vary individual to individual. I interact with fairly senior partners outside the work and some of them do compare who much others are making and some don't. In my view, after a point, the issue is not money, but whether you are looking for professional satisfaction or personal satisfaction i.e. whether you are working your ass off because you want to establish your name or you have decide to slow down to give time to personal life (which can be family, sports, or any other interests).

Having said that, its also important to note that the general cost of living has been steadily going up and more often than not, the lifestyle also dictates your life choice!

During court hours you can pretend to read case files and hearing arguments but you can keep reading your textbooks PLUS there are so many court holidays and personal leaves you can take. Keep adjourning matters at the drop of hat on one pretext or the other. engage few interns to find shortcomings in pleadings and ask the counsels to provide these clarifications/documents and allow them to keep arguing whole day.

In No way Zelus is better than Virudhka. Kids have poor management and can't organise the games as per schedule given. They can't create the hype and can just only target NLIU. Patiala as a city itself is so boring and is like a tier 3 city. You can't even go in the city as it doesn't have uber ola and no public transport as well. Zelus 👎

Traditionally it’s been SAM, CAM disputes is now catching up fast with SAM both in size and reputation; AZB does niche work but has some important clients like Amazon and Bharti; Trilegal is a mixed bag - sometimes visible sometimes not but generally good matters; KCO has a volume driven practice; JSA is largely known for electricity regulatory disputes.

Guys, you get far too attached to your universities and their so-called "brands". Cool it and work on your personal development a bit more, please.

What the cause of this is, I really don't know. Maybe starting university as young as 17, maybe spending five continuous years at one place... but this is unhealthy at this point.

Scopus does not automatically mean good journal nor good quality articles. The fact that Jindal promotions are a joke is very objectively assessable when you see the international standards. Oishik Sircar was Full Professor at Jindal for the longest time. He is now in Melbourne but as senior lecturer (one or two ranks down). Similarly, people who were Associate Professors at Jindal moved to NLS and Bits as assistant professor, speaking volumes about the sub-par promotion policies at Jindal.

I think the oldest NLSIU grads will be 53 or so. Still too young. Wait till 2030 and you will see the beginnings of the NLSIU monopoly in top positions. The golden era hasn’t begun yet. It will start in 2030 and peak till 2045, which is when other NLU grads will come in and compete.

1. I don't feel qualified to speak about the specific LLM's you mentioned, but I believe they are academically quite up there.

2. If law firm lateral move is what you want, LLM is a very expensive and very uncertain, way to do it. Honestly, most of those kinds that you describe (people making lateral moves after one or two years) are not because those Indian lawyers have done LLM degrees in Britain or the U.S., but because their work experience has been valued by the foreign law firms, they have recruited the associates based on those associates' networking and applying, those associates have a year or so to spare before they start their jobs overseas, so they take degrees from unis that will boost up their CV. In other words, the LLM has very little to do with the candidate's securing a job. Most people who need to resort to reading for an LLM in the UK, at least, to try and secure a job either face no end of difficulties, or fail to do it. As evidence of this, see the YouTube channel of this guy called Gordon Chung. He's from Hong Kong and was at Baker McKenzie's London office for about five years (two years long training contract, three years PQE) and has now gone back to his home country for some personal reasons. He took his law degree from Hong Kong and a master's from Cambridge, but despite this - having good law degree marks (obviously, as he got into Cambridge) and good marks at Cambridge - faced loads of difficulties to get into Bakers. As for lateral moves to the U.S., I actually can't speak to as well, because I don't know that law firm market as well, so maybe some level of credibility is gained by doing one. I will say though, again, that the only LLM student I know of in the U.S. who stayed back to work there was one who did LLM from UCLA, had worked in the European office of a global law firm and had made an arrangement with his home city's office of that firm that he would transfer to the LA office; the transfer criteria required an LLM, or something like that, I believe. If you do want to do a UK LLM, do it for the right reasons: its best value will be in courtroom advocacy careers like being a barrister, policy/thinktank work maybe and academia.

3. There's one thing you must understand about the western world, which seemingly your online research hasn't been helpful in conveying. As point no. 2 should have helped illustrate, moving abroad isn't, and has never been, as easy as you described (maybe you wrote that way for brevity, which is fine). But things are changing now, and not for the better, and sadly, our education system is not adapting to those changing realities. We hardly need to state that the Americans have been a hell lot insular as a legal market and have now taken insularity steroids (see election result, November 2024). Britain is not very much better. They have elected a bunch of people who are instinctually more liberal (a Labour administration led by the former human rights lawyer and immigrants rights advocate, Sir Kerr Starmer KC), but who are having to deal with the consequences of a prior government's complete bungling of the immigration system, higher education sector finances (and other things), which resulted in unbelievable numbers of people immigrating to the UK in the last three years. If you look up the statistics, they are objectively not good - way too high. Therefore, much as they may not like it, even the British are having to turn the taps to a much lower volume. This means that some of the things we could aspire to previously may be harder to achieve. This is because, unlike let us say IT workers or healthcare workers, the UK doesn't have a lawyer shortage problem and hasn't had. Therefore, their legal sector's insentives to advocate for liberal immigration rules are less, and therefore, the sector's own ideas of what they define as talent can afford to be quite narrow. In other words, they don't feel all that much of a need to shove their hands into an international talent pool. Their political masters, regardless of their own feelings in the matter, also find it politically convenient (because of peoples' concern at the immigration levels, both regular and irregular migration) at this time to discourage too much international talent pool diving.

