Working at a T1 law firm. My partner prefers to take the team out for lunch every Friday, as long there isn’t too much work. However, he’s insanely into Asian food and gets annoyed if people do not roll with his preferences. I objected to having raw fish but he gave me such a look of disappointment that I ended up having it. He also commented saying that sometimes I need to step out of my comfort zone.

How do I back out politely without ruining my impression? I am someone who loves flavourful North Indian dishes but the concerned partner hates almost all Indian cuisines.

A2 here in GC practice in a T1 firm. My health has deteriorated to some extent since I joined the firm. Sometimes I feel like collapsing, other days I have headaches and backaches. At the same time, I wonder how many partners at my firm are so fit. Of course there are obese folks ( and I mean obese to the point it is concerning) and folks with heart and blood pressure issues but most of them are fit, regular to gym and healthy than even many associates. Litigation lawyers I would say are way better. Even at the age of 80-90 they work late nights. They appear way better than my dad and mom who had work-life-balance all their life. Is it the case that I am just looking at minority of folks who survived and not the ones who left or is it that working hours don't really affect your health as your body gets used to it.

Who else amongst the equity partners left JSA in recent times? Only Kapur who is anyway close to retirement- right?

Quite a few teams have in fact joined JSA in recent times. The firm is expanding. There is no place left at the Mumbai offices including at the new OLP despite acquiring additional space.

Yes. Smart kids are now opting for b.com/bba/btech llb more than ba. Similarly newer universities are pushing for a b.tech+llb course. However, this doesn't mean that ba courses will be useless. It depends on how well you can incorporate tech in humanities. Even in humanities, digital humanities is gaining more ground. People are focusing on the philosophy, sociology and psychology of tech and it's allied areas. So everything is revolving around tech, it doesn't mean humanities is dying. It's just evolving.

Zero. Why don't people understand the basics of what they wish to pursue ? How does a publication even affect working litigation, judiciary or corporate ? Work experience is what matters. Publications are more for an academic career. Some professors don't even have that, lol. But the point is...

Degree-Work exp-internships. That's it !!

The rest mumbo jumbos like moots, mocks, muns, debates, publications are not worth a cent.

Cute. What litigation practice is there in "tech laws"?

Anyway, you gotta have a solid command of civil procedure even if you go for any "technical laws". It's not like it's an altogether separate branch.

Of course, you could just be in a bubble and just do writ petitions. You'd be away from "age old civil criminal corporate and tax". But that's not "technical".

I also wonder what remains if you take away "age old civil criminal corporate and tax".

Every time I here undergraduates from Indian law schools deal another death-blow to the meaning of the word "publications", like what has been done in this thread, I feel huge regret that I don't live near to a very deep body of water into which one could easily jump.

Easily NLIU Bhopal. It is a tier 1 and has been underrated for the past few years as well. It easily hosts the most number of prestigious events in an academic year, and almost all NLU's regularly participate in them. Students continue to do well and the seniors are friendly as well (albeit, there may always be a few bad apples here and there).

The only issue I may flag is their lack of PR, essentially that most people outside of the university are not aware that NLIU actually does so much. Talking to my fellow peers from other colleges made me realize we have so many opportunities that you usually don't find elsewhere. Just imagine having an exchange program at Switzerland, a picturesque campus (especially close to a nature spot), great cultural events, a good sporting culture, good internship culture (recent batches are seeing a good number of internships being alloted from Tier 1s and the College has expanded to collaborating with T2s and T3s as well), and all the freedom in the world. Mind you the academic rigour may not be that great, it is solely your drive and willpower that will guide you here, the college will give you a great platform.

Get into a small law office, ideally one where there's a lot of work and very few people to handle it. Thats where you will get the much needed experience to qualify for corporate firm jobs. I myself joined a small lawyer's office, learnt the ropes and then after 2 years applied to join a corporate firm, cleared the test and was hired.

CAM is generally the bane of all gripes because of the way they treat people. It is a great firm but the lack of respect for people and n apparent "god complex" that is harboured by the those on top coupled with incessant ass kissing, absolutely incompetent HR and the sheer requirement of top approval for even the smallest thing stand as major cons - of a larger con.

