Hi there,

I'm a final year student at a decently reputed private university. Somehow lucked out and found my way into a T1 internship couple months back. The team liked my work and I have an assessment scheduled for June.

Only issue is that my grades are average. Not bad exactly, but just very ordinary grades. Maybe like top 50 percentile if I am being generous.

So when I do have the PPO interview after my assessment, will the grades hold me down too much? How much can good deliverables compensate for poor grades?

lets try and explain it very clearly. I can have student x from say JGLS or any other INI. my official website states that they must have- at minimum only 65% in their undergrad to meet the minimum criteria to apply. For student Y from nls- that official minimum criteria might just be 70%.

This does not mean- i take more students from JGLS than NLS. Or that all things equal- the student from JGLS would be preferred. Meeting the minimum requirements is not actually- that hard - or a qualification. You wouldnt put that on your CV. Most students who apply to these universities already have a rank within the top 10-15% of their batch. the minimum requirement wouldnt trip them. If you proved that the lowered minimum for considering an application- meant that more JGLS students got into oxford than NLS students- that would be worth considering. That would prove that there is an actual preference for JGU students. But unfortunately you cant prove that. by all accounts the facts are quite in favor of NLU students being preferred in actual admissions.

Toefl scores are another minimum criteria- but just because you get a toefl score of 100 or 110 doesnt mean you will be offered admission or that you will be preferred for admission. Its a way for the university to tell you whether or not your application will be considered- or simply binned based on quants. At oxford- you can apply without a toefl or an ielts and you can complete that requirement once youre offered admission. just because some other candidate already took the TOEFL and have a score doesnt mean they would be preferred. The admission decision itself is distinct from the decision of - at what stage does the application meet minimum criteria for consideration? In the winnowing down process- sure, a JGLS student with a lower GPA might stay in the game longer- might get their application to be considered and read- but it doesnt translate that that student would be preferred for admission at all- once the minimum threshold is met- admission depends on holistic review and that involves many more intangibles like your SOP, your references, the work you do and whether there is interest in supervising it.

This difference in minimum requirements is not because students from INIs are somehow provably superior. Its because INIs are how the government of this country officially recognises that some institutions are better than others- and other universities in other countries have to rely on some imperfect measure to figure out how to process these applications. Now that decision- about which universities should be INIs is political- and people can and do disagree with that decision.

Okay.

1. Teaching- Boring class and just reads from the prescribed materials sequentially. Compare that to Ms. Manisha or the others.

2. Temper- He gets angry for no reason and is always in hatred to the class for no reason with every batch.

3. His Marking standards are incredibly arbitrary and tough. He focuses entirely on rote book words as opposed to application and analysis.

Does anyone know anyone who has pivoted from law to MBB/IB or have a cheatsheet on how to break into MBB/IB after law?

I know MBA is usually the path taken to break into these fields but is it possible without an MBA?

Please limit your answers to India only. No moving to another country.

I am currently doing my PhD from one of the NLUs. I have the best supervisor I can think of, the colleagues are cool and there's a lot to learn from people here.

However, the uni doesn't have funding for PhD candidates and I don't have JRF now. This has caused me to take up 3 jobs. I work on Saturdays and a few Sundays. Monday classes start at 7 30 am so I have to start at 6 from home. There are often times when my work starts at 7 30 and ends at 7.

Honestly, I never considered working in law firm or litigation because of the shitty working hours. And now, here I am.

I'm seriously considering preparing for CAT. I have worked at a Research Centre for 3 years and at my current job for about an year. The second year of my PhD is about to get over. After all this, I feel like a failed academic due to just 1 publication. Money is another factor. Family had almost 0 savings and world really on me after my father's retirement. I doubt I can sustain my family even on a UGC scale.

Considering all this, is this a good or a bad idea?

I don't believe pursuing a law degree is the best option for you. Having worked with numerous environmental NGOs in India and Singapore, I've observed that lawyers retained by such NGOs typically perform routine legal tasks like FCRA compliance, tax matters, etc and only a handful are employed full-time who are also engaging in mostly routine compliance.

To specialise in environmental law in India you will have to basically do a PhD, which will be way too time consuming and frankly pointless as such a PhD will focus on the more academic and teaching side of the subject. I have a LLB from a T1 NLU and I know one faculty who spend 4 years doing a PhD in a related field!

I would recommend considering a degree or pursuing opportunities related to policy work. Policy-related roles are more closely aligned with the core environmental work of NGOs and could be a better fit for you, especially in India.

forgot to add that except for oxbridge+lse no one reads sop, if you have 60% marks in UG any uk uni will take you for llm

for NLU applicant in russell group unis (especially lower russell) 55% will also do

i came to the uk when the number of nlus was low, and i was pleasantly surprised that admissions tutor in the uk had a clear idea about nlus etc. you have to remember not more that 1% NLU graduates apply for llm in the UK. So if we have 2700 nlu llb graduates each year only about 150 do llm from outside india.

if you have more than 50% but can justify in sop and have some work ex, russell (except for oxbrse) is going to take you

dont do llm outside russell or plateglass, please avoid like plague post 92 unis

finally, its not just the uni, you can have a bigger flex if you get more than 50% scholarship

a student who has completed llm from Southampton with 100% scholarship is more valuable than someone who has done BCL with 0% scholarship.

