I recently joined a law firm and the start has been slower than I expected. It has only been a few days since I joined, so I wanted to understand whether firms generally ease new associates in gradually to help them get comfortable with the workplace and workflow, or whether I am simply overthinking the situation.

I am no TMC fan and in fact hate every political party in India. But this specific and repeated Hitler reference pattern is deeply problematic. It must be called out because it trivialises that specific phenomenon. It's perfectly fine to say that there was gradual authoritarianism, as that was in fact the case, but this Hitler comparison is not at all appropriate. I know it's not important in the modern world for leftists because of how it's fashionable among liberal elites to bash Israel and the rest of the world's Jews like once it was to buy fancy watches, but that thing of comparing to Hitler and therefore minimising the horrors of Nazism just happens to be antisemmitic also.

It's Friday. Weekend is almost here. If you have a life (debatable, given your practice area), maybe you're winding down. If you're in disputes, you're probably still at your desk drafting something.

Either way — this one's for the students lurking here who have romanticised the idea of a Tier 1 disputes team. We see the LinkedIn posts about the big wins, the Supreme Court appearances, the landmark judgments. But no one talks about what Tuesday at 11pm actually looks like.

So — disputes lawyers at T1 (CAM, SAM, AZB, Trilegal, KCO, NDA, whoever) — please indulge us this weekend. Genuinely curious:

On any given day:

- How many matters are you actively juggling? Is it 3 or is it 13?

- What does the task list actually look like — research notes, written submissions, plaints, replies, vakalatnamas, cause list tracking, client calls, all of it at once?

- Is drafting a whole plaint or a writ petition a one-person, one-day job? Or does it go through 5 people over 3 weeks?

- Who does what — what does an A0/A1 handle vs what actually goes to the SA or partner?

- Is court attendance a regular thing or mostly for seniors?

- How many "urgent" tasks land on your plate after 7pm?

Also — is disputes at T1 actually what students imagine it to be? Or is it mostly document review, research memos, and chasing advocates on record?

Drop your honest take. No names needed — that's what this forum is for. You'd genuinely be doing a service to every law student who's building their entire career plan around "I want to do disputes at a T1."

Which tier 1 firm will give leave for a mere FIR? and leave for how long? Dealing with an FIR can take ages! I'm sure they must've been aware. They just abandoned him when it got hot for them. A new low to "standing by your employees/partners in their time of need". It's a law firm; it would know that an allegation is just that, an allegation. How does a top firm abandon its partners at such a time is beyond me.

Hi all, I’m about to begin a three-month long capital markets internship and I genuinely want to make the most of it and convert it into a full-time opportunity. While I do have fairly strong theoretical knowledge of the transaction lifecycle end-to-end, I want to understand how to actually deliver exceptional work in practice.

I’d especially appreciate insights on how to approach and stand out while handling assignments such as lender consent DDs, approvals DDs, property DDs, standard certificates and similar transactional workstreams. I’m less concerned about the black-letter law aspect and more interested in understanding the practical side, how to structure work product well, spot issues effectively, communicate findings commercially, and become someone seniors can genuinely rely on during a live transaction.

Would really value any advice, habits, checklists, or practical tips from people who’ve worked in capital markets or transactional teams

Maybe it is time to dig deeper into how, who et al of Rs 1 cr donation given by GamesKraft to NUJS. As the saying goes, follow the addict and you get the dealer; but follow the money and you will be surprised where it ends up.

There is a danger that an inquiry, if at all, will get saffron/Pinkwashed.

In the outgoing batch of 2026 at NUJS only, so many people had really bad ranks but landed PPOs quite early because of their internship performances. Why aren't you reaching out to your seniors who can tell you exactly what they did instead of posting on an anonymous platform where you'll get vague, short statements at most.

A lot of the people I'm talking about above got placed in the same areas you're interested in too.

Hi, even if the partner is coming out to put a statement, anyone else disclosing any information that can lead to the identification of the child, such as linking the post here, would be held liable under POCSO. Might be best to remove this thread altogether since every new comment is just trying to provide identifying information and no other discussion is taking place @mods

LinkedIn Post Analysis

▮▮▮

What Is Actually Being Communicated

Reading between the lines of this post reveals several key facts:

• He is facing serious charges — serious enough that his professional network is reaching out with support, indicating the matter became public, likely through media coverage.