As NLUD alum, I think NLS seems to be doing a phenomenal job hiring faculty. Not only have we lost some of our best to them (Mrinal, Aparna, Arul etc), a lot of the new faculty they're hiring are also incredible. NLUD (and other unis) need to figure out how to bridge this gap. I'm still proud of our faculty, but I do not think we are where we were 8-10 years ago.

While faculty do seem to prefer moving to NLS, I do not think it is merely because Sudhir is Ex NLS. We need to find out what is that he does as an administrator that makes people flock there. My dad's a prof (non law) elsewhere, and I know that he and his colleagues do not move colleges merely because the Dean / VC has great pedigree.

From an NLUD perspective, I think we should really amp up our seminar / credit courses led by practitioners. I'm grateful for the fantastic seminars I got to attend (arul, Ankita, Sekhri, Eashan Ghosh etc) - I do not know if the present students enjoy the present seminars as much. On credit courses also, we used to have really smart people talking about really cool things - we need to focus on that as well. Solid senior counsel / corp lawyers may not want to commit to 50-60 teaching hours for an elective, but we should persist and get weekly lectures or so.

NLIU bhopal is on a downfall. Placements are also going down.

In mumbai you can intern at mostly every law frim's office and get a PPO + litigation game is strong in mumbai as well just that its no delhi.
Alumni base of NLIU bhopal did not come to help it last year like it did in NLS/NALSAR/NUJS.

5 years back it would have been NLIU bhopal, now its MNLU mumbai. After 5 years NLIU will go from T1.5 to T2. MNLU Mumbai will go from T2 to atleast T1.5

I am 2023 graduate and have been working in-house for over 2 years now predominantly with IPR/Trademark and copyright matters, I am looking to make the shift from In house to a firm practice to strengthen my core legal skills, I am placed in Bengaluru, looking for some good recommendations to make this move, anybody who has been down this road please let me know any caveats and requisites for the same.

Humanities is an important part of the world albeit not as much materially pervasive as STEM or Commerce.

And Law as of now is the ONLY sector where Humanities student can excel. Scrapping the B.A. will be 9/11 for financially ambitious Humanities enjoyers. The gates will be thrown open to unemployed engineering hordes who have already infested MBA and underwhelmed poor BBA students

ABVP would be a very strong bloc. However, I do not think they can elections in the top NLUs at least. That could be for a progressive platform represented either by traditional student organisations or even independent student organisations, like we see in Bengal. NSUI could be a non-entity. SFI could do well.

Besides what everyone else is saying, a tangential piece of advice: don't get into litigation unless your heart & head are in it 100%.

It's tough. Plenty is written daily on this website about how the pay is peanuts and working conditions terrible. Any excitement of working for the cause of justice, too, fades when confronted with the ground realities (especially at the trial level).

The only thing that can keep you going in such a scenario, then, is your passion & if you have a strong reason/vision/whatever-you-may-like-to-call-it, which keeps you going for reasons other than pay etc.

Go towards litigation if this is what you GENUINELY want, not half-heartedly as a plan B. We all know people who wasted years in litigation only to quit for something else. Nothing wrong with that either, to be honest - to figure out where your heart lies and pivot accordingly.

Hi guys, People who have secured internship with Juris Corp, SAMVAD, Phoenix, DSK Legal (all delhi offices).. How did you guys apply for it? Do these places check career portal OR their HR email ID that is given on their site? cause I have emailed DSK plenty of times with no response. and I have applied on career portals as well with no response.

1 PQE and I am working at a boutique firm with little to no culture of teams. My current pay is around 7-8lpa. I am looking to switch but cannot figure out how to switch because of mixed corporate and litigation experience being one of the reasons why I am looking to switch. how should I switch what teams to approach and how to approach

How long ago did you raise the invoice? Usually, some clients may withhold the payment for a year or so, but will remit the fee before or around the end or start of a financial year. If it has been more than a year or so, it will be better that you talk this through them and let them know. I would reccomend that you give it 2-3 months more and keep the negotiations open and in the last month, given them some hair cut on the fee as well. If they still don't agree, send a legal notice and you may initiate proceedings.

