Can I get a list of firms that officially don't work on Saturdays (from office)? Now, I know it's not realistic to think you won't have to work the weekends in a law firm as I myself work on weekends more often than not. It's just that I have the liberty to work from home on Saturdays and Sundays and whenever I plan to switch I want that same liberty. I don't mind working on weekends as much as I mind the commute as I live quite far from where the offices are in Mumbai. I just wanna know which firms don't work on Saturdays officially so I can only apply to those because the ones that I come across with openings almost all of them work on Saturdays and I just can't handle a 6 day commute.

Dear Community,

I am a final-year law student at a private university (which I would rather not describe). Unfortunately, we have no placement support at all. I have completed a few internships at T2 and T1 law firms, primarily in General Corporate and Capital Markets. I have accumulated 3-4 months of solid experience in Capital Markets at a T1 firm. Additionally, I have a strong foundation in M&A and PE/VC, as I am pursuing a diploma in these areas.

Despite having a good rank in my batch, I am experiencing significant anxiety because I am struggling to secure assessment internships, whether at T1, T2, or boutique law firms. I am determined to keep my focus in M&A, PE/VC or Capital Markets.

I would be deeply grateful for any guidance on how to proceed and what my approach should be if I am unable to crack any opportunities. Also what boutique firms I can target so that I am able to gather some skills.

Thank you in advance for showing me a path forward.

Hi, I am a 4th sem student, I have done 3 internships previously and wish to do a corporate internship in Delhi in June and July. I am clueless about which 3rd or 4th tier firm I should apply to and which team. I wish to work in corporate eventually so guide accordingly

If anyone has faced similar issues and now working in a good firm please guide me.

Also, is TMT legal a good firm to start, and if yes which team?
And is there scope for me to build connections and further secure upcoming internships??

Will you give OP money to feed and clothe him/herself, pay their electricity bills/rent, pay for any family obligations etc, in case this doesn't work out and OP has a hard time finding a way back into the industry? No you won't! You will just not, in 99.99 cases out of 100, want to go quite that far. Your standpoint, however, would be selfish in the extreme. At least the "armchair naysayers" who can be so easily dismissed are transparent that they won't help like that either, but at least they are clear on that by not being hipocritical! Instead, they are giving OP realistic advice to stay on a stable career track (for now at least), so that later life problems can be avoided.

You know what? You people - the so-called "idealists" - are all the same! Always blaming everyone else but yourselves for problems, always trying to deny that the consequences of your choices and actions can still impact 20 years down the line! If you aren't wealthy enough, that's because there are people with stinkingly high levels of wealth. What is so hard in pulling up your bootstraps and doing whatever it takes to get to that level? Because that is exactly what people like you will do in 20 years' time. When OP's social circle will be sending their kids to swanky schools and will have the financial standing to ensure that they get exclusive and swanky higher education opportunities (many outside the country) - exclusive because they require (i) solid brains from the kids; and (ii) plenty of the right stuff as well (with limited options to access it if not available) - you will dismiss the life achievements of such people as "privilege". What's the problem in making some life sacrifices? In just grunt-working at a T1 job for 20 hours a day, so that your kid might be able to follow her calling? Your kid will be privileged enough to make most of her talents to follow her calling. For all you know, she may want to become a historian in LSE, but the educational opportunities required to get there with even small degree of smoothness require her to show her brains are the best as well as she has money in her pocket. Will she thank you for randomly "following" some whim in your 20's? No she won't! At best, she will grin, grit her teeth and try for those limited options for funding to access those opportunities at postgrad level; at worst, she might do that and curse you in her adult life. Stop thinking only about yourself and think about others, too. There is plenty of time - so much that it drags - to follow whims in later life, if you have money, then that will just be so easy. Don't waste what time you have now!

Hi, had been looking for information on Mumbai based T1 Disputes team. While there is a lot of talk around the work culture of AZB, SAM and Trilegal’s teams, there is an apparent dearth of information about Khaitan. Given that KCO has invariably a large disputes team (in terms of no. of lawyers), very curious to understand how the team functions, kind of matters it does, and how does their compensation fair against the above T1s.