The insecurity of Managing Partners in Kolkata firms which don't allow for specialisation. Everyone does everything, so that nobody is indispensable. From day 1, this is the culture. You have to really be something else to create a specialisation for yourself. Even without major business, there is no reason for there not be any IBC team / Real Estate team (most flourishing work)/ Tax Lit / PCP / General Corp etc.

To answer your first part, sometimes after you "make it", you still want to try and do things as really you dont want to regret at 60 - thinking - why i didnt try that. At least thats my motivation + I got to do it for my daughter, owe it to their generation.. earning money isn't enough.

Lawyers can work as "policy analysts" as well right? Whats the difference.. doing policy work with a law background vs without?

Reg your second part - Environmental organisations need tech experts? Which ones.. ? could use some references.

Yes australia has a rich history of environmental litigations, but everywhere the problems are the same. Politicians are the same everywhere.

Salty comment. And that's definitely not how any of the T1s calculate their percentage of placements. When a NLU claims 100% placements, it's calculated on the basis of the number of people in a batch who joined the recruitment pool. No NLU places 80/80 or 120/120 students. And no, NLUD doesn't force students who didn't get placed to opt out of the pool. The rest of the batch opts for litigation, judiciary, UPSC, higher studies, etc. And on average, NLUD has always had usually 40-45 folks (perhaps, increasing in recent times) joining the RCC every batch for corporate placements. All that being said, the placements are still not as high in absolute numbers as NALSAR, NUJS or even NLUJ and there are multiple reasons for that from the smaller batch size to the lesser number of students interested in corporate placements and perhaps the lesser industry perception among firms compared to these older NLUs.

I mean. We do teach many ideologies in our courses right ? Sociology you’ll read Foucault and Derrida and habermas- that’s ideology. Economics you’ll be reading smith and such- that’s ideology. The problem is not that the course teaches ideology- all courses do. It’s that it does a very dumbed down and simple version of it.

The reason they let jurisprudence go was because “oh Dhanda covers that in legal methods anyway” and I do think there’s some fear about how a more open minded prof - say Sid C would have taught it. Now Sid C is a lefty too- but he’s a debater first so he’ll be able to give you all sides of an argument before trying to convince you.

was preparing for UPSC (did not get after three tries) and had written an essay on the reasons for the decline of Kolkata in the economic map of India (for one of the exams), there were multiple factors which led to the decline but there is a simple statistics to start off the discussion until 1959/1960 Kolkata had the highest GDP (not per capita but total) for a city in India. Kolkata was the main hub of the British commerce from 1730 onwards, it was the capital until 1911, it had natural resources in abundance within 200 km (think minerals from Jharkhand, workers from bihar, vast agricultural production in bangladesh, a well educated clerk from west bengal). The reasons for decline are:

1. partition of Bengal in 1947, which led to the loss of hinterland of East Bengal which provided various raw materials (not just jute) to the industrial complexes near Kolkata.

2. The freight policies of Central government in mid to late 1950s which led to the start of industrial base shifting to Western India. The shift to South India actually happened post liberalisation from 1992/3 onwards.

3. influx of refugees from Est Bengal from 1947 onwards led to rise of millitant trade unionism frm mid 1950s when the capital slowly started to shift to Mumbai. Many blame left front govt which took power in 1977 to the capital flight but if you look at the GDP data you will find that from 1955 onwards WB was on a terminal decline, one of the chief ministers Bidhan R decided to arrest this by creation of industrial cities (what Germany tried post WWII) however it was unable to produce sufficient employment opportunities. The huge unlettered workforce from the jute mills in Hoogly could not trabsfer to the steel mills of Durgapur.

4. the naxalism scare from 1971 onwards in kolkata was the final nail, it kind of led to a police state for 3-4 years in WB and whatever large capital was left in WB fled. After 1976 only large capital left in WB was the PSUs.

5. there has always been an indolent clerk culture in 70% of the population, there is a distinct lack of ambition, you can blame it on various socio-political-religious factors (some blame it on the easy availability of resources which does not force the populace especially the middle class to be adventurous).

have many more factors but too lazy to write and hence proven. Have a read of https://theprint.in/india/from-party-society-to-bahubali-society-how-bengal-changed-yet-remained-same-from-left-to-tmc-rule/2017839/ to understand what has become of WB

Why aren't we talking about this?