Please keep in mind that initiating proceedings will bring no good as the case will get dragged out - like all other cases and your name might be revealed by Bar & Bench or LiveLaw, which can discourage clients. In sum, I would suggest not to take coercive steps and be steady with the soft approach.

my man, that is precisely the point being made. The call is for a shift in operability to a platform like Reddit, where censorship is reactive, not proactive. At present, LI doesn't enjoy the protection for this exact reason, and it has found itself in a mess on quite a few occasions (Re : NKU defamation saga). However, were to function like any Reddit or any other social media platform, literally, it could shrug the responsibility off its shoulders. At present, there doesn't appear to be any good reason other than the mods narcissism to control the platform's content, their parallel of fudging the algo. Delayed publications, over-censorship, worthwhile content being lost amidst it- give me one good reason to retain the current scheme of censorship.

A. Sudhir getting out of clat isn't the only bad decision he'd taken as an admin. Anyone who is at NLS now can provide a list of his bad decisions, which you clearly aren't aware of. But whenever they get discussed here, you come with your Paul Craig trolling, which reveals a lot about your intention. If you're so sanguine about the merit of his work, why not argue on those points instead of parroting his academic qualifications?

B. That's a very convenient deflection. The downside of his decisions are being felt now, but the upside will be felt in 2047. Very achhe din like dreams. Nobody has expected NLSIU to become like Oxbridge. Are its students demonstrably better than even their Indian counterparts? Not really. So even that low hanging fruit has not been reached yet.

C. Grade inflation is something about which I actually agree with you. Never criticised Sudhir on that point yet, nor did I see anyone here do the same, so bringing up that point is irrelevant.

D. He was not stopping PhD admission, he was trying to stop legit degrees after the people selected by him awarded those degrees. That's illegal. The point that had been raised was about the PhD was about his own PhD students, which again you would have known had you been an insider. He is certainly responsible for the quality of their work. Don't create such an anguished strawman argument. Nobody other than you care whether he leaves academia, that's his choice. He is now in an admin position and his choices affect others. So he will be held accountable for those.

E. Once again, you manufactured a hypothetical argument. Nobody would have accused him of anything had he stuck to admitting such students as his infra could support. The fact that he did not clearly goes to show that he is incapable of forethought and the effects of his actions, all of which point of lack of admin skills.

F. Your understanding of empathy is questionable as is your desire to really learn about problems. Why are you assuming that deadlines are only thing that students wanted? Have you talked to the NLS students? He has taken multiple actions which led to such matters. Read the posts before copy pasting your Paul Craig comment everywhere.

Whether according to you Sudhir is doing the best doesn't matter, just as if someone else is saying that he isn't, that doesn't matter either. However, you don't get to attack them for not having his academic qualifications, just as they don't get to attack you for being Sudhir's lackey or having ulterior motives for defending him by attacking others in random public forums.

https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/481747-transforming-law-into-a-science-harvard-law-school-will-the-humanities-heavy-nlus-ever-be-able-make-the-change

For NLUs, this kind of change will be disastrous. These are humanities-heavy entities, where the narrative is only the LLB portion is relevant; the BA, BBA, or BSc portion does not make any difference, and there is a clear skewness in favor of BA for all the vested reasons. The primary reason for the pushback is law is the only professional discipline where humanities

Azb does not engage in PR like other firms. People who get into the firm work hard, people who don’t get in or can’t survive the quality of work call it toxic

Let’s face it, politics is everywhere. At AZB you get to work on list A matters or first of a kind deals, get the bonus and live for another day. That’s better than most firms today

News media in Bengal reported today (15.6.26) that receipts sporting the PAN ID of former mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation show 50kgs of gold. Only 300g was recovered. Search on for his wife alleged to be complicit in extortion rackets.

Previously, it was Partha Chatterjee and so many others from the Greens. Surely there are gems from other parties as well.

But how is it that IT, DRI etc which can swoop in, break doors, get automatically alerted and now armed with AI enhanced surveillance and special powers can do zilch when it comes to honchos?

I am sounding naive. But cannot wrap my head around how brazenly these honchos can get away and these intelligence folks don't even bother looking the other way.

The question is not how much they will pay from this year. The question is how many freshers will they hire this year and in the coming years. Will it be lesser than before. What is their policy on training new associates now - given global uncertainty + AI. If they reduce their hiring numbers - only few will have a cause to celebrate this pay bump.