Would be really grateful to all those who could provide their insights, especially from the perspective of a mid level A3/A4 in the disputes team.

Thank you!!!

This year appears very dry for Bo2026. No office (Mumbai, Del, Blr) appears to have given a PPO recommendation to students, let alone interviews and confirmation. This is true for T1 NLUs also. Teams seem to have submitted feedback but no news from HRs on enquiring Does anyone know what's up and when students can finally hear back? Or is this a big draught for Bo2026 wrt KCO?

Can someone tell what is the pay in IPR and TMT and does it increase with the experience, I am confused as I need a high paying field because of my loans, so please help. Also it would be good if someone can share the true salary the firms are paying. Please I need it to make my decisions.

As someone who did this, don’t do it without a few years of work experience atleast. A T1 job is not worth throwing away for the CSE gamble unless you’re 100% sure you will never want to return to corp for money and other perks. Unless you get IAS/IFS or maybe IPS, the rest of the services have work profiles that are as dull and even more thankless in terms of pay and prestige and you will be treated as if you didn’t even succeed in the exam. And I’m sure even you’ll feel the same way if you don’t get a top 100 rank and crack the top 2-3 services. Even IPS officer repeatedly attempt the exam year after year for rank improvement which tell you all you need to know about the design of this exam.

Comeback when AI will be able to deal with requirements like collecting all backups, going through them to ensure all are in place, how to tackle the situation when the relevant backups aren’t there. When AI is able up understand when a fire noc or an SE license is not required or is it okay If we skip the part regarding the years of experience of a kmp or smp a lot of these things bankers get done with the regulators on the side, it’s very subjective how a transaction in cap marks ultimately plays out. If AI will eat sth up, it’ll eat up the plain simple drafting jobs in PE-VC, M&A.

Big mistake. Huge. There is so much luck built into an exam like UPSC, I dont know why anyone would give up on a whole career path to take years off to prepare for it. Its one thing if you dont have a job generally- then yeah, you can use your time to prepare for exam and try and crack it. But to give up a career on the offchance you might get really really lucky and be- what?- a babu? ridiculous trade.

People keep asking this over and over again. Perhaps because they're so nervous about their futures. But the truth is, no one can know enough details about your individual profile to give you a good answer.

What people can tell you generally is that getting a good GPA- in the top third of your class from a top university means you will be able to land a job at a big law firm just because of that.

If you don't have either of those things- a top GPA or a top university—you will have to work significantly harder. It's unlikely that large firms looking to hire a bunch of people based on short interviews will trust you have the skills because you don't have the GPA or the university. They have no reason to believe that you can do the work. You can try and assure them in the interview, but every single student with a low GPA believes it doesn't reflect their true qualities and will make the same argument.

Your best bet, if you don't have a top GPA or a top university, is to choose one mid-sized firm or litigator and intern with them multiple times for a long period of time. Build trust with them so they will prefer to hire someone they know, someone they know can do the work, than a stranger with a decent gpa. Its going to be hard. Many places will let you intern endlessly without even discussing your career. You should take the initiative to be direct. Ask them pointed questions and refuse to let them get away with evading an answer. Do it in a way that is professional and not entitled.

Instead of repeatedly asking strangers on internet to assure you about insecurities- just think about what an employer would want from an employee, and then try to become that.

hi interned at phoenix earlier, few things to know:

- they have a pool system there for interns, i.e. you are not assigned teams. 4th/5th year interns did get assigned teams a week in, but most of them did not get their first preference and were sent to disputes.
- you need to go to associates desks multiple times daily to ask for work, you can try mailing too, it works sometimes. try within the first week to build a rapport with the associates in the team you want to intern with, they will call you for work themselves once they're able to trust you. phoenix takes ALOT of interns so its important that you have 1-2 associates who regularly assign you work. makes life easy.
- there is very limited contact with partners. some junior partners did interact with the interns tho. if you are going to the internship through a partner, you can ask the HR to meet them.
- if you are interested in getting an assessment (4-5th year), you can ask the hr towards the end of the internship. she will ask the team you worked with and according to their review you be considered. when i was at the firm only one assessment intern got an offer out of 4-5 people.

i barely worked with gen corp and there are some young associates there who most interns had negative experiences with some of the younger associates. b&f and disputes team are really good tho.

