JPMorgan vs Citi: the Wall Street fight to bank New York’s top lawyers
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https://www.ft.com/content/4571b390-5d74-46d4-b593-ab35cabf805c

Had been to their conference in Mumbai and subsequently managed to network with a Partner who happened to be from my college. He floated my CV and made sure the confirmation came through. Its a top heavy firm with very reputed clients, I doubt if they have a set internship system though.

Networking itself is a skill. It should not be disregarded like this. Privilege is something completely different and it exists in every field and you can do nothing about it.

While I somewhat agree about the college part but contacts are not something only limited to those who are generational lawyers. I myself have networked in adr comps, college, internships and these contacts have always helped in the longer run. If you have a killer profile, you just need that one contact to help you get your CV seen. This networking aspect is huge in law and should not be disregarded as only limited to nepotism because it will not only help you land a job now but in the longer run this is how you land more clients. People skills are a huge part of a lawyers life, knowing how to talk to clients how to retain them, how to make friends.

Came across this boutique firm that seems to be doing some fun and interesting work.

Any idea regarding their culture, salary and just overall review of the Partner(s) in general?Asking from the perspective of a low level associate (A1, A2, A3)

Appreciate any honest insights about the same thanks.

Work for the first month itself will be a little slow and unpredictable, that's why one month internships sucks if you're doing them for learning and not just ppo. Longer internships like 3-6 months is where you'll get consistent good work as the team also understands your capability and what kind of work to involve you in.

Bro 23 LPA is CTC. The thing with CTC is we just can't guess what exactly has bene included there until we see the full disclosed distribution. So probably annual fixed must be somewhere around 15 or 16 lakhs. Rest 3 to 4 lakhs around must be variable pay (You are never guaranteed the full quota of it). And another 3 lakhs must be some other inflated value adjustment. You can do +/- 1 around the figures I have quoted to get a rough idea.

My friend did this. He stuck with the tier 2/3 firm. After he joined the firm, it started irking him. His friends were working in tier 1s and he was working with colleagues from tier 2/3 colleges. Moreover, the firm was extremely toxic too. He couldn't find anything making the toxicity worth it and regretted his decision. However it did tone down his arrogance so it's a give and take

Okay. How many people for Corp, Law & Tech, Cap Marks, Procedure, Tax and other industry relevant subs though? Moreover, under his new model, each faculty member is only required to teach 6 hours a week, so don't think that all the students will be getting the same level of attention from even good faculty. 300 is just too high a number for an undergrad batch given the resources and future scope in law. Also, placing Raag in that list is highly premature. Nigam is a good guy, but he finds it difficult to convey his lessons effectively in class to all kinds of students. Sudhir will not be taking many classes himself and he only caters effectively to a certain group of students too. With an exclusive small batch, these people could have worked wonders, but even they will be struggling with these new huge numbers. Not to mention that it is really unfair for one section to be taught by one faculty and another by a different person.

Despite the fact that NLUD graduates have never performed better than those from NLS, NALSAR or NUJS in any direction other than UPSC, though they had the batch size and admin and funding advantage for the last fifteen years. You do you, with or without logic.

As for the NUJS BSc programme, the low rank was only for the first batch that got admitted through CLAT. Even in that case, the BA students hardly have anything to be concerned about. Moreover, CLAT ranks don't determine student performance once they are in the institution. Their own diligence, ability to work hard and application do. There are many NLUD students and grads who performed badly in CLAT. They are still doing fine in life.

I'm a PhD pursuing scholar in my second year. My aim is to get into teaching and therefore I'm applying everywhere. But I've not been selected due to not having completed my PhD yet. Since my research is on track, and I have plenty of time, should I open a YouTube channel for law aspirants like clat or judiciary, since I'm interested in teaching? Does it have cost benefit ? Will I be able to earn something like a side hustle ? Is YouTube a full-time thing for legal education?

My performance at work is getting affected due increased burden at work.

I don’t expect my team to understand that.

But isn’t it abnormal that the partner has reduced the work stress on me?