• The framing — "deeply painful divorce," financial settlement, child custody — strongly suggests this stems from a matrimonial dispute that escalated into criminal complaints, possibly under IPC 498A, domestic violence provisions, or financial fraud allegations by an estranged spouse.

• The reference to "misusing media connects" is a pointed accusation that his ex-spouse (or her side) leaked the story to journalists to gain leverage in the financial settlement.

Communication Quality — What He Did Well

• Unequivocal denial with no hedging or ambiguity.

• Contextualised the charges as divorce fallout rather than standalone professional misconduct.

• Maintained professional dignity — did not name anyone or descend into emotional rhetoric.

• The gratitude framing softens what is essentially a crisis statement, humanising him to his network.

What Is Strategically Risky or Weak

• Wrong platform. LinkedIn is a professional networking site. Publishing a personal legal crisis here permanently associates his professional profile with the controversy, regardless of eventual outcome.

• "Read between the lines" signals to the legal fraternity that there is more to the story — which invites speculation rather than closing it down.

• Legally inadvisable media allegation. While understandable, the allegation about "misusing media connects" could be construed as an attempt to discredit a potential witness or complainant — a significant misstep.

• 83 reactions is relatively low for a professional with a senior legal network, suggesting either limited reach or that peers are hesitant to publicly associate with the post.

Overall Assessment

This reads as a well-meaning but strategically imperfect crisis response — written by someone in genuine distress who wanted to reclaim the narrative, but without the benefit of crisis PR counsel.

The content is dignified; the platform choice and the media allegation are missteps. A better approach would have been a private communication to close colleagues and, if necessary, a terse single-line public statement — nothing more.

Verdict: 7/10 for intent and tone. 4/10 for strategic execution.

Hear that the bonuses were very bad this year. 4-5 people I know have put in papers after the bonus payout. They also seems to have fucked over a lot of partner bonuses this year i hear from grapevine. In any case why would anyone smart and in their below PA era stay in a place like CAM honestly which is so tox and partner heavy is beyond me

Did he inform the firm that an FIR was filed against him? And why did he not take leave of absence till this was sorted !

I think the firm perhaps knew it all and when it blew up with news reports etc in various media outlets like Mumbai Mirror etc, the firm decided to act by sacking him, and doing damage control !

The mail seemed like a joke because of the two people who were involved. It was hard to digest as he has quite visibly had her back over the past few years, if it was involving any other person it would have been much more believable. From what I have heard from my friends who are also his friends, the mail that was sent was vetted by the person affected before it was sent out. Not sure how true though.

This is getting laughable at this point. People who say they know him are saying he made a mistake and he is sorry for it but he is not a bad person. People who probably don't know him are saying what he did is unforgivable. Some people have gone on an entirely different tangent about the suicide and administration. All this while the woman who was actually affected has complained and got the recourse what she wanted to.

What even is the point of this discussion now? Every action has consequences and he has faced it. Whether he is a bad person or not is immaterial now. If he is actually sorry about what he did as people who claim to know him are saying, then hopefully he does better in the future.

Peace ✌️

The Bar Bulletin has confirmed it is a tier 1 firm. Other sites didn't even want to say that.

https://thebarbulletin.com/law-firm-partner-terminated-pocso-case/

What does Sumantra have to say about his family's extensive and long time links with MB and TMC? All this talk was not even mewed when some folks demanded that "Subhash" be asked to come and explain why "hafta" wasn't being paid. The Bose family is free to hate BJP politics and politicians, even jump ships due to their internal family politics but to flap jaws now, is a bit rich.

Then again Bose family is overrated and playing victim has been their hallmark. Bahut hua samman

Telling women to not continue with their job cause some entitled men can’t understand basics is not the solution.

I think let’s force these men to understand that if your wife is doing it for you by putting your job and dreams on priority doesn’t mean you will belittle someone’s choice to work during pregnancy and not respect basic decency and boundaries.

The pregnant woman is not refusing work during office hours, all they are saying is after office hours, my body needs the rest it needs after a hard days work.

