I am a final year, final semester student at a god knows what college called IILM University, Gurugram. I have a passion for litigation and i want to excel in the courtroom scene. But, ofcourse no one would bother to reply to the sack full of internships i have applied for till date. I am currently interning at a boutique law firm which deals in high-stakes litigation but i have no idea what i should do after the month exhausts. Any guidance would be deeply appreciated and any insights are welcome at this point. This is a cry for help.

Mumbai is SUPER stagnated. Costs are really, really high. Clients fight you for payment, you have to chase them with a figurative bowl. Clients refuse to give timely instructions, and suddenly emerge from the unknown depths one day seeking your NOC on somebody else's VP. I have been on both sides, giving my NOC, and having clients come in from some decent Advocates. Court staff, especially in non-HC courts and Tribunals is feckless. They want baksheesh for your efforts of taking the inspection of files. The old boys are so bleeping rigid that they refuse to take a step back. These old boys are the OS seniors. They do NOT pay.

Keep this in mind whatever you decide.

Hi all!

I am a first-generation lawyer about 1 year into practice and I am beginning to see the multiple advantages/disadvantages of being part of a chamber. My main worry is that I am uncertain about securing clients in the future and establishing a base and fear that I will eventually have to resort to joining a firm purely for financial reasons to sustain myself once I turn 30. I am currently weighing up my options about joining a tier 1/tier 2 firm for dispute resolution or continuing in a chamber. The reason behind this is that I see no difference in the amount of work being done in a chamber and would rather do the same amount of work in a firm while also getting a larger sum of money.

I would really appreciate it if someone would tell me the advantages or disadvantages of joining a firm based on the following lines:1) What Kind of work do disputes teams do and are junior associates allowed to argue/make submissions or is it only clerical work/briefings?

2)Should I continue in a chamber and join a tier 1/2 firm after a few years and would this put me at an advantage in terms of knowing litigation in a better and more ?

I need an honest opinion on what kind of work really happens in dispute teams at firms without any of the preconceived stigma associated with working at a big firm.

Thank you in advance!

I’m in my 2nd year of law school, and while my uni isn’t bad per se, it definitely doesn’t stand out.

I wish I knew about CLAT back when I was in 12th. My teachers say that the placement cell is trying their best and will improve, but I see nothing getting better.

At least you’ve got one of the Symbiosis campuses if not Pune. I understand that it doesn’t help as much as a NLU tag, but it definitely is a LOT better than where I am.

I wish I had someone to guide me with this. I understand what you’re going through.

Avoid like the plague. Why? Check Glassdoor reviews. Reach out to people who are still there (they may be looking out)/ or were there. Study employee attrition and average time spent there. Hiring from India is standard policy for them as their employees keep churning. Also, doesn't work like a law firm proper - keep picking up introductory commissions related work. Pay is insufficient to sustain in Dubai - between 9-15k AED for someone who is a 1-4 PQE Associate - so at 4 years PQE you earn AED 15k. No substantial career growth till you're pally with the bosses. They get you to Dubai but will limit external industry interaction for the fear of attrition. Hindi is the common language of the office, and it works like an Indian single owner run company.

as someone who lives in delhi, yes the city is unsafe but bro you dont get harassed left, right and center, what do you mean??? i am a woman and i drive in the city too. i havent been harassed, i know i am lucky, but its not like the city is so unsafe that its unliveable altogether???

I am an female Advocate, 45 yrs old, practicing in High Court and handling Labour and Service matter.

a) I wish to shift my career from litigation to non litigation. How can I do it?b) I dont like Litigation. I am much more interested in Tech Law, Cybersecurity, etc.

Also I want a job in Corporate World. How can I secure it? What courses should I take up to leverage my skills to get into Corporate World?

c) Or else I wish to take up LLM from UK or any other course from UK and secure a 9 to 5 job in UK.

Please guide my these queries.

Hi, my parents have managed their finances well and are comfortable, so they don't need me to contribute. I feel sorry if you think everyone should put their own life on hold just because you don't believe parents can handle their finances properly, prob yours couldn't. Contributing to household expenses is great, but guilt-shaming someone without knowing anything about them is just stupid.

And when Marijuana is legal in India, people who smoke it and sell it here will not actually be criminals. You're on a lawyer's forum, and you have no respect for the law!

Theres nothing regressive or boomer about my comment. I didnt name marijuana, drugs of far more intense varieties are all the rage in Ashoka and other law schools nowadays. in any case if you read my comment youd know I'm alright with folks doing whatever drugs they want provided they dont hold others responsible for their decisions.

