This practice area is well past its golden days. There are too many law firms and boutique consultants competing for the same limited number of trade investigations that Indian government carries out each year. The fee that these firms charge has kept declining over the years. Competition for work is too intense. With revenues stalling or declining, trade teams across firms have seen very limited growth in terms of number of attorneys and attorney promotions overall have also become difficult in teams among larger law firms. Merely that the field may offer interesting work should not be the only factor for a fresher to enter this field. Trade law work in India primarily concerns trade investigations, which extensively involves data/number crunching for which CAs are always preferred. Core legal issues are hardly fought at investigation level. Most legal submissions in investigations are copy-paste of past templates. Even if you try new arguments, you will not see much acceptance from the trade department officers. If at all some legal issues require appeals to higher forums, such appeals are limited in number and appellate tribunal or High Courts/Supreme Court are not very keen to hear such complex data heavy matters on priority. If you want to be trained as a good lawyer, the trade investigations side of things is not really a good place to start your career. If numbers don’t bother you, you may try, but your growth and promotion potential over a long-term period shall be limited. If you aspire to be a partner some day, I am sorry to break it to you, it is going to be very difficult in comparison to growth in other traditional and upcoming areas of law. There are very few trade law firms in India that do advisory work in trade law, which encompasses interpretation of WTO agreements, free trade agreements, non-tariff barriers, etc. Work on the advisory side is also limited and very niche. I cannot think of any trade practitioner who has made it practicing trade advisory work - perhaps Clarus Law. But again, beyond gaining valuable experience in your formative years, you won’t be able to progress beyond a certain point in trade advisory firms as well. Other places for trade advisory work would be Centre for WTO Studies and Centre for Trade and Investment Law. You will get intellectually rewarding work in these Indian government think tanks, and they directly work with Ministry of Commerce. The trade teams in law firms are structured in such a way because of the kind of trade law work that commands value in India - which is basically trade investigations and some limited number of appeals in tribunal and courts. Trade law work in the US, UK, and EU is much diverse - but it is very difficult to get into those firms and too in such niche practice areas. Trade law work may look appealing, but it is not for everyone. And if you have growth aspirations, avoid this area. I am not trying to sound gloomy, but just sharing my lived experience practicing trade law.

NB: I am not the one who wrote the comment about Menon, but I agree with it, which is why I intend to defend it against your arguments.

You clearly don't understand what Sudhir fanboys think. That's all I can say, being one myself. In fact, I am the guy that brings up Paul Craig in relation to Sudhir regularly (and BTW let's start by getting our terms right: Sudhir did a 'DPhil': while Oxford PhDs are called DPhil, let's at least be precise with our terminology).

To elaborate: Universities need different kinds of leadership at different times. Menon was what was required for NLSIU at the beginning of its journey. He made innovations in legal education that were not there before. While his qualification background is unfortunate, it is not unforgivable, considering what he did - bringing in updated notions of what the teaching of law in India should look like in the modern age. As Sudhir himself says, Menon brought NLSIU 'onto the educational map'. Without that, Sudhir would have had no foundation to take it onto the international stage.

Meanwhile now, NLSIU needs something different. It needs people who will make it do the kinds of things that the best universities of the world do. It needs people with connections in the world's best universities. It needs to convert from a largely teaching-based uni into a Humboldtian university, the type that does research-led teaching. Sudhir is the best man in India to lead the university while it does that, head and shoulders above the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries. Is he the best possible university leader the world has ever seen? Probably not. But he is certainly the best we could have for NLSIU under Indian conditions.

Therefore, it would be much appreciated if you could please stop bringing up such malicious and silly arguments. If you want to bring up further malicious arguments, at least make the effort to use the full powers of your intellect to do so. Thanks and best wishes for the rest of your day. If this response was too long for your attention span (empirical evidence over the years has consistently shown that the kinds of people who bring up arguments like what you have done have serious attention span issues which cannot be put down to neurodiversity but instead to lack of effort), please do not hesitate to ask for milk and biscuits.

You're only stepping into your 3rd year kid. Relax. Internships will start coming in mainly from your 7th sem. Just make sure you repeat what you're doing now towards the end of the 6th sem. And don't overdo it, else you may risk getting blocked or marked spam by a people who might help you get the internship later.