Looking at the comments so far, sad that there are always people trying to get you down. Here are my two cents - please bear in mind though that I don't have exactly comparable experience, as I haven't prepared for civils, but I have hired (good) candidates who had career breaks due to UPSC prep.

1. You mentioned you've been at a T-1 firm for 6 months, I'd suggest you stay for at least 6 more months (if not more, if that works from your UPSC age limit perspective), rounding your work experience out to a year (if not more). If UPSC doesn't work out and you want to get back into private corporate practice (firms or in-house), the more law firm experience you have, the more desirable you will be as a candidate for both firms and in-house roles.

2. For the remaining duration that you choose to stay in your T-1 role, I'd advise against trying to prep simultaneously. In my experience, multi-tasking is a myth and humans do better when they are concentrating on one thing at a time. Instead, focus on doing a good job at work, build a network to the extent you can (don't stop staying in touch with your network during civils prep either), and save whatever you can - ensuring respectively that when you leave, you will have some goodwill that can help you land opportunities if UPSC doesn't work out, including a return to the same team if that is what you want + providing you a financial cushion.

3. Set an outer limit for the number of unsuccessful civils attempts you will allow yourself, so you know when it's time to activate your backup plans.

4. Also assess how easy it was for you to land your T-1 job. The sad but brutal truth is that at least for folks who pivot to law firms after unsuccessful civils attempts, it's easier for candidates from more established colleges to get a foot in the door (at least an interview, trainee associate position etc.) than others. For e.g., my post UPSC prep hires (with several years of prep) were from well-ranked NLUs.

5. Accept that should you choose to return to private practice, there will be a hit to your PQE as nothing but work experience will be counted towards that.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Woxen and SLSN are good but there are other good in Hyderabad like Mahindra University- Law (they are the one having some of the very good collabs apart from JGLS); BML Munjal and BITS. Christ Banglore one has got good ranking too. Sai Chennai can be a good pick, in 5 years, I am sure they would have a different reputation. Apart from these, VIT Chennai and VIT AP is very promising given their leadership and curriculum.

Some differently abled students had asked SBA and UGC (as well I guess) to specifically direct all teachers to not give SCC copies but only manupatra copy or other OCR enabled copies as reading materials for the sake of accessibility. I don't think that was implemented back then. Nevertheless, SB the labour law professor and later even RS, the corporate law professor acknowledged this and was sharing accessible copies only. Don't know what is happening now.

It's been few months into tier 1 law firm and I have been often get looks by seniors when I say I don't have bandwidth. My peers at other teams also says it is brave of me to tell it in a blunt manner. They often take more work then they can handle and though they are able to deliver most of the time, they get chided for delay or quality. On the other hand, I feel I need time to learn things and it is difficult for me to handle multiple things at once. But even I have got remarks that I shouldn't say that I don't have bandwidth on senior's face. Instead try to hint at it indirectly. I don't understand what is wrong with saying it directly when you know that you cannot handle workload. Further, if I should say it indirectly or hint at it, how should it be? My rationale is that it is lesser evil to not commit to do the work and let the senior give it to someone else, than to commit to take up the work and do it in such a way that the senior would have to re-do it again. Also if I am not sure about whether I can balance the workload or not, should I just take it up anyways and face the consequences of a bad work or say I might not be able to do it. Idk how you all are able to handle this. At one point you have to be 100% accurate pulling out every law, rules and notifications etc and at the same time you have to do it in record time, managing multiple stuff. But somehow I see seniors are able to manage it because I have never heard them saying they don't have bandwidth to their partners.

Yeah agree. I hope AI does something so we have to slog lesser. But it’s not there yet. There are far too many complications and PandCs for AI to handle as of now. In India it can’t happen in two weeks, period. Would take at least a month or more, depending on the kind of issues.