Please dont prompt folks who already dislike the law to become law professors. Thats how we got here in the first place. Academia isnt a back up career plan for folks who dont want to do anything else.

OP- if you want to do IAS only and dislike law, I suggest you just focus on that. Academia is not easy and you will need a PhD to advance which youre unlikely to complete if you dislike the law.

1. In litigation - 0 unless there's an arbitration. In corp - 0 on regular days. Its mostly during high profile client meetings.

2. Since they're the ones usually attending the high profile client BD meetings, yes. Associates wont be judged negatively. May get some snarky comments from others if you're doing it regularly but no one else is. Ignore them.

3. No, since no one cares about the ties. Wear whatever ypu can afford if you want to.

4. Eh

Work-life balance is not practice specific, it’s all about how well you manage your time and your deliverables. I can promise you cap marks is just as laborious as PE/VC/M&A, litigation or projects.

But if I had to pick, Id say regulatory finance work is much more engaging than cap marks, which is largely templated and monotonous for the first 3-4 years.

Dear fellow,

Forgive me if this comes across as an unsolicited imposition of idealism upon a young student in your position but, if you can, you should pursue a career in judiciary. All things being equal, this is what NLUs were built to achieve and a life in public service is the single greatest opportunity you will have in making sure that to your fellow citizens the word “law” amounts to more than just an instrument of leverage.

As for corruption, of course it exists or else this country would not be in the state that it is. But in your judicial career, whether it stops with you or not would be entirely your choice even though at the moment of deciding you may think it is not, that someone else compelled you to. For one cannot commit wrong without first deceiving themselves that there is no such thing as wrong.

Need an ego massage eh? So you just randomly lash out? Please take your superiority complex elsewhere. You think you've kicked down but actually your leg's bent at an awkward angle, your trousers have torn and you've somehow ended up kicking yourself in the dick, which is why the mods should mark this comment of yours as 'trollish' for completely exhibitionist, childish, immature behaviour.

Plenty of Indian law graduates (of NLU type and other places) also live fancy lives in the UK and the U.S. as highly-paid lawyers. You may not know this (but should if you had been astute and minimally competant), but the UK government recently released its list of new King's Counsels (KCs). The KC designation is a great honour, awarded to only those who have served in the English legal profession with great distinction, with the pannel who awards the titles to people comprising judges, legal professionals and lay persons. Two Indian lawyers (and by "Indian lawyers" I am exclusively referring to lawyers born and educated up to the undergraduate level in India, not to those who might have been born in India but went to school in Britain or went to school in India but university outside or any combination of born outside and educated entirely abroad/born outside but educated partly in India) received that honour. As someone familiar with the workings of the English legal system (and not an NLU student or graduate), that is a billion times more than anything you will ever achieve in your entire miserable life.

Rapes, harassment and men ogling happens in Mumbai too. Rude people ? Mumbai is very well known to be the most rude city in India. There is road rage in Mumbai too. And the way Gujaratis and a few Maharashtrians behave in Mumbai is far worse than those from Haryana, UP, jaat gujar etc.

It's good you want to prepare. My most important tip is to try to speak with people (your seniors) who work there, especially associates, because nobody can tell you what the team is like better than them. Try to understand the timings, the kind of work, stress/work-life balance, so you don't feel stressed out if you get there and find yourself working late hours, for example.

Other than that, I would recommend enjoying your fifth year as much as possible and refresh and recharge :) but I do understand if you are anxious about getting lazy and wanting to prepare. Know the basics of arbitration act, landmark judgements, read the news, etc. but most importantly, focus on procedure. Don't make anyone have to explain to you what is a Section 8/9/11. Be well acquainted with Microsoft Word, checking court orders, etc. The work in the initial few months is unlikely to be more demanding than supporting your seniors. Remember, it ultimately matters what you do when you get there.

Congratulations on securing your job!! be diligent with your work when you join and everything will go well

High attrition proves that we successfully hire quality students. If we would have hired incompetent folks then we would have seen mass firing which is extremely rare at least in my firm. Honestly, there is a lack of quality students who are willing to grind for 12 hours daily which is why we see attrition.

Its a batch of 120, chill bro. We don't count 3-year LLB folks. They are still counting internships. The 2026 batch got fucked because majority of their batch interned with Khaitan in June which is on a freeze. So, October was the only month where they could make a case for hiring.

My 6 years at a T1 have confirmed a belief that I have harboured since birth. A neck-tie is the most useless, ugly and hazardous piece of garment that a man can wear in this day and age. I have never in my entire life here at the firm seen any lawyer, young or old, wear a tie more than 2-3 times a year or for anything other than stuff like arbitrations.