Don't worry too much about it. Most places don't treat interns seriously or take them in at all before their penultimate year. And everyone knows that if someone's interning at a good place in their second year, it's only because of their connections. Neither do they get work, nor are they assessed for it. Weird situation for everyone. Get to work when the time comes, which is mainly in your fourth and fifth year. Till then, focus on getting your grades up this year.

As someone who interviewed with them recently, prepare basic GC questions from those primers every college internship committees have. They ask 3-4 simple questions from corp to see your understanding, plus a couple or so from your CV. However, don't rely on the interview at all. Like one of the earlier comments suggest, you'll most likely be rejected irrespective of how well your interview went, and you'll be left wondering what went wrong. Has happened to a quite a few people around me.

I cannot comment regarding academics, being an incoming student. However, I can comment on the living situations, and the headache the admin has caused for the bo'31. We are the first BA LLB batch in which the majority of students have been accomodated outside of campus (around 7km away, and 170+ kids), all because Sudhir saw it fit to increase batch sizes to 310 within 5 years, without ensuring proportional infrastructural development.

The admin chose to spring this information regarding this arrangement on the 24th of June, when trimester 1 is scheduled to start in 5 days, and onboarding is day after tommorow. Common batch snetiment is that this is due to a mix of senior apathy, as they only protested when their situation was subpar, and an admin which just wanted to push the problem as long as they can without solving it. Hostels could've been easily built, but corruption (no names) is a bitch, i guess. Sudhir definitely solved many problems NLS had. In the process, he caused 10 other issues.

It is a fact that where economy is booming, law also booms. Eg: Bombay HC as always. With decline of mad & &cal, their high courts also cost relevance. Delli he now new premier HC that too in the recent 30 40 years. So now with change of gov in Bengal, will there be more investments as people expect? If yes, how wie it affect the legal professionals? Will the other t-1 firms set up offices here? Wil the fees ot Calcutta cousels, which are on average lower than mom / mad/del counterparts, increase?

Most NLUs do not have ACs in hostel rooms barring RGNUL, DSNLU, NLUD, to the best of my knowledge. But, afaik other NLUs permit students to keep their Coolers or Heaters as the necessity arises such as in NLIU students keep their coolers during the summers and since the other buildings have AC including the library, students may also opt to study there if they find the room too hot.

Been planning on getting an Ipad for a while as ill be joining a litigation chamber next month. Read the news in the morning, made a run to the store and got my hands on the old stock. The prices have already been updated online but you will probably be able to get a device for the old price in stores for a couple of days, before they replace the old price labels.

18M here. I have gotten in NRI of both the colleges.
Please give your honest review on which college should be chosen. Considering I don't have problem with the living conditions of NUJS because from 2nd year you get proper double sharing rooms anyways.

I have done some research and NUJS stood out in terms of placements, faculty, journals, better reputation and smaller batch size of 183.. NLUJ has better campus and sports facility but also a really big batch size of 240.
BUT I really don't have much trust on my research as the articles + blog posts might be quite old.

I would like if people from other NLU(s) help me choose.

I had one grandparent who was born abroad even though my parents and I were all born in India. That's enough to get citizenship depending on the foreign country. But I just never applied for it and took the foreign citizenship till after I became an adult and after enrolling as an advocate etc.

You can ask any questions here if you want, and I'll check when I have time, but I don't really know much more than what is in my original post - I never had enrollment issues because I was an Indian citizen with an Indian law degree when I enrolled. I never told the Bar Council when I took foreign citizenship (it wasn't a secret - my friends etc knew.- but I never notified anyone formally, except for surrendering my Indian passport and getting OCI of course). I looked at the MOIA notification and I figured I could continue practicing law.

I suppose if I was being very technical there was a brief period after I took foreign citizenship but before my OCI was issued when technically I was in breach of the law, but in practice it didn't matter.

What can you expect from an institute who rope-in law firm partners to solicit their courses, to the extent of calling the parents of these kids and convince them to join the course of a longer duration just becuase it will "immensly help" their career. Mind you, all this is true and can be verified if someone wants to verify independently, so Mods, do your job please.

