There’s low level and high level both. At private universities you are required to put company before everything else. So you will be asked to change grades, pass students , look the other way when assaults and violence happen. There is a lot of bribery and financial scams going on as well. You might have to look away or worse - you might be forced to be a part of it. It will erode your soul after a while and you won’t feel joy going into work.

At government universities your experience will often turn based on who the VC is. Some VCs will themselves engage in financial scams, other VCs will not do that but they will have a preference for their little coterie and you might have to ingratiate yourself with them. There is nearly always tribalism and some sense of “loyalty” toward godfathers instead of yknow - professionalism. The current NLS VC is largely honest though- and as long as people are producing research and doing their work , the admin will leave you alone. But if you’re gonna give up a life to move to this institution - you have to think about what happens with the next VC and the one after that. This might be a flash in the pan after all.

If you’re satisfied with the work you’re doing there and see a way to advance -for purely reasons of personal growth and contentment- you should stay. Young folks on here will tell you to come back and change the system - but you’re really unlikely to make a dent and more likely to get moulded into a different kind of person.

There’s no denying the fact that 2023 was a sucky year for freshers. No hirings, absolute zero opportunities for non-nlu or privileged grads. Zilch .nada. People preferred staying at home rather than joining assessment internships which stretched on for 6+ months with no fruit in the end. That being the case, does the situation look better in 2024 when possibly firm would start to re -hire or hike their pay?

Hi, can we please have a thread with links to law books? Core law textbooks as well as other miscellaneous legal books would be useful. If you know of links like this, please add them here! Books that are not already available on libgen would be particularly appreciated!

To the naysayers - In most cases it's the publishing houses making the money, not the authors - let's be realistic about the resources of broke college kids

Hi, I am a 3rd Year LL.B. student, Qualified CS (All India Ranks in Foundation and Inter), completed my CS internships at 2 of the Top 500 BSE listed co's and have done 4 legal Internships as below.

Induslaw : Cap. Markets

JSA :GC,PE

DSK Legal: GC,PE

L&L: Disputes

Any chances of PPO?

I am interning in a Corporate team of a firm. The partner is not regular to office and the associates don't work at all. They don't give interns work to do and the people here are terrible. I am planning to quit and go join some other firm as I am not benefitting out of this. What reasons can I cite?

I am a potential joinee and would like to know more about the firm. I have heard that the managing partner works from the US and is not very hands-on. There are other partners but with Prasad Subramanyan's departure, i understand that the team is struggling. Any insights will be helpful.

CLAT 2023: Last year's state NLU admission data reveals that candidates with lower marks than even SC, ST, and OBC students paid their way into state NLUs through the NRI quota. Understandably, the reserve quota students/aspirants are upset and up in arms over this practice of "selling" seats through the backdoor. Furthermore, these state NLUs are also in violation of the law of the land on this matter. Remember that state NLUs also have domicile reservations.

https://news.careers360.com/clat-2023-llb-nlu-cut-off-nliu-bhopal-gnlu-gandhinagar-hnlu-raipur-nlu-jodhpur-mnlu-mumbai-nri-quota-sc-st-obc/amp

The takeaway from this is - to stick to only national universities. The best of state NLUs are behind them.

Opinions? I feel making aspirants mug up an infinite database of GK is too much and has no correlation with law school curriculum. It is simply not UPSC. Replace the section with spatial reasoning- something that is commonly used in reputed IQ tests. If not, then confine the section to core legal issues only, not random shit like why Saturn's rings would disappear in 2025 or unrelated sports stuff. (Coming from someone who cleared new pattern CLAT w top 250 rank)

Not engaging in the sensationalisation. But there was a reason for why people left and no that has nothing to do with the learning curve. If you are just merely interning - please do so and avoid engaging in these queries. As long as Raj is at the helm, your learning won’t be affected.

And for the ones who left - they left for greener pastures. That’s it. Nothing to gossip about.