When I say our institutions aren't coping with this reality, I would more blame our government and regulator. Unlike UK universities, for example, the flexibility given to our universities to make certain unique pedagogical arrangements is limited. King's, for example, has a so-called 'dual degree' tie-up with Georgetown, which involves studying the core modules required for a British LLB at King's for two years, and doing an accellerated JD at Georgetown for another two years, entitling the one who has successfully completed this programme of study to gain the dual degree of LLB-JD from King's and Georgetown, entitling the holder of this qualification to qualify and work both in England and Wales and U.S. jurisdictions. Please don't be disingenuous and say "But we have exchange programmes", because you know in your heart of hearts that the value of those compared to the setup between KCL and Georgetown, or similar ones that UCL and LSE have with Columbia, is much lesser. In this time of increasing insularity, I could easily imagine an American law firm asking international candidates to go for a JD, even if they have good Indian qualifications and work experience, making it a de facto ban against Indian lawyers immigrating to the U.S. Such tie-ups are one of the only ways to navigate around such insularity.

PS (1): Sorry for the long responses. Your questions seem genuine, so I am trying to genuinely trying to engage and communicate, as best I can, my own knowledge and experience from having spent time abroad. Hope this wall of text was useful.

PS (2): There is inevitable trolling on this website. One possible set of people who may be encouraged to troll this response is Jindal people, who might scream about the value of linkages they have (or may have had) with certain foreign universities. Unless you can produce (1) evidence of how many dual-qualified lawyers (Indian and American, let us say) that has resulted in; and (2) levels of foreign work placement, please do not respond to this, I have zero interest in PR or dick measuring.

So, according to you, research should also be democratically driven? If the elected government says you can make Ganesh by conducting plastic surgery on a human and an elephant, then all scientists should join the consensus? If you bothered to read PBM's work you would know that he has argued that democracy is not just about elections but about larger, longer term ways in which people self govern. The point is not 'neutrality' because there is no such thing. But about keeping everyone's power in check through different points of view and bureacratic

There's a reason a bureaucracy is a part of the executive branch and that civil servants swear their oath to the constitution not to whoever is in power. In your pop political science there should be no bureaucrats and political parties should take over the executive because election is everything. That's not how democracies work. Read a bit about its branches.
Civil society lobbies for causes and is transparent about what and why. Vidhi pretends not to have an agenda and has captured power at a much greater scale. Yes, it did a lot more than destroying privacy. The blanket is much larger.

SQE is a big plus in the Middle East. An LLM may help marginally only in your pay. In terms of grabbing good opportunities and a strong point to negotiate your salary, having a dual qualification is recommended. It’s even more useful if you are planning to get into the disputes practice.

Tier 1 prices are not too different from what you mentioned above. In fact there is more variety because you have a lot of mid-range places at different prices and not just dirt-cheap or super-posh.

Another difference is that big cities have good public transit so you don't need to Uber everywhere. Delhi has metro and Mumbai has locals (now they are AC and less crowded than earlier).

The economic explanation would be that of different markets and different stakes. The historical appeal of older NLUs lies in their catering to well-paying, inflation-adjusted jobs in non-governmental positions such as corporate and the like. But obviously not everyone goes the same way. And so the professional explanation here would be that law, like all else in India, is feudal and where success is a function of tribal solidarity. Faculty of Law at DU alone admits more students to its LLB program than all NLUs combined. And that is happening today! So in the scheme of things, NLSIU is not capable of being as influential, in both numbers of alumni and their networks, as older law colleges and the chains of patronage that haunt the Court and the Bar, from district to High to Supreme when it comes to offices related to law in the state. Interestingly enough, quite a few from NLSIU have joined All India Services and Central Services through UPSC in a merit-based examination. That should tell you something.

As an aside, assuming the claim here is actually true, it would make little difference to the lawlessness of Indian governance if NLSIU/NLUs alumni were part of the state. It is a long standing conceit of elite institutions that their alumni can govern India better. But to paraphrase what the fellow said, everyone has a plan until the Indian state hits them.

Not worth it at all. Corporate teams are equally bad. No learning, no growth, no interesting work. Just obnoxious seniors and partners. They pay the least among tier 1 and less than some non-tier 1 firms as well.

Ridiculous rating systems. You can work and kill yourself entire year but simply because your senior may want to put you at 5m rating and not 5h, you will not get full bonus. It is as subjective. They will not think twice to make you work on weekends and holidays and you being a naive associate, will continue to do everything on the hopes that you will atleast get full bonus after working so hard. But that also is not assured. Then you will hear this stupid speech from your senior that 90% bonus is not bad. Why should I be paid less if I have worked hard throughout the year.

Everyone worth working with has either left or is on his/her way out. If you have no other option, of course take it but if there are any other tier 1 options, please don't join this place.