Why shouldn't all 200 of the seats be reserved? Why even consider the GC at this point, right?!
They don't deserve the universities,
Don't deserve the public employment at offices of state,
Shouldn't be able to criticize the govt for inherently flawed regulations like those of the UGC Equity 2026 rules,
HELL, THEY SHOULD EVEN GET OUT OF THE COUNTRY!
Why you may ask? Obviously it's because their ancestors did a wrong for which their whole generational bloodline will have to be considered as criminals.

When the quota systems continue to produce such beautiful thoughtful revolutionary remarks, it doesn't feel any less grueling than creating more hatred b/w the reserved and unreserved people even in the upcoming generations.
www.thehindu.com/news/national/madhya-pradesh/outrage-in-madhya-pradesh-over-ias-officers-remarks-on-reservation/article70329016.ece

If you are form LFI's PR, then you can belive whatever you want. The fact is almost 95% of the people are from good law colleges, you can check their names on the websites. And the one's who got in from other institutions were either luck, hardworking, at the right place at the right time or all three. The institution had almost zlich role, and as rightfully said by you as well - cash for advertisement, in their placement.But then again, we have billion-dollar enterprises and coaching intitutes like FIITJEE, Bansal, Akash , Unacademy etc who indulge in these practices on a much macro level. As a former student of the batch, I know every nook and cranny about the course and it's founders, but the hurdle of moderation keeps me from divulging.

Hello everyone, I am a 4th year Tier-2 NLU student I recently applied for an internship at CAM Mumbai office. A partner who works in banking and finance has forwarded my CV to HR. How long does it usually take for HR to confirm an internship? When should I follow up with them? Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Hey guys, I'm a batch of 2026 graduate from a private college top tier. I gave so much interviews in college placements always went to final rounds but idk still dont have an offer and it's JULY . Lost all hopes so kept applying on LinkedIn. Now I have two choices Should I join Integreon in the contract management and abstraction team or take a remote 2 years old law firm legal job that doesn't even have LinkedIn presence or anything but I'm exposed to commercial IP suites and Trademark Prosecution so basically more legal work than Integreon. I don't know if I want to switch to law firms or even legal inhouse teams of Infosys Accenture someday which will help me . I don't want to lose the legal touch but what are my options. To mention this I have atleast 3 tier 1 internships and this is my condition mostly I have done IP and disputes. I was happy going for legal inhouse where they have actual inhouse legal work but please help me guide me I am a first gen and really confused

How is an employee’s decision to leave before July a valid ground to deny payment of a past loyalty bonus that was earned for 1.5 years of service, especially when the employee stayed through significant structural changes?

What also appears not “decent” is that the firm announced, barely 2–3 days before the scheduled payout , that loyalty bonus payments and appraisals would be deferred till June, citing geopolitical uncertainty and delayed client payments, with an assurance of “better appraisals later.” Subsequent firm-wide appraisals, however, are reportedly well below market standards.

Further, the firm is now declining to pay loyalty bonuses for the completed past period on the rationale that loyalty bonuses are payable only to employees who will continue in the future. This is despite the firm having explicitly communicated that the loyalty bonus would be payable to employees completing 1.5 years as of March 31, 2026.

The bonus was neither paid on March 31, 2026 nor communicated as deferred until less than a week prior to the due date, and is now being denied altogether to employees exiting in the current quarter. This raises questions on whether such a reversal of an assured, time-bound payout “sounds decent”.

wtf is wrong with WB, the Bar council has been defunct since march 2026, with 100s of 2025 Law graduates waiting to get enrolled. I submitted my documents in the month of February 2026, still havent received my enrolment till date. To add to that they have taken all originals of my degree, marksheets, character certificate, aadhar, father's will and what not. Despite several followups no action is being taken by them. Should similarly positioned candidates file a PIL/ writ?

More or less accurate. NLUD is still slightly ahead (not by much anymore) compared to NALSAR/NUJS. NUJS will become much better if the new VC manages to get rid of some of the bad apples hired during the previous guy's term, NALSAR has got into some curious doldrums during the current leadership. NLUJ is now slightly ahead of GNLU since HK took over from PPS and started recruiting permanent faculty.