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/taliban-mullah-hibatullah-akhundzada-public-stoning-women-death-adultery-kabul-afghanistan-2520887-2024-03-29

Earlier most partner promotions were won by Male lawyers. Female lawyers used to leave law firms to marry, have babies and make way for family life. With very few exceptions like SAMVAD Partners, LKS and other firms with better work life balance.

There was a saying women cannot have it all. Female partners who were promoted didn't have kids, families. And there was a glass ceiling preventing women from climbing up ladders in corporate law firms.

Now, in every tier 1 law firms most hires are women (70%) but there was a concern that even though most fresh hires were women, they are not becoming partners at the rate of men.

And this year's Trilegal promotions show that the glass ceiling will be shattered.

7/11 Partner promotions were won by women.

From Bar and Bench

'Trilegal has announced the promotion of 11 Counsel to partnership, the single biggest increase in the size of its partnership in its history.

Out of the 11 promoted, 7 are women.

This round of promotion brings the total number of equity partners of the firm to 128.

The following lawyers have been elevated to partnership across practices and offices:

Adhunika Premkumar, Corporate, Bengaluru

Aditi Goyal, Tax, Delhi

Anubhav Ghosh, Financial Regulatory, Mumbai

Anusha Ramesh, Dispute Resolution, Delhi

Deep Rao, Dispute Resolution, Delhi

Janmali Manikala, Dispute Resolution, Delhi

Mohammed Shameer, Dispute Resolution, Bengaluru

Sadaf Shaikh, Corporate, Mumbai

Sibani Saxena, Corporate, Mumbai

Sumi Saikia, Corporate, Gurugram

Swathy S Pisharody, Projects, Bengaluru'

I have worked at one of the top 5 law schools in the UK and was the PGT admissions tutor advisor, which basically meant that I would be consulted if the admissions people are unable to understand the degree classification etc. for an Indian applicant. Believe me when I say that if you do have 60% from any of the NLUs, an average SOP and have a couple of decent references you can get into any of the top law schools for a PGT in the UK. Jindal has come up the ranks, but this IOE stuff is just marketing puff.

Lol, Jindal students go for exchange sems abroad because they can afford it. Not because Jindal is a preferred institute. Keep peddling the make-believe juice. It's still a proven fact that more students go to these foreign universities in scholarship every year from the NLUs than from private universities. The non private INIs don't even have any decent law programme anyway.

Absolutely not. The mains & interview scores make up the selection. The interview is also based on chairman of the board's discretion. They may ask from your CV, they may completely ignore your CV and ask general studies related questions. So the main focus is to clear the exam first.

Absolutely not. Please stop spreading fake news. I've appeared twice for the interviews. Once you've cleared prelims, you have to fill DAF ( Detailed Application Form), which is the basis for your personality test. The DAF is not a CV ! Since your hobbies, sports, curricular activities, interests etc are mentioned. No one does a background check for them.

The primary purpose for a DAF is to get a gist of your background and to ask questions based on them. If your DAF is almost empty; example no hobbies, no internships, no work experience, low grades etc, it will still not disqualify you. Moreover your interview will then end up being more focused on general questions from anything under the sun, which makes it more difficult.

A good or bad DAF does nothing except provide a direction to your interview. It's the board's discretion what and how they want to proceed with the personality test.

Also, the mains is where the selection actually happens. I've had friends who have screwed up their personality stage, even with good DAF, but still cleared the exam based on high mains score.

Internships like those with Niti Aayog, Law Commission, or policy think-tanks like Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy could help in making a favourable impression at the interview stage (for which about 3000-4000 candidates are called after clearing the mains).
Otherwise, one should intern / work on their CV as if you are not going to clear. Like internships should be your steps towards your Plan B / back-up (in case UPSC is not cleared). For example, if you want to do litigation, then intern at senior counsel chambers where you can join after a couple of failed attempts.

There are a few who will be qualified in this decade only. Like Mrinal, Nigam. But they don't actively lobby for these positions, without which it is difficult to land one. Sudhir had MPS do that for him. Now he will need to do it for these people if he wants equal peers across law schools and within the consortium.

There is a dearth of corporate houses in Bengal. 34 years of Left rule followed by a govt that does not allow anything without a cut-money has kept corporate houses away from Kolkata. Look at the condition of educated youth, half of them are jobless and the other half is in Bangalore/Pune/Hyderabad. There is little corporate work that happens in the city. The current political regime is also constantly fighting with the Centre which means that Centre is not focusing on Bengal as far as development is concerned, this is in sharp contrast to what is happening in Gujarat and UP which is why u can see legal firms opening shops in Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

Unfortunately, the situation in Bengal is beyond repair now, the only other option seems to be BJP bur the people at the top of Bengal BJP are equally corrupt and bad. So, yeah corporate work will not flourish in Bengal anytime soon. That's the sad reality my friend.