Hi, I think a lot of law students like me do not have direct exposure to people working in firms, partners, etc in this industry. Whatever we know about the industry comes from hearsay from our seniors and it varies so much from city to city to firm to firm. During your internships, it is hard to get hold of associates and have a talk about how it is work there. Hence, It is really hard to determine if this is a career path for YOU.

How would you recommend someone in the later half of the law school can reach out/ have exposure to people working in law firms and ACTUALLY understand how the work is, what the career trajectory is, what kind of people like this field.

P.S - I have watched a bunch of podcasts and interviews but I feel its gives a very biased view as everyone on there is there because they are doing good in their career and are clearly made for the field (interest and skill align with the field) that takes away from the whole requirement to talk to more "normal" people in this field to understand it.

Please let me know any ideas you have - reaching out on linkedIN, asking for phone calls from placed alums, etc.

Thank you in advance

xoxo

You are a troll, but last year my team (T1/M&A) had an intern from Jiggles who was wearing a Royal Oak. He was rather dim. Turns out, his dad is a client of the real estate/banking practice of the firm in another city.

I am the idiot, for buying into the idea of meritocracy in the real world.

1. Interned here a couple of months back. The work was of good quality. Mentorship was good. The work load was heavy and i rarely ever sat free and many a times even left a little late because i had work pending.

2. The work is mostly of GC and employment law in the corporate team. They're actually very renowned for their employment law practice. They have also started doing IP around half an year back if in case you're interested. The partners are chill but not much approachable, i saw them very less in the office and then too they're busy with their own stuff .. in some offices partners have interacted with me as an intern but almt was not one such place. However the associates and SA are great guys .. they mentor you fairly well and are decent in their behaviour.

Jessica the front office lady is a bit of a pain when it comes to timings, don't come too late or take a lunch that's too long.

3. One thing that irked me was that they're a very chindi firm, the snacks are not free, despite it being an unpaid internship, they'll take that 5 rupees for that small biscuit lmao, so yeah no stipend plus this chindigiri. Also nothing for you even if you're sitting late, you still gotta pay up. I interned at another mid tier firm.. the guys who stuck back late were offered some food or snacks or something and it was on clients expense .. it felt nice but these guys are complete chindi in that aspect.

4. No scope for PPO, heck they don't have any concept of call back or assessment interns either. As far as i know, they directly hire fresh graduates. They don't deal with students and ppo stuff.

5. Not much department specific, more of a pool system.

6. Contacts bohot kaam aate hain idhar.

Hi guys. Have been getting serious heart palpitations everyday since april 2023. It’s becoming worse everyday. Need time off from my current job at a law firm which is worsening things for me. How can i ask for 1-2 months leave? Unpaid is also fine. Also, any therapists in Delhi that you would recommend? Pls help asap. Situation is worsening day by day

This is not true. Arka had already clarified it in a LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/arka-majumdar-a653968_internship-argus-activity-7060278654169223168-n3Kb?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Great guy with blue-chip clients & a very close knit team. AK is very down to earth and not like other hawabaz partners in the Delhi office. Too sad I didn't intern with his projects practice and chose GC instead. If given the chance to intern/work under his tutelage, take it without any doubt!

Good for DYC, he gets hardworking clerks. But what's in it for the clerk? It's nothing but a glorified internship that people do to pad an LLM application. Please don't chase clerkships ad naseum beyond that. Careers have been ruined. Just because a clerk gets to hang out with a SC judge doesn't mean that you get accepted into that elite Delhi bar and bench fraternity, and your litigation career will take off at grest speed. The latter will need grind, it's better to dive straight into that. As for "legal academics", that market is increasingly getting saturated unless you want to head to upstart private law schools and such. But if you're from NLS/Nalsar/NLUD, you wouldn't want to end up a teacher at BML or something. Please plan your careers smartly, and realistically.

I'm a PA at a T1 firm in Mumbai, I drive a 3 series, I take foreign holidays twice a year, I stay in a Bandra West apartment. All my devices are Apple. I to back to my T1 NLU to take seminar courses. I have a hot girlfriend, we can to all happening places thrice a month. Why don't you tell me more about how I'm not an elite lawyer?