I am familiar with almost every faculty member in the above-mentioned places personally. Nothing against anyone, this is just an objective assessment keeping in mind teaching, research and reputation across academia, also student feedback. NLS has done great on this front in the last four years and is miles ahead of the others, which will be the greatest legacy of Sudhir I feel. Recruiting quality people every six months through four-five years at a stretch is not an easy feat for any public university.

No one is hating here, an employee who recently lost her father (was the sole breadwinner of her family) and was facing a housing crisis was pressured to relocate to enforce a work from office policy and then they laid her off a few days later - it is just not done. The ecosystem needs more mature founders who do adequate financial planning before taking decisions. As for their investors, other than that 100k cheque, everything in the 5 million has been invested by individual angels who need to advise them properly on the financials and decision making

I'll be joining panag babu this year and my offer said 12 lpa + performance based no cap bonus. can someone who is aware of the firms structure tell how high the no cap bonus goes, or is it a sham? Are bonuses even offered? I have never quite believed in performance bonus because they seem too discretionary... Though I have no issues if there's none as even 1 lakh per month is too much for me (no expenses, house near office etc.)

additionally, what are the tax deductions I'll be subject to? I am aware there's TDS, which is apparently refunded with an application, though I don't know how to navigate that yet. What else is deducted? I am trying to gauge how much money id actually have on my hands/bank account at the end of every month. TIA!

nri sponsored quotas are unconstitutional to begin with, full stop. its abolishment should be expedited and the supreme court has already made judgements to this effect pertaining to medical colleges.

anyone who thinks nri sponsored quotas should exist are deluded and anti-merit.

The near zero alumni faculty had produced Sudhir and almost all the other NLSIU famous alumni including Rhodes scholars, so they can't be as bad as you seem to claim.

Vindictive action (supposedly) has happened even under Sudhir's reign. It happens under every VC. What's your point?

Yes, there were alumni teaching elsewhere. So what? Are you suggesting that all NLSIU alumni should only teach at NLSIU?

Plagiarised work still takes place. Or are you suggesting that Sudhir, Mrinal, Aparna's batchmates had also submitted plagiarised work? Get your point straight. Same goes for grade inflation, are you suggesting that some of the younger alumni faculty had their grades inflated while they were studying at NLSIU? Or older alumni faculty too?

You can't keep saying that NLSIU before Sudhir was bad, but the product of those times are good enough as faculty to certify Sudhir's reign.

nothing is saturated, every single field is growing and will only keep growing as the Indian economy does, if the economy stops growing and drops into a recession which has happened only once since the 1970s and it happened in 2020 due to covid ( this is going by the economists definition of having a decrease in GDP not random fear mongering recession unplaced kids call it).

There is a flourishing market in corp law, firms make money, its harder now to get in cause hiring is slowing down due to AI but theres still more vacancies today than ever before its just growing at a slower rate ( refer to yearly bar and bench hiring data ).

It is only harder to get jobs as many more law schools compete and its not as simple as clear clat and get in, you need to do well in your internships or do exceptionally well in a top 5 nlu to guarantee a t1.

Just because things have gotten harder due to increased competition does not mean a market is saturated when its still growing.

Have heard that the management is very poor, with significant time leak issues.

Interestingly, a former team lead who has since moved to another firm is said to frequent back to resolve internal issues between team members.

The team is significantly mislabeled - due to a lack of general corporate work, they end up handling roughly 90% of labour and employment matters instead. Over time, the more capable individuals have left, while those who remain are widely considered problematic.

Juniors are disrespectful and behave as though they are the ones running the show. The work quality has also been called into question, with opposing parties having had to step in to fix them.

Haters need to stop. Many startups go through tough times. The kids started a company fresh out of college, will learn from their mistakes and will figure a way. I hope the angel investors at Lucio help them raise some proper institutional capital as the only institution on their cap table (DeVC) which has put in small cheque of 100k USD doesn't seem to be doubling down based on my conversations with them. Good luck to Anshul and Vasu. Rooting for you two!

Is there some rule the next in line should be a different gender?

I know several teams which famously call themselves all women. I know teams where the inner circle is just women. In those teams men take coffee orders and remain patsies or fall guys. Placing the glass ceiling elsewhere, isn't breaking it.