All very true. And the saddest of all - a bright and curious person turns into someone exhausted, grey and lost within a couple of years. There isn’t much use for your brightness and curiosity here. Reams of mind-numbing diligence (maybe it’s gotten speedier if firms are deploying AI to assist), the same few standard contractual templates on every deal, with everyone above you so exhausted and grey that mentoring or helping you understand the ropes is an unknown phenomenon.

No way VB leaves Delhi to become AG in Cal! Phiroze a stronger bet. Also, NO WAY Jishnu Chowdhury, after representing so many people in the TMC ecosystem. The BJP is not so stupid as to disregard supporters and what people on the other side, who have overnight switched affiliation.

Multiple reasons to hate this practice -

1. LONG LOONG hours - most tier-1s will have you pulling multiple all-nighters in a row and by all-nighters I mean less than 3 hours of sleep. This will happen in cycles through out the year but depending on staffing and the market you could go 2-3 months at this pace - weekends included. This could happen in other practices as as well, but the probability and frequency in cap marks is higher than most other practices

2. Boring and repetitive work - most of the work you do will be detail oriented and diligence heavy - sometimes it may feel like you didn’t need a law degree for this practice at all. Your skill set as a lawyer and as a person can get limited if you’re not careful.

3. It doesn’t get better with seniority - It might suck seeing your seniors leave when you’re toiling but it’s even worse if you see your senior pulling the same number of all nighters as you. At least until PA the practice doesn’t ease up on you in terms of you having control over your time. Even at partner level, depending on the involvement and working style of the partner - they too work long long hours.

4. Not enough exit options - it’s good money and a great way to propel yourself to financial security so if this was a practice area you could just spend 4-5 years in make your pool of cash and leave to do something else, it would be a lot more bearable. But as a cap marks lawyer your in-house opportunities are limited - you could work at a SAM or a CAM for years and still struggle to even get an interview call for a non-cap marks job, however a peer in GC or even TMT would have a much higher chance of moving in-house. You could become a banker but that isn’t much of an upgrade in terms of quality of work and work-life balance.

5. Lack of leadership - all those long hours have damaged a few brains so a lot of your seniors will be annoying and snappy zombies.

6. Pressure pressure - your average IPO is at least a few hundred crores and you’ll see plenty which are in the 1000s of crores, for the promoters and investors of a company this is a culmination of years of work and the bankers stand to make the big bucks as well, the lawyers are treated more as an impediment to the process - the paper pushers that keep the regulator out of the business while bankers do the work of marketing the offer and getting money. Plus you work with an increasingly unreasonable regulator in close proximity whose whole job is to scrutinise shit you’ve written at 4am on a few hours of sleep. People get snappy, yell, fight and are downright annoying. So you need to have a very very thick skin.

All of the above might have exceptions depending on team / partner, firm, location, market conditions and sheer luck. If you’re a nonchalant person or have cracked the secret to stoicism, you’ll do well in this practice. Otherwise it can be a bumpy ride.

Good luck!

This profession will be plenty harsh to you, so don’t be harsh on yourself. All your peers will have their moments of self-doubt, and all your seniors that you look up to have likely had a million breakdowns and perhaps continue to still have them.

The way Indian firms are set up, it’s a steep learning curve which is often isolating, but the experience of whatever mistakes or challenges you go through teaches you far more than reading black letter law. You do something on loop enough times and it becomes second nature, that’s all it is, repetition. Eventually you’ll become comfortable with uncertainty cuz you would’ve gone through so much shit that regardless of what’s thrown at you, you’ll have the confidence to figure your way out of it.

If you want to succeed in this set up, all you have to do is stick around. Whether you feel it is worth it to stick around is a separate matter.

Good luck!

Hey Guys, might be a dumb question but I’ve a PPO with a firm which hasn’t sent in their offer letter yet. I know my team, but am like a bit scared that they shouldn’t take me in as a Trainee or something since they did that to someone else who was there in my team and made her a Trainee for 6 months after she got a PPO (although in her case her PPO was with another team which left the firm and she was adjusted with this other team). It’s a huge team so I don’t really have anyone I can ask either. Any idea if this happens?

I rarely watch Republic, for obvious reasons.