Hi, I have been in the same boat as you and let me tell you it’s completely possible to switch over. I relate with your situation because sometimes tough hours and unfavourable work circumstances can bring out the not so good aspects of our personalities but here are a couple of things you can try to improve your chances: -

1. Try to reach out to seniors/ people working in the potential firm and see if you can get an idea about the interviewers, line of questioning etc.

2. For personality questions- Have a narrative ready. No robotic answers.

3. Since I interviewed for the M&A practice area, I am not the right person to advise you on the technical front but drafting a very succint CV and defining my limited role from the beginning of the interview helped me ease into the conversation.

4. There is no substitute for confidence so you will have to really push yourself mentally also to convince the hirer of your potential.

5. I used a lot of resources from law firm publications, Khaitan’s M&A course on YT etc and tried to steer the convo towards the tasks that I knew I did well at.

Finally, don’t be disappointed and keep going! There are some factors which are truly beyond your control so only reflect on things you can change! All the best to you :)

It was written 3 years ago by me. I have got into judiciary and now undergoing training.

I still am open to idea of appearing for UPSC and have started preparing. Its okay, if i dont clear and its also okay if i dont find time for it!

But hey dont wanna regret that i didnt even take the plunge.

Bennett takes more fee and is led by the dean from sharda. So in a way it is worse than Sharda. I study here and there was an exodus of all good faculty from Bennett under his deanship leading to random hiring. Placements are poor. It started very well with good group and team. Maybe i wouldnt have said this 2 years back when i joined bennett..but now i wish i had joined sharda..Join sharda, if you have only two options.

I will let Dale Cooper answer that. “Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret: every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it; don't wait for it; just let it happen. It could be a new shirt in a men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black, coffee.”

Mumbai's B&F cluster and Delhi's M&A cluster is the place to be after 6 - 9 years of Tier 1 law firm exposure; since the pay is commensurate with experience i.e. 40 - 55 lakhs instead of the shitty 14 lakh figure at A0 stage (when it is often difficult to grasp the complexity of what they do).

Even tier 2s like Bharucha, DSK, Veritas etc. match TT&A's A0 bands after year 1 base with bonuses (for top performers) so I hope the A0 pay gets hiked per se.

You seem to imply here that a think tank is not really autonomous if it agrees or helps with government policymaking. This is an unreasonable condition which emerges from a fundamental lack of trust in one’s own elected representatives. A think tank is there to offer its expertise. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes, its ideas will find supporters in the government and sometimes they won’t. How its leadership manages its relationship with the government is their call. And none of that denotes partisanship. Also, to say that CPR was ever an independent think tank is to betray one’s own ignorance of its founding history. It was essentialy one of those ICSSR institutes whose job largely comprised doing impact assessments of government policies; hardly rigorous work. When PB Mehta joined, he made it a more professional and intellectually diverse place, but not necessarily neutral. CPR has done good work but in deciding to join Hasdeo movement (the details of which are admittedly sketchy) it put itself in a spot with the Indian state. In a statist society like India, nothing can survive that is in an adversarial position against the government. Consider other think tanks like Institute of Economic Growth, Centre for Development Studies, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, etc. << https://icssr.org/research-institutes-0 >>. They all occasionally do interesting work. But none of them can survive by explicitly rejecting the consensus of the Indian developmental state and whose authority is backed by its democratic, albeit imperfect, politics.

I am a final year student, most probably getting retained as an inhouse legal employee in a non-tech startup after my traineeship. But work environment is stagnant and toxic (Basically i wouldn't take it if i had offer from corporate firms/ policy institutes, but my CPI is bad). Also there isn't much to learn, drafting agreements and compliance work.

Since i get a lot of free time in work and only 2 day work from office, is there any possibility that i can try learning litigation side by side or policy maybe (i have interest in tech policy).

Also There is a rule that i can't practice in courts if am doing a job somewhere. so should i give the next AIBE exam or should give when i intent to practice in court.

WRONG INFO GUYS HAVE YOUR TALKED TNNLU STUDENTS, IN 2023 OUT OF 120 STUDENTS 43 STUDENTS HAVE BEEN PLACED IN THAT PPO IS 8 AND TRI LEGAL RECRUITED 8 STUDETNS, TNNLU IS COMING UP DESPITE BIASED GUIDANCE FROM PEOPLE LIKE YOU. SLS PUNE I HAVE A RELATION SAYS HOSTEL FACILITY SUCKS COMPARING TO THE HOSTEL FEE THEY CHARGE. I AGREE SLS PUNE IS GOOD INTERMS OF EXPOSURE AND ALL AND PLACEMENTS ALSO BUT DON'T TRY TO POTRAIT TNNLU IS SOME SHIT PARDON MY FRENCH

its a boutique IP Firm. they have trademark and patent work mostly. if you're not from a science background as an intern they wont give you much patent work. they give decent amount of work most of the time. work culture is nice. people are nice. i heard the starting they give is 15k. they probably also get from client billings. base is 15k for a fresher and A1 A2 is about 30-40 and 60-70 I believe. not sure about the A1 and A2