National Law Universities have the brightest students in the field. The NLUs were established to develop Social Engineers who contribute to the society in a meaningful way.

Then why are the NLUs and their students so crazy about joining corporate law firms and slaving it out there instead of doing something greater?

I am not trying to troll anyone or anything I am just curious about this situation and the craze for law firms.

In addition, people can be expected to provide return to the society only when the society through the government invests substantially in them. That includes subsidised higher education, which is not really provided at NLUs, at least when you consider the average income of an Indian family. Also, who said that all NLUs had been built with such objective? No common authority created those anyway. What Menon had in mind when setting up NLSIU need not hold true for all 24. Why is the onus only on law students to do such selfless things? Nobody questions it when IIT or IIM grads take up well-paying jobs from the campus. Without the law firms taking these students in, how does one expect the multi-million dollar deals to take place in the economy if they lack transactional legal support? Or are we pretending that those deals do not serve any purpose or are beneath our notice?
Finally, one has never carried out any proper scientific survey of graduate outcome over any discernible period of time across the NLUs. All these assumptions about what people do after law school based on half-baked RPC stats are grossly insufficient to base decisions on.

I think this topic has been repeated time and again. The answer is quite simple really- economics. Law schools cost, a LOT. And not everyone is by birth privileged to sustain being "social engineers" (which typically have very limited scope financially upon graduation). People have responsibilities, loans to pay off, aged parents, etc. Having said that, in case you can afford to, go ahead and be one. All the best!

We got stuck here. The cool 'real law' things we may want to do like litigation or even policy etc. pay peanuts, and corporate law is the only option that pays decently. So we're stuck working insane hours because we chose law but don't have familial support to earn very little, and all other decent paying options are now closed off to us because we didn't develop other specialized skills. After spending five years here, trying for an MBA again is also a financial burden, and the law-MBA synergy seems to be quite limited.

To realize the true vision of NLUs, there is need to have reforms. I understand that many of these reforms are not practical and might never see the light of the day. However, penning my thoughts.
Why many graduates of these top NLUs don't work towards their vision of being "social engineers" is two fold. Firstly, the fees paid over the course of 5 years is a significant chunk i.e. around 11-12 lakhs. For someone who has studied on a loan, it comes to around 15 lakhs in debt after graduation. You can pay off such debt quickly (in 3-4 yrs), only if you get a job that pays at least 75k per month, which restricts your options to law firms and big corporates. Secondly, most of the career options that let you be "social engineers" are neither lucrative nor offer any kind of support. Academia is severely underpaid till you get designated Assistant Professor, for which you need yet another degree i.e. an LLM. Similarly, several think tanks will not consider taking you in, if you lack both an LLM and exposure to policy internships. Now note that these policy internships are mostly unpaid in totality.
What is the solution?
1. Fees can be linked to a student's income for the first three years after graduation. For instance, NLUs can charge a fixed fee of say 50k a year to meet mess, hostel and other similar expenses. The remaining fees can be set at say 5-20% of the graduate's income for the 3 financial years after graduation, something similar to progressive taxation. This will also rake in more money for the NLUs, from those who can afford it.
2. A lot has been said about NLU students not entering litigation but very little has been done. NLUs need to start fellowships for students that enter litigation to ensure they are paid at least 40k a month. This would mean that in cases where a senior is paying 40k, the NLU has no obligation to pay anything but in cases where the senior is paying 20k, the NLU shells out 20k. This should be done for at least 3 yrs after graduation. Similar incentives can be given to students for unpaid internships.
3. An overhaul is required from BCI. Senior counsels cannot continue having unpaid interns and unpaid/horribly paid juniors. Even the poorest senior counsel in Delhi makes a few crores a year and it would not affect him if he pays his juniors and interns a liveable wage. Other professional bodies like ICSI and ICAI have already prescribed the minimum stipend for their trainees, no reason why the BCI should not. If they cannot apply it to all lawyers, at least apply it to law firms (basis turnover or number of retainers) and senior counsels, who have no dearth of money.
4. Finally and this may sound very elitist but we do not need 30 odd NLUs. It dilutes the student quality and the teacher quality. The only people these mushrooming NLUs help are the coaching centres. It is much easier to implement reforms and run these fellowships when you have lesser NLUs.

Don't ask why, before asking if.

For starters your premise that "[t]he NLUs were established to develop Social Engineers who contribute to the society in a meaningful way," is simply not supported by facts. As one response above points out, the mere fact that Madhava Menon had certain objectives while establishing NLS, does not translate to all NLUs having been established with that objective. NLUs were established to provide a state-owned/administered machinery to provide good quality legal education. Even if one were to take your assertion at face value for the sake of argument, the fact that NLUs might have been established for a given purpose does not mean that its graduates must advance those purposes. You will note that some medical schools (such as AFMC) require their graduates to actively devote their careers in certain ways (in case of AFMC, graduates have to work in the army as medical officers for 7 years, post graduation, if I recall correctly) and can derogate from this only by paying a certain amount. NLUs do not come with these strings. The only obligation that a student of an NLU owes to that NLU (till such time he/she remains a student thereof) is to pay his fees. What he/she does after with his/her degree is his prerogative.

As regards your question: Then why are the NLUs and their students so crazy about joining corporate law firms and slaving it out there instead of doing something greater, who, pray tell, designated you to be the arbiter of what constitutes "something greater"? Last time I checked, no single person or entity had a monopoly on this, but maybe things have changed in the interim. To be serious however, while you (and many others) may not appreciate what a career in corporate law at top-firms can offer, there are many who do. Such people apart, there are plenty of people who wish to have a certain standard of living and material pleasures to afford which, a career in corporate law is an excellent option (at least as far as a career in law goes). No one form of legal practice is inherently superior or inferior to any other form of legal practice, and the constant (and rather moronic) insinuation to the effect that certain avenues in the law are "better" or "more noble" or some does precious little. Some people find their true calling in helping those "in need," and others do this by living their best lives for themselves and their loved ones. Sitting on one's high horse and condescending might feel nice, but it doesn't help the overall discourse and certainly won't shame those in it for the money into pursuing public-interest roles.

Trust this answers.

R, please intervene and stop these topics from being featured. They've been debated ad-nauseam to little effect, serve no broader purpose, and detract from better discourses that may be had.

I was not offended by the question, but find that it relies on many unfounded assumptions (e.g., what constitutes meaningful work, and that a career in corporate law isn't intrinsically exciting).

No disrespect but if you couldn't understand what was stated in the answer, that speaks volumes about your critical reading and comprehension skills, but let me try and give you the Cliff Notes version:

* Regardless of what the purpose of establishing an NLU might be, students are not beholden to such objectives. If the intent was to require NLU graduates to follow a certain path, then, measures to such effect could have been taken.

* While you might be myopic enough to think that corporate law firm roles require thankless slaving, that's not true (the thankless part). Some people actually LIKE working in such firms - either because of the work, or the rewards that come with it (monetary and otherwise) or both. That you cannot fathom this again betrays your ignorance and limited worldview. Also, while you may not find corporate law meaningful, many do.

Also, it's spelt didn't, not dint.

One of the reasons this has been downvoted appears to be, as someone reported, there is enough discussion on corporate life and that it is demoralising to see that corporate jobs are being downgraded as merely a money making job and that other stuff is somehow more "meaningful". I am not taking any sides, but somebody reported this comment stating this and seemed like an interesting perspective.

- R