1. I have never said that someone with a foreign education "can do no wrong". Indeed, I have repeatedly criticised Sudhir's attempt to get out of CLAT. While I agree that getting out of CLAT is the right thing to do, that "NLAT" was not the right way to do it. I only said that having someone like that is a pretty good recipe to cope with the current challenges of Indian (legal) higher education. I will deploy a phrase which somebody (perhaps you?) deployed to criticise my arguments: you have done "a remarkable extrapolation for a lawyer".

2. You cannot go up from nowhere on the global map to equivalent of Oxford + Harvard without serious years of effort. The starting gun on that has been fired by Sudhir, and his legacy will need to be taken forward, if it is to be a success later on. NLSIU will need years and years of Sudhir-type leaders before it can get to the stage you are wanting. The key thing was to get it started, which has been done.

3.

(a) In case you haven't noticed, it has been he who has clamped down on the grade inflation that was happening at that uni. Why were so few people getting Rhodes in those years, while now we have already seen two during his reign?

(b) When he was clamping down on bad PhD work and not admitting more than a handful of PhD students, you people were blaming him. Now when PhD work is coming out under his control, you are blaming him, too. Can you at least say what is so average about these projects you dismiss with such a cavalier mindset? What will satisfy you? Him leaving NLSIU? Academia?

(c) Equally, you would blame him for having an Eton-Oxbridge mindset if too few students were admitted. If student numbers grow, you blame him for bad market forces, though I do agree that more could be done to adapt to the changing job scene, and the current way for handling university graduates' career progression is not working.

(d) Your and the critical students' understanding of empathy is not right. You don't hand out deadline exemptions etc just for the heck of it. You give one, very exceptionally, if students have had illness, death of a loved one or other such circumstances. Nothing less.

4. Scholarship opportunities are indeed getting lesser. But that's a worldwide trend. Uni finances the world over are getting tighter and tighter every single day. But that doesn't mean that low-income deserving candidates aren't getting aid. Please set out a blueprint to ensure a better funding model of university funding. Because according to me, Sudhir Krishnaswamy is the type of person who is doing the very best possible under current conditions (and the type of hypothetical I have in mind would do the same).

Intern as much as you can, if you are from a college which permits long term internships, get a single one, convert it, do your best, stay punctual, maintain formatting in all documents, interact with your team outside of just work if at all possible and then get extended till you get a PPO.

If you do not have a t1 internship in the next 2-3 months already lined up, likelihood of a t1 having a vacancy and hiring is slim to none, so practically switch your goals to boutiques or T2s and lateral to a T1 when suitable.

Hope this helps.

I've gotten a rank good enough to secure both colleges (in vacancies) and I am confused about which college to choose. I am based in Mumbai, and don't have any qualms about staying away from home. That being said, I am confused mostly because of the advantage of location that MNLU provides (yes I know the infra is lacking and soon the college will be a little farther to the centre of the city) and the advantage of a strong alumni base and reputation that NLIU Bhopal has. I am going to Law School with an open mind and have not decided between Corp/Lit. Would love to hear the thoughts of this community on my dilemma.

Any suggestion on LI that the "BA" in "BALLB" is useless and should be replaced with BSc/BCom/BBA LLB leads to a big pushback. But those pushing back are BALLB students and alumni themselves. They can hardly be expected to have a neutral view! Let's look at it objectively and ask whether studying history or sociology in law schools serves any useful purpose now? Is Madhava Menon's vision in 1980s India still relevant in the age of tech and AI? At best, can't the syllabus be condensed into a few weeks of classes and be delivered online? And the remainder be replaced with AI and tech-related courses?

Just think neutrally and ask yourself if students are not better served studying AI programming and its application in law, instead of what Marx and Ambedkar said? Or what the Government of India Act and Constitutional Debates said? I mean, a communist country like China is embracing tech-centric capitalist education, while pursuing colleges are still teaching Marx!

https://www.indiatoday.in/jobs/story/ai-over-arts-china-scraps-12000-college-degrees-to-make-room-for-more-ai-courses-tchc-2926615-2026-06-15

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3356913/chinas-universities-cut-12000-obsolete-degrees-amid-race-embrace-ai-era