However, the YouTube algorithm led me to this interview with the Tamil Nadu Governor Rajendra Arlekar and the man himself, Mukul Rohatgi: https://youtu.be/maovnJlpD4g

An absolute must-watch for everyone.

The Governor was confronted directly, firmly, and respectfully, and by the end, was subtly but clearly told not to fool around with the Constitution and to allow a minority government to form, regardless of the consequences.

🫡 for Arnab, and 🫡 Mukul Rohatgi for doing this!

Am 100% sure that Tushar saw this interview, and, by now, advised his client to take operation lotus down a few notches. Especially in TN. In the off chance Tushar is reading this, I have a message - sir, please install a smarter CM in WB than the one you have in Delhi, else anti incumbency will hit your employer real hard in 2029. From SG, you’ll return to obscurity. Your client is winning elections only because the INDI Alliance doesn’t have its act together. You aren’t winning because you are doing a stellar job governing this country. How do I know? I have voted for you - the BJP- thrice already. We still have corruption, abject poverty, crony capitalism and broken roads. There’s an acute shortage of judges. You’ve repeatedly obstructed the collegium to get your way. The tribunals, esp. NCLT and NCLAT are corrupt, filthy and poorly managed. Do this country a favour and scrap them. Please. One still needs a jack with some minister, judge or with your office to get on a panel for the union of India, and get work from that panel. The office of the Attorney General has been reduced to a joke with the SG marking briefs! Why don’t you become the AG, bro!? It’s well known that Amit bhai is your buddy. Tell him to make you AG! Why this farce of a installing a namesake AG!?

Credit must also be given to Kapil Sibal🫡. Had it not been for his press conference, I doubt any of this would have happened.

Yeah that's my point exactly. Most assaults are not by people who "go around physically assaulting people" but chicks be happy to fall over themselves to validate the men they know. Is she saying that the woman involved is the kind of person who goes around lying about being assaulted? Because that is the implication of this. If she is saying that and you are endorsing then you should have the honesty to say it directly. Because that is what you are really saying when you suggest that the man is impeachable. You are saying the woman is questionable. And may it come right back to you one day if you are wrong.

Brave!!!

Maybe you are part of this “Sir/Ma’am” hierarchy culture, but as seniors, we never expected juniors to greet us with such suffixs or salutations. We always made it clear that they should use whatever they were comfortable with more like most of us say bhaiya/didi.

No one should mourn the exit of Mamata Banerjee, ejected by voters in West Bengal, India’s fourth-most-populous state. For 15 years she presided over failure. Though the economy booms nationally, for the 100m people in her state it stagnates. An average Bengali now has an income just half of someone’s in Gujarat, the home of Narendra Modi, the prime minister. Just as bad were Ms Banerjee’s thuggish tendencies. She silenced critics and jailed opponents. Her party ran extortion rackets. Allegedly, its goons sometimes got away with rape. Businesses were forced to pay bungs for land and licences.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/05/07/narendra-modis-party-is-on-a-roll-in-india?taid=69fc812916d54400015ac582&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

International recognitions like Legal 500 and Benchmark Litigation are purely merit driven and can’t be purchased, they say.

As for the tacky sounding platsforms like Superlawyer, Forbes, Lex Falcon etc - all those are for outright sale. However, even those platforms/ awards are given to those who meet a certain basic criteria.

For more information on how to improve your visibility like this and in other such ways, contact Priyanka Karwa.

"since the registration of the FIR, the police had sufficient opportunity to investigate without arresting the accused. It recorded that the investigating officer had never sought custodial interrogation and had instead issued notice to secure his presence. The judge observed that any medical examination of the accused could be carried out without placing him in custody"

what is this country about bro?

