I am an associate with a Tier 1 Competition Team (Mumbai). Frankly, I do not have experience of other teams as I started my career from the current team only. I have approx. 2 and half years experience now. I am equally involved in combination and enforcement matters.
While my secretarial skills like making call recordals, making sets of filings, drafting e-mails, etc. have improved considerably, I do not think that I have grown as a lawyer - as associates (for that matter senior associates) are neither encouraged nor allowed to provide inputs on any matters.

I am also not comfortable in giving informal opinions on simple combination queries to cop team associates of the firm. I could say that the same is true for most of the associates and SAs of my team.

Moreover, when it comes to an enforcement matters, the team always approaches a senior advocate and drafts the entire pleadings as per instructions of the senior.

I feel more like a peon and not a lawyer.

I want to understand whether this working style is same in all Tier 1 Competition Teams? Expecting replies from peers in other competition teams. Thanks in advance for your response.

That's the biggest problem with niche fields like competition law. There aren't a lot of options available for switching and the choices are limited between 4-5 firms. You can try out a different firm but the odds of striking a balance between good work, good people and good working hours is a bit rare. See what you value more, giving my opinion on some teams that I have heard about:

Trilegal - good work but questionable on the other two parameters;
AZB - same as above
CAM - average work, okayish people and working hours
Khaitan - average work, good working hours.
SAM - from what I know, they just have 1 team in Mumbai but please cross check.

Please feel free to correct me if I have mentioned anything incorrectly.

SAM has very good work and some good people.
AZB has some very good work and very good people
TL has good clients so are on one side or the other of some good work.
CAM has good people but very average work
Khaitan has average people and average work

I think CAM has better work hours than the others because they are well geared compared to the others.

I am corporate lawyer who has worked across a couple of Tier-1 firms and interacted with competition teams of all these.
I could say that the competition team associates were well read and almost all the times informal (non billable) queries used to get sorted by A1/A2 level associates.

Speaking generally, if you are not growing as a lawyer, there is either something wrong with your team or you lack motivation. Ask other bachche achochiates of your team how they feel about the team, are they growing as a lawyer?

If the answer is yes, deep introspection is required.
If the answer is no, leave the team immediately.

Yes. Asking juniors and introspection, I second.

Competition law is particularly fact driven and enthusiasm driven. The possibility of your lack of growth is possibly due to the fact that you are working with blinkers on. As someone in law, you should make the effort to learn the latest and keep track of the industry. Initiative and overall tab plus focus on what is happening in the industry will allow you to confidently render informal advice. This reading and track keeping helps you and the learning of the team.

If a junior lacks motivation, and displays inefficiency and inadequate drive to diligently do tasks, the seniors would rather work on stuff themselves. If a junior doesn't do reading to stay updated or add value to the discussion, he is not needed for the discussion.

Introspect, pursue and decide. Remember one thing- you are good enough, you are awesome. However, we are in tough times and their can be various reasons for how you are feeling (including you not keeping healthy).

Also number one thing: Talk to the Partner. Take feedback, ask him/her to staff you on interest areas. Things will work out.

My motivation level to read case laws, articles, developments in EU and US, upon joining the firm were very high. With time I realised that this knowledge is not at all useful for the team or the work which I do. I and my peers are not expected to provide intellectual input - as that is done mostly by Senior Advocates.
On the combination side, we are required to follow an extremely fixed drafting style including the language - any deviation from the 'settled' language invites reprimanding from the senior. I have mastered the art of cut-copy-paste. But is that why I spent my 5 years in a law school?
I have actually forgotten how to search a case law and develop an argument.

Could you give any input as to which law firm you work for? It's just I am in my fourth year and want to pursue a career in the same field. I had interned with Trilegal recently, and even during my internship, I was asked to come up with my own legal arguments and research for various enforcement matters.
So I assume a lot of what you mentioned could be associated with the work culture of the specific team you work with.

That aside, I really hope you turn it around and enjoy what you do. All the best!

You have the greatest opportunity and you do not realise it. If your firm goes to a senior for advice make some effort to see what the advice given is in the given circumstances. There is no one better to learn from than the person who faces the heat in court. You can either coast and be mechanical or try and observe the legal strategy, law and argument that is being pitched. Make notes study the case being referred to, study the written submissions being settled, don’t just copy paste and make bundles.

Remember your not in law school and every partner does not have the same time or strategy for grooming his team, make the most of what you have. Your Partner probably expects you to sink or swim on your own inner drive. Everyday at the end of the day ask yourself what have I learnt and what did I do on my own accord to learn from it.

Learning by osmosis is the best learning.

The problem is that its the partner or the counsels/PAs who go to the senior and bachche achochiates are rarely asked to accompany. When the partner / counsel / PA returns, they hand over their hand written notes and ask us to type it out. Many a times, the sequence / logic is not clear.
Our typed pleadings with some artificial correcti9ons are then sent back to the Senior Advocates who make further changes.
So there is hardly any good audience with the senior advocate.

Hi Bachcha. Generally speaking, an associate with 2.5 years of experience is expected to have the capability to run simple enforcement matters (like matters with no overlaps, matters with low degree of overlaps, or matters relating to sectors where approval is typically easy like PE, mutual funds, insurance, etc). On the enforcement front, one would expect that you can run advisories on your own and for litigation work - you can prepare initial strategy covering all the basic defences. This is a bare minimum expectation. For the above average associate (not good or great), one also expects some degree of original thinking and argumentation (for both combinations and enforcement). For basic queries from corp colleagues, an associate of your experience should be able to satisfactorily resolve 50% of the queries (I am not a mathematician), and for the remaining queries your initial reaction in most cases should be the same as an SAs / PAs answer.

If you think your current competence is off what is set out above, there may be one of two issues.

1. Your team has let you down terribly. And this is quite plausible. In my experience, few of the tier 1 practices run in a manner where original thinking is highly looked down upon. In such teams, for combinations you are expected to pick up an old draft and then just change the bare minimum to fit the current transaction. For enforcement - you are dictated a structure by the partner and you are expected to expand it based on language used in previous matters. If you display any original thinking - even if that is an improvement, you are hammered down quite a bit. This kind of work culture is not present in all tier - 1 firms. In many, the junior is given a significant amount of free hand to learn and present original thought, language and ideas. While it is possible that the proposed ideas / language may be trashed and knocked down by the senior in the matter, this mechanism allows you to learn how to think and how not to think. This kind of environment is vital to be a competition lawyer and not to remain a competition secretary. So, if you are in the first kind of tier 1 practice - run away.

2. You are just not a very motivated / quality associate, and you are one who does the bare minimum and gets on with his / her life. This kind of associate / dead wood is present in almost all firms. As explained in a previous reply - such associates are poorly trained because the seniors lose interest in them after a few months. This is because, such associates rarely make a senior's life easy and generally - consistently make a mess for the senior to clear up. If this is your case, then recognition of this problem is key. Once recognised, learn how to work harder and may be look for a new firm where you can start afresh. Sometimes it is difficult to grow in a place, which is rife with disadvantageous preconceived notions.

I wish you the best.

An ex-competition law associate.

The above is based on my experience which is somewhat dated now. If things have changes dramatically, I will not know.

You can reach out to Vahura as well on their website, www.vahura.com

They have a varied clientele who prefer hardworking learner lot like you. It will ease your transition into a role that is based on your preferences.

I came across this thread three years later and I think I can figure out the team OP works (or worked in) because I'm exactly in such a team and every word OP mentioned can be directly applied on my case as well.

OP, hope your life has gotten better. If you did switch to something else, do let us know. Unsure about what opportunities I have after working in this particular niche area.