Rant aside, I wasn't gatekeeping the profession. It's just the deterioration of LI into a tier 3 engineering college placement/alumni group that I'm disappointed by. This portal used to be a great platform to engage with like minded folx with similar problems. Now how is a Delhi/Bom/Blr corporate lawyer or someone litigating in a high profile senior counsel chamber supposed to engage with the likes of "I don't want to litigage in my mofussil hometown trial court; my senior mistreats me and doesn't even pay me 5 figures"? And don't even get me started on the no-name college kids screaming for internships who spam our inboxes. Sheesh, be classy folx. Otherwise, LI itself will become a cesspool of no-tier lawyers and their declasse problems.

I'm sorry if that seems harsh, but someone needed to say it.

You think they checked IDs and history before they kidnapped, raped and tortured ? Do you have to be personally affected by something to know right from wrong ?

The second biggest group in the hostages kept by Hamas were workers from Thailand. Did you know that ?

Islamic jihad puts at danger any one who doesn’t not subscribe to it. That’s what religious fundamentalism is. It’s not more complicated than that. And if you want a world with equality and democracy and freedom- you should be against any form of it.

Of course you might not have those principles. Maybe you’ve just bought lock stock and barrel into one set of political beliefs as if you were choosing a tribe and act upon received wisdom instead of thinking for yourself about your morals.

I see a lot of people working in non-legal roles with organisations abroad. Kisi ko malum hai kaise milti hai job inme??

Or else jobs in NGOs where you get a chance to travel internationally??

Log kahan se khoj khoj kar laate hein opportunities and then batate bhi nahi ki kya karte hein.

MBL is useless. Just a decorative degree.

If you are a law graduate, study a good LLM degree which can be useful in multiple ways.

If you are BA, BCom, BBA or BTech graduate, you should study 3-year LLB if you want to become a lawyer.

Do an MBA otherwise. MBL through distance learning doesn't make any sense.

I did not quite. It was always on and off . Taking own Gigs , small tution Jobs.

No NLU = No Job.
No father = No connection
No Second Gen = No litigation

It has been a long ride with much mental stress . staring at blank questioning my existence . Thank God, I have not eliminated myself .

Agree 100%. If the BA portion is in one discipline [e.g. BA (Economics)] combined with the LLB portion, then it would so much sense and be useful. Today the BA courses are all over the place - history, literature, sociology, political science. It is basically a hodge-podge to just fulfill the credit requirements.

I am not very sure if I want to stay in the legal field for the rest of my life and I wanted to know if there are possibilities to switch my career (which I know will be tough but still possible). What other career options can be available to explore after working for a few years in a law firm?

International trade law is offered as an elective in most NLUs at least. These are not tradeoffs for each other. To think that Human Rights can be traded with HR & Corporate Relations is a foolhardy thought. Any person with legal training but no appreciation for or understanding of human rights is a threat to human society. I say that as a career corporate lawyer.

Can someone please provide a strategy for RJS. I have studies all acts at least once, but do not remember everything. How to cover language portion in both pre and mains? Is there any particular book for Hindi Grammar and Where to study Hindi Essays from?

A comprehensive strategy will be appreciated, thank you.

I would also want to do that. Everyone seems so accomodative, understanding, willing to give work, and actually creating good office friendships with girls. On the other hand, I am ignored, only sent the mail with limited understanding with work. I can understand the female associates may want to maintain that distance, but the others?

Depends on the Partner / Client.

Most partners try to avoid spillover of work onto the weekend but if you have a deal going through on following Monday / non-extendable deadlines, they'll rarely request the clients to push the dates back and you'll be working the weekend with them.

Holds even more true for marquee clients that bring in lots of business. Otherwise, weekends are usually free. Unless you're part of the unfortunate team (which exists in almost every firm) who regularly promises to complete work in unrealistic timelines.

TL;DR - most people have time for "life on the weekend", weekend is generally not 'completely' taken over.