The Delhi HC judgement is only jurisdictionally valid in the state of Delhi btw, and we all know what is going to come with this at the Supreme Court. Honestly, good on them, i really hope the university fights fiercely against these kids' dads in courts and he other slackers. This country is so flooded with mediocrity because of "chalta hai" attitude, especially the judiciary. About time we institute strict enforcement of penalties (written in your university regulations btw)

I am a S survivor, having tried it in and before law school, and even I agree with that statement. Its used too loosely and discredits real problems like abuse and S@, which drove me. So many people are quick to through the "taking l*$e" shit for the slightest discomforts omg

Let's look at it this way. If you aren't attending a certain percentage of classes for a subject, then how are you going to get certified to have studied the subject and attained a minimum level of proficiency? The answer is, by clearing all the evaluation for the subject without any leniency. As a teacher, my stand has always been that if a student does not attend my classes but still clears all my evaluation, then the student has surely demonstrated their proficiency nonetheless. What right do I have to deny him such certification? If anything, I should question the relevance of my classes and my evaluation methods if clearing the latter is possible without attending the former. However, there should not be any scope for multiple exams in the same year, extension of dates for assignments, excusing not turning up for vivas or presentation or any other type of leniency in the evaluation.

entering 4th year, i feel its high time to work on this + practice areas which allows or helps in switching careers if i wanna pursue MBA in future etc PLEASE HELP because in some firms i saw its just corporate teams some has banking and finance within it only, some has investment funds team differently

Decent scope in Cap Marks in Singapore at Logan Hovells and Latham. Perhaps a few options in London for with M&A with their India desks, however they do prefer people who have had some education in UK. Not great in US unless you have a JD. 4-5 years PQE is a good time to move.

I went to Nalsar. I have two exams with juniors because I didn’t have attendance. It doesn’t seem like it at the time. But enforcing that rule was a good thing Nalsar did for me. I needed to learn there were consequences to my actions. No one misses 25% of their classes by mistake right ? I was embarrassed at the time. I thought my career was over. But of course it wasn’t over. And that experience made me determined to never be so stupid again. I worked a hundred times harder at my first job. Stuff is better and more fun when you show up and work hard. I didn’t have any issues with work performance after and it’s because someone cared enough to enforce rules.

To let young students do as they please without consequences is not about caring for them- it’s about taking the easy way out as the admin and a teacher.

Interned at LexCounsel in August and November 2025▮▮▮

Also funny how earlier they used to offer ₹7,500 stipend, but now interns are apparently “not worth it.” Meanwhile, people coming from other cities are easily spending ₹15–20k just to stay there.

Overall, not a great experience. If you’re looking for actual mentorship or a healthy work environment, you might want to think twice.

Corp team is good. Possibly the only one doing well. Nischal and Viral are holding fort well and they have enough legacy clients. The team is quite good too. The larger NDA team is a big mess though including the leadership. That can affect your day to day. Not a place to stay long term but the corp team isn’t a bad place to start your career

You guys may have seen the viral video today, which shows Indigo passengers surrounding Mohua Moitra and calling her "chor". Well, this is just a small sample. On the ground, local TMC leaders are all facing the public fury. All the autorickshaws in Kolkata are now, displaying BJP flags. If you ask them, they will say that they were being forced to give 20% of their earnings to the TMC.

Coming to the implications for the legal world, this means that everyone associated with the TMC is now persona non grata. Whether it's the board of NUJS of the board of the WB Bar Council, there will be a total purge.

Nandimath deliberately stayed away all this while. Now he will be active and become a BJP supporter, knowing that it may bring him gains like VC-ship of NLUD or GNLU.

If by "abroad" you might at all be meaning "United Kingdom", then I think the below article from the law section of 30 April's London Times (which isn't spoof/spam) should give a good enough indication (while being funny) of the general picture there. As the London Times is behind a paywall, find text pasted below. Also, I challenge B.O. 2027 struggling graduates to try this, and for any law firm senior to refuse such an offering!

Aspiring lawyers blitz City firms with doughnuts in TikTok stunt
Two women drop pastry boxes at leading Square Mile legal practices, using social media clips to try to catch recruiters’ attention

Jonathan Ames, Legal Editor
Thursday April 30 2026, 6.50pm, The Times

With starting salaries for City lawyers approaching £200,000, competition for jobs is fierce, prompting two prospective candidates to employ a novel approach to getting noticed.
In arguably the most modern spin on a job application, two young women have posted videos on TikTok as they blitz some of the biggest law firms in the Square Mile, dropping off piles of boxes of glistening Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
In one video, posted under the name Alini on the social media site, the women say their mission is: “Making law firms hire us with doughnuts.”
Image description: A woman sitting with a Krispy Kreme box holds a sign saying "Your Next Solicitors (once you hire us)."
Alini’s friend joined her on the stunt
To a background track of Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode, they place a sign next to a box of doughnuts that reads: “Your next solicitors (once you hire us)”.
In another, one says, “The job market is crap; let’s see what we can do about it,” adding: “Every graduate in London knows how hard it is to get a job nowadays, so we have done the only logical thing, which is: show up on the doorstep with doughnuts in hand. And what better place to get them from than Krispy Kreme, because who would say no to that?”