If you think that is normal - good luck professionally.

Translation from Hindustan Times Bangla:

Sanjay Basu has been fighting legal battles for Abhishek Banerjee in various important cases for a long time. After Abhishek's name was involved in several highly discussed cases including coal smuggling, recruitment corruption, he was aware of various aspects of all those cases. Sanjay Basu's role was important in various legal matters of not only Abhishek, but also his family members who were questioned by the central investigation agency.

However, a few days ago, he publicly announced that he would not fight a case for Abhishek Banerjee in the future. Immediately after that announcement, the meeting between him and the Leader of the Opposition Ritabrata Banerjee has raised new questions in the political circles.…

In this situation, political curiosity surrounding the meeting between Sanjay Basu and Ritabrata Banerjee has increased. Although both sides have kept their mouths shut about the content of the meeting. In addition to political discussions, Sanjay Basu is also a media personality, so various explanations are being put forward in different quarters about the purpose of the meeting. As a result, although the real reason for the meeting is unknown for now, it goes without saying that this meeting has given rise to new speculations about the political equation of the state in the coming days.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/bangla/bengal/ritabrata-banerjee-sanjay-basu-ex-lawyer-of-abhishek-banerjee-meeting-latest-update-details-speculation-271782370499049-amp.html

The solution is simple. Each NLU should have an intake of 200. 100 should be reserved for SC/ST/OBC/Muslim. No creamy layer bar. Of the remaining 100, 50 should be reserved for SC/ST/OBC/Muslim from EWS category. 25 should be reserved for Hindu GC/Christian/Sikh etc from EWS category. Remaining 25 can be open merit: any caste or community, just pure marks and nothing else. In reality, Hindu GCs will dominate the last two categories, with a handful of Christians, Sikhs and Parsis joining them. So effectively 40-50 out of 200 seats for them. That’s more than enough.

NLSIU. Simple. Genuinely interested and hard working students, who work under a gruelling trimester system with tonight grading.

Then comes NALSAR. Then NLUD.

Other NLUs have a culture of laziness, lethargy and grade inflation. Students who excel there are self-motivated.

An NLU without AC is a human rights violation in this heat. Not to mention outright cheating, considering the high fees (while VCs enjoy themselves in their AC offices)

Any NLU without an AC needs a CAG audit to see how funds are spent. If anything is found amiss, the CBI should investigate.

High time students also agitate for such issues, instead of fighting culture wars on behalf of corrupt politicians who don’t care about us.

I like doing 0 things at a time at work if I can help it, unless you're talking about chilling with about 3 screens - the TV, the laptop and the mobile, but when it comes to work, you have no choice. There's always more than one thing going on. You just prioritize. I read self-help books on organization and have found that they help me. You should too, because they have a number of techniques and you can pick what works best for you.

Bo'26 grad and incoming in-house at one of the bigger MNCs. Could someone break down the background verification at such places?

How far do they go to verify? Do they call up each of your past workplaces? I did leave one of my previous internships at a big firm mid-way, and put it on my CV regardless. Do have the joining letter but no internship certificate (although it's easy to fudge it in case they wouldn't literally call them up). Also, do they check grades and batch ranks and everything? And what about school grades? I flunked a paper back in my second year lol, don't want it to be an issue now. Please help.

Lmaoo bud thinks just because the commenter is stoned it dismisses the entire premise and point raised by him. An eye opener for you bro...most of the Partners and associates at firms, for which you think "serious thought" is to be given, aren't the ones really high at times but the ones who abuse it through their everyday lives.

What ch*****pa is this??? So it’s cheaper to buy abroad? Else we buy shitty Windows machines or cough up a lot more?

This should literally be the top news item and the middle class should be on the streets demanding GST reduction. Enough is enough!!

😤😤😤😤

https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/technology/story/apple-hikes-macbook-ipad-prices-by-up-to-rs-70000-in-india-check-new-prices-here-2934190-2026-06-25

Hi I'm a 2026 non-nlu student passed out recently i have done decent internships (but not any t-1) i have no job or any assessment opportunity in my hands rn. I'm looking to work in any decent boutique law firm with there disputes practice help me any sort of guidance advice will help. how to get a job or land a decent assessment to get a job.