1.1k rank in clat, i might get MNLU M by vacancy but its a tough bet. Did not get SLSP, got SLSN. Got offer letter from jindal but idts im gonna qualify for scholarship. Id consider bits but again scholarship is an issue. Im from mumbai and dont want to go to a tier 2 or worse city unless the college is wow. and im from a middle class family a little above middle class id say, my dad doesnt exactly work that much but my mom is in the corporate banking world at a good position and has contacts. Im looking for a college that had corporate placements and good exposure. If i dont get mnlu m, should i go for NMIMS, GLC or SLSN?

Nothing personal, imo. There are such partners across firms who dont take resignations well (and end up proving to you even more the exact reasons why you quit) but then you’re on notice, who gives a fuck? Take it head on, and leave happily, thats what hurts them the most, not seeing the associates get hurt

Yes, while mainstream T-1 firms may not be hiring actively, there are many firms which don't freeze hiring until the end of your final year. For instance, Bharucha & Partners, JSA, Tatva Legal, Tuli & Co., AP&Partner, Acuity Law, S&A Law Offices, S&P, Keystone etc.

(This list is based on the EOIs received, may or may not be true for every batch)

Go with Rahul's. The fee is defintley on the higher side, no denying that but the course is also longer as compared to other coaching instiutions and it is worth it. They have a set time table for classes, provide notes and other study material. The teachers are good. Other coaching institutes will finish the course sooner by not teaching you half of the syllabus. Now it is for you to decide which one you want join. Hope this helps.

+ Khurana & Khurana, Wadia Ghandy, Singhania, Supreme Court, PwC, EY, GT, KPMG, RBI, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM).

Two things to remember: The first batch has completed its 7th semester, and the batch sizes are just under 40. Law firms are starting to assign work integrating forensics and law to NFSU Law students (the niche is important and high value).

There aren’t a lot of firms that specialize in Corp law in Chennai, in comparison to the other Tier 1 cities at least. The ones that practice Corp don’t pay that great excepting a few. That being said, I think ICUL pays around 45-50K to a fresher, however I’m not 100% sure, I could be wrong. The best paying firms in Chennai for Corp are probably KCO, AZB, SAM, and maybe LKS.

Idk what the original comment was, but man, just check your privilege at the door and stop invalidating other people’s experience.

I really hope and pray for people like you to have extended durations of discomfort doing some dogshit job like lawyering which is really just a family business for the privileged class, in order to just create some financial comfort for you and your family.

Maybe then you’ll understand.

DW kid, this is an IT technicality, lots of people who've been in the legal profession in multiple countries (including British and U.S. Supreme Court judges) don't know what it means. So just find out by reading on and don't be too hard on yourself for not knowing before.

1. What: OCR-enabled is when the PDF can be read as typed text (like the text of this comment), rather than as an image-based PDF.

2. Disproportionately bad impacts it has on people:

(a) A comment above has described difficulties with marking/annotating non-OCR-enabled documents. That person has explained it well, so I can't do better than quote what s/he said: "Trying to draw straight horizontal highlights in Adobe is an absolute pain in the ass and this is one of the reasons behind why I chose to post under this particular pseudonym. A person realises how much they take the ability to select and highlight text for granted after having to go through even one SCC report."

(b) Not enabling it means that blind people can't access such PDFs at all. SCC Online knows about that (they have been told multiple times), but they choose not to act, which is entirely on them.

Oh yes they did. The one who tried to talk with them was Rahul Bajaj, the first blind Indian Rhodes Scholar (mods, this is a matter on public record, please publish). It ended up becoming a Twitter fight between him and senior SCC Online reps. Their behaviour was disgusting. Later, Bajaj told an American journalist about improvements to the SCC Online website which, he said, were likely byproducts of improvements at other things than accessibility, with the fact that they had improved accessibility being entirely coincidental. Evidently, SCC Online cares as little about disabled people now as they did then. You have only to search his (Rahul Bajaj's) Twitter profile to see what happened.