Legal profession experts have pointed out that competition for junior roles at leading City firms has become even keener with new technology. “AI continues to reduce the number of trainee positions,” said Chris Clark, the director of Definitum, a head-hunting consultancy.
The women filmed themselves handing over boxes at two prominent firms, Freshfields, a member of the elite “magic circle” group, which last year recorded an annual revenue of about £2.25 billion, and Addleshaw Goddard.

While Addleshaw Goddard had a more modest revenue of £500 million last year, the prospective trainee solicitors note in the video that the reception team at the firm is “so nice”.
They add: “And look at us smiling through the whole entire thing — like, what are you smiling for? You don’t have a job.”

The TikTok video was unearthed by the website Legal Cheek, which has a history of highlighting novel approaches by wannabe lawyers” to get noticed by prospective employers.
In 2018, it reported on Jordan De Leon, a law graduate from Anglia Ruskin University who stood outside Liverpool Street railway station in the City dishing out copies of his CV, while clutching a sign stating that he was after an “entry level” legal job.
As with many practices in so-called “big law”, the largest and most prestigious law firms in the US, the trend for unique pitches for jobs seems to have started in the US.

In 2013, the law graduate Brian Zulberti sent a mass email to law firms in Delaware in which he posed bare-chested with boxer shorts sitting low on his hips. The image included a handmade sign that read: “Hire Me!!! No… as a lawyer … not a [sic] escort…”

Training places at City law firms have historically been highly sought-after but a combination of US firms fanning salary inflation and social media has spawned increasingly resourceful efforts by job-hunters.
The top of the City pay tree is dominated by US firms, nearly 30 of which offer starting salaries to newly qualified solicitors of between £157,000 and £180,000.
Image description: Two women deliver Krispy Kreme doughnuts to law firms.
However, American firms offer only a few training places each. Many more places are available at the London firms, but the highest-paying — the magic circle players A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Linklaters — all offer starting salaries of £150,000.
While those salaries are significantly higher than the starting wages of most graduates, there is a price to pay for those who get the jobs. Trainees and junior qualified lawyers in the City routinely work at least ten-hour days and often longer, and law firm partners are also frequently required to weekend shifts.
Clark had a word of warning for the women’s stunt. “Getting the prospective firm to notice you is key,” he said. “The issue with offering confectionery is that the firm might think you’re a doughnut!”

▮▮▮ might have a wrongful termination case coming up for him.

> want to take a moment to sincerely thank each and every one of you who has reached out with kind words, support, and encouragement during this incredibly difficult period. I would especially like to thank all my mentors, friends and colleagues in the fraternity who know the true facts and have read between the lines. Your messages have meant more to me than I can express.

> I feel it is important to address the situation directly: the charges that have been brought against me are entirely false and malicious. I want to be unequivocal about that. I intend to contest each and every one of them vigorously before the appropriate court and I have full confidence in the legal process to reveal the truth.

> For those who may be unaware, legal proceedings have already previously been initiated by me and are currently pending before the family court since some time. Without going into unnecessary detail, this situation is, regrettably, an extension of a deeply painful divorce (and all the issues that inevitably come with it such as a financial settlement and child custody) - one that I had hoped could be resolved with dignity and mutual respect. Misusing one's connects in the media to further their own financial cause in the manner being done is not appropriate.

> I remain committed to my work, my values, and the people who have stood by me. I am grateful beyond words for your continued trust and support.

> Thank you.

Trilegal-grade of work and internship experience, and relatively flat hierarchy. He runs a tight ship though, and fires freshers who don't make the cut. Last year he fired 3 out of the 4 hired, so looks can be deceptive. Let's just say he got very lucky since NDA lost it's TMT team