Or should I just play along because now I have time to workout and I am getting my salary. The partner has not spoken to me about it.

Has anybody received a PPO from CAM (Batch of 2024) after June 2023? I interned there in August and the team loved my work but the Talent Acquisition Team said they have completed hiring from our Batch. Just wanted to know the legitimacy of this and whether I should keep hopes of them reverting back or not.

Sorry to hear about your experience. I had my own: Every time the partner used to ask this associate for a status update, he would (falsely) claim that the work has been delegated to the intern. When the partner used to ask me, I used to be like, I am not aware of this work allocation. After this happened two times, I went upto the associate and told them to allocate me work only on mail rather than doing so verbally. Needless to say, these false claims to cover up for their inability to turn in deliverables on time stopped.

Just be tactful on how you deal with these situations and you will be fine!

Bro literally no one said that any master's program from an NLU adds to brand value. Forget MBA and MPP even MBL or LLM does not add any brand value. Doing MBA from NLS or NALSAR adds exactly the same brand value as doing law from an IIM. (I know certain IIMs have started offering law)

I try networking by participating in Moots, Adrs, Paper Presentations, Offline Lecture Series in Nearby NLU. I try to connect with the partners who are judging or giving a lecture, I ask doubts, try to make an impression by discussing their area of practice.

Participate in internal competitions of college too. My college invites Alumni from tier 1 firms, Sr Counsels, Advocates to Judge, so I try to connect with them. They are more approachable.

All of this takes a lot of guts, but couldn't make it to top 5 NLUs and didn't want to take a drop, so I am making do with relatively more of a grind. You can too!

No you don't need to draft anything in local language. Speaking from my internship experience and may be wrong. Unless you are a advocate and making drafts relating to actual lower court and tribunal land disputes you dont need to marathi. I believe since you are aiming for tier 1 you wont have to draft anything for such disputes however you will need to read orders. For Ex. In maharashtra many tehsildar orders, Revenue tribunal orders are in marathi and often in hand written marathi which is more difficult to read. There are several policies by the BMC which are in marathi only. Even some old circulars which are still in effect are in marathi. Agreements are in marathi, Mutation Entries, 7/12's, all in Marathi. So you do need a grasp in local language. Lucky for me although I am not of Marathi Mother Tongue, I have been brought up in Mumbai and had it as a subject. It is so necessary that in one of the interviews for a Tier 1 I was asked to speak in and read Marathi by the Partner taking it.

They were both almost the same but since NUJS added another 50% extra seats to low ranked science-background CLAT students through the new BSc LLB aim Forensic Science, I think NALSAR skips ahead in terms of student quality now. Personally, I would choose: NLUD>Nalsar>NLS>NUJS>NLUJ>GNLU now. Mostly because NLUD doesn’t have domicile quota and has a small batch size with a good admin.

If you did not learn something as important as Precautionary Principle and Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration while studying Environmental Law, then that's really your problem, buddy. Stop creating multiple threads about your less than expected performance. People who prepared properly and paid attention to their LLB classes fared well enough. Work more and harder next time around, or else join non-NLUs for your LLM.

I gave the NLSAT last year. Couldn't crack it. So, my humble and dumb sounding advice will be to crack the exam first. It has very high cut off for General Male non Karnataka candidates. Easier to get in for Karnataka or some category candidates.

As far as seats remaining empty thing is concerned, I would still go and join the course if they allow me. So, if you have any genuine contacts which might allow please let me know. Seriously. I have no issue getting into a 3y LLB course and spending money. Par saala le toh.

Also, one advice. The part A of NLSAT is the real deal. It is not top 75% percentile. You need to minimum be in the top 75 percentile and then the top 300-500 will have their part B checked. So, actually it is like the top 90 percentile. Read the instructions. Do part A fully. Then go for B. Else, like me, B won't be checked and you can cry in some corner.

All the best!

Which has more money Civil Litigation or Criminal Litigation? I know those are broad terms, you can limit your answers to specific domains.

Only Practitioners respond. I don't want students or someone who doesn't know jackshit and is basing his opinion on figment of his imaginations to answer.