Agree about reading the icdr with DRHPs on SEBI's website, but putting two and two together may require a bit more understanding. Let's leave some work for the seniors in the team to impart as well.

Delhi v Mumbai doesn't really matter, at all. It's all your personal preference. If you have a choice, look up your team members/partners before choosing.

Your nom-de-guerre seems to suggest that you've survived just fine.

While it's not for everyone, it is possible to make a career and thrive in the capital markets space.

Most of the tier 1 firms (used loosely) have a practice, so there are opportunities. Even some tier 2 firms have robust cap marks practices, so rest assured you'll have jobs

A lot of due diligence exercise, hence

Due diligence for cap marks is different. It is even more boring and mind numbing than what it is in other practice areas. Stay away from cap marks.

Better advice is stay away from corporate law. So many enlightened people here will tell you how litigation is the real deal in law and everything else is clerical.

Diligence as a whole is drudgery. But, it's what you get paid to do across all firms and practice areas.

Capital markets requires you to be able to put forth information to the general populace. It is tiring, but if you can see the whole picture from resolution to fund flow, it makes for a compelling story.

Sadly, all corporate legal work requires a degree of word formatting skills and the ability to rely on precedents.

It is ignorance or lack of attention to call the practice bereft of any application of law. All corp practices involve similar things. However, what matters is what you bring to the table. Glass half full has already pointed out that its a client facing practice. You need to have those soft skills to back up your work. Just to give you an example of the kind of diligence that is required: You will be required to read case papers of a wide variety of litigations (sorry, legal proceedings :p) that a Company is involved and then have to summarise it succintly in a way that you don't leave out any relevant point. Just as that, you will be going through all details regarding the management and capital structure of a company and then presenting in a compact, easy to understand manner. You need to have attention to detail. Further, you will get a chance to understand the industry of every company that you will work for and also understand the risks that might be there that are specific to the company/industry/country. Not only are required to have the legal knowhow, but also the understanding of the commericals. Therefore, there is no end to how much you can learn and understand. But yes, if you just want to put your head down, do the bloody work and catch the next EPL fixture, you might do that as well (that is if your partner believes in weekends). So it ultimately has some merits and demerits, like any other practice area. Wish you the best.

Can you compare the legal depth of a disputes or corporate partner with that of a cap marks partner. Absolutely not.Cap marks requires a superficial knowledge of finance. Through one has to agree that cap mark partners know more about finance than partners from other practice areas but when it comes to black letter law , he has not seen any of that since he graduated from law school. This is true when we are talking about cap mark deals. But securities litigation is a different ball game. But generally, cap marks people will have the least knowledge of law. Any corporate associate worth his salt will have a more nuanced understanding of company law than a cap marks associate. Cap marks associate only knows ICDR and has an above average understanding of company law (CA 13).

Point taken, that a Corp Associate will know more Company law than a Cap Marks associate. But isn't that's a given considering the Corp Associate does Company law as her bread and butter? As to your point about legal depth, it really depends from transaction to transaction. There are challenging legal issues in cap marks transactions too, albeit it might be true that most transactions will be similar. Again, it totally depends on you, whether you think being a better lawyer, or for that matter, a better professional involves you knowing the black letter law or knowing the law enough but also being able to advice on the basis of commercials. The finance bit and client facing makes one a well rounded professional, IMO. Also, Cap Marks isn't just ICDR (read equity). The bit about clerical work for young associates is correct. You need to be on top of your game while drafting. At the same time, I would like to think its the same in any other corp practice as well, however the degree may vary. If you want to do something, do policy work but if you want to take the next unicorn public (and do some clerical work for it), do Cap Marks. Cheerios.

"Take the next unicorn public."

That one line has sold cap markets to me over gen corp which I've been doing currently as a 4th year student as a Paralegal

Cap marks cannot be sold It is the worst practice area .The main role of Indian lawyers is to draft the non business sections of the offer document. The business sections of the offer documents which include risk factors are drafted by the ILC on the deal. The business sections are heavily influenced by the opinion of bankers on the deal. The DLC only gives comments on those. No one can deny the fact that the job of Indian counsels from equity partner to A0 is very clerical. The offer document is essentially a due diligence report. The partners comment on this due diligence report. Capital market lawyers know very little law apart from certain schedules and procedural provisions in the ICDR. It is a myth perpetuated by seniors that only first three years are bad. The entire life cycle in the team is bad as seniors essentially review clerical stuff. There is very very very little application of black letter law in cap marks. Also, the working hours are worse than any other team and people who do 40 per cent of the amount of effort cap marks lawyer put in get a higher bonus in some cases. Working hours are really bad and the work is mind numbing.