In the middle of the pandemic, I quit JSA. I joined a team thinking that I was going to be trained, supported, and encouraged to work in a manner that is “people oriented” like I was assured by the people who hired me. A few months into my job, the people I worked with changed, and I was asked to work on matters without much guidance or time on hand. I raised the issue with my mentoring partner and was told to use my self-learning skills.

The team’s senior associates were so busy and caught up that I would feel bad to ask them for help or assistance.
JSA is not what I was promised it would be. 8% bill share included; I did not make how much I was promised I would be able to make. My peers in another team made much more than I did because they had retainer clients.

I was humiliated and asked to apologize to my partner over an email when I made mistakes. I was shouted at for asking a leave. I was admonished by work drying up. I asked for a break, and because I did, my team stopped giving me work. I wrote emails to many people asking them for work, asking them for guidance, asking them for training. I received none of it and was asked to “read the knowledge management portal” and “the newspaper”.
I quit the job because there was no growth. I was working on things I did not understand the value of, and the senior associates had all the freedom to decide how much work I should get and how much I should not. My partner played favorites.

When I left, I did not get any bill share. I was paid my retainer after months. I was told, when I was leaving, that I will be “laughed at” in the market because I did not have “teamwork” and my “lack of loyalty” to my partner means I will be finished. I was told I will have no career.

JSA – you are not a law firm. You are a system of oppression, and your lack of decency will come exposed. Underpaid, overworked. Anyone leaving your organization is doing themselves a favor.

I feel you brother. My only reason to work in my team is because it is better than the other teams and has a lot of retainer clients. But there is no transparency in JSA anymore. Partners are kings, and the RPs are also associates only with more money. You've done the right thing by moving on. All the best.

"I was admonished by work drying up."

This is sad to read. I don't know why this is the culture in law firms these days. If you do not want someone, tell them so and help them find another place. JSA is suffering because it has no systems. No one signs a contract when they join, but are expected to live by the whims and fancies of their teams. So many people I know have serious health issues because of law firms. Even around the time I was leaving, I saw people who had to resign because their teams just stopped giving them work (even when there was so much work) and instead told them to write articles.

Sad, but this has been my (painful) experience with JSA and other law firms.

Ditto.

The politics is toxic. I was also treated the same, before I left on a pretext of taking a small career break. The politics is toxic. A senior and an older EP in ▮▮▮ - ▮▮▮. I thanked him for his offer, and politely told him that I don't want to pursue corporate law. Looking back..JSA, maybe, you are the reason that I may have lost interest in the corporate law. Zilch learning. Nobody really bothers.

Wish I had joined a better team and a better firm, to start with. Also, some younger EPs have totally lost it. A few bucks have made them even shallower.

I am talking here about ▮▮▮ office.

brother,you are not sounding as a matured associate.
even if you are an A0,no one will call/approach you specifically.
they dont have time to,be happy you got job in law firm and was given work to do.
it becomes your role and responsibility to always follow up after completing every work.

coming to your statement,where you mentioned you were not given guidance.
dude,i assume you have interned in the same team,in same firm or different firm,
they have recruited you as an associate.
they dont have time for spoon feeding.

in competitive world,stop complaining and start questioning and start behaving how they expect you to be.
cuz u are not yet recognised in the firm.

if u want to sustain,YOU HAVE TO GO AND ASK/TAKE INITIATIVES.

Let me clarify and respond to your statements. I obviously do not expect to the spoon fed, but the training is absolutely necessary. I interned with them, sure, but as an intern I am not doing the same kind of work as an associate. I am expected to turn around drafts in 2 days on matters I have no understanding of and all I wanted was one bloody conversation with the PA or SA to tell me what the deal is about. No one in my team had the time to talk. They want you to just read an email and understand everything. When I asked them questions, I was always met with irritation or I could see how busy they were so I would feel scared to ask. I used to feel so jealous of some other associates in my team who would sit in war rooms with the same SA and were able to get work done without a problem.

You cannot create a hostile, toxic, and out right disrespectful environment and expect a person to be motivated to work. You cannot call people into your room and tell them that they are "not made for law" having never worked with them enough or taking the time out to understand why they are unable to understand you.

If everything cannot be spoon feeding, everything cannot be self-learning either.

Come out of home.
You are not alone.
There are thousands of people who are fighting in the competition to get into your place.
You have come to work. Not they.
You have to adjust. They will not.

You cannot expect to be treated as a school kid.
If work is not submitted before the deadline or on the day of deadline, seniors are responsible the clients. NOT YOU.
That's the reason they show anger on associates.

Few talk rudely, few just ignore and stop giving work from next time, few just treat you as a robot and give copy pasting work.

2 days deadline was given to you. i.e 48 hours
If you don't know what to draft, prepare oultine at least or google the work, try to do at least what you can.
During lunch time Or before going home on that day , present what you have done and then take feedback and make it perfect.

Lol no SA or PA in JSA is directly answerable to anyone externally. JSA is full of RPs who make half the money their other T1 counterparts do, so their entire job is to sit and make everyone else's life miserable. There are many teams in JSA with more RPs than Associates. Imagine how they function.

Well, seems like the client giving above lecture belongs to the same toxic culture. I have been in the law firm industry for 7 years now and have been fortunate to have seniors who are humble. I am presently with one of the T 1's and my team is very supportive, write now I am an SA and my partner throughly guides me on way forward.

I have had the chance and luck to work with people like PSS and SSS and found them to be of same humble attitude.

Totally agree with this. There is no mentoring or training of any sort at JSA. The deal values and the nature of the deals (barring 1-2) are nothing compared to what Tier-Is do. You are expected to know everything and run transactions (irrespective of the complexities) all by yourself. It's all about cost saving here. No monetary reward, lack of appreciation of any sort and this bill sharing is a total sham.
At every level people are expected to suck up to the equity partners. EP impression >> client satisfaction.

Sad 2 hear beta. But gud u hav done the rite thing n left dat putrid organisation... needless 2 state, many "t1 firms" do dis only.. pay better dan others to entry level associates and use dem as machines and teach nothing in the process.. the junior ends up earning more than his contemporaries for the first 5-6 years... but dey are losing yrs of der lyf dng crap work wen dey shud be mentored and learning and upgrading demselves

1. The sentiments of OP sound like a "pandemic batch" issue. Training was a challenge for all law firms in the pandemic. That does not make JSA an inherently toxic place or a terrible working environment. Having worked with other law firms, I know JSA has many wonderful people who do care about their teams and colleagues.

2. Bill share is a "variable" component that is not guaranteed to anyone. You are told this when you join, so if you do not understand how "variable" works, then it will be a problem for you.

3. JSA does not pay the same as other T1s. Whatever reward you get comes after several years here. But your life will not be completely destroyed by work.

4. JSA doesn't have the same business model as other firms so there is no basis for comparison. It also has a different training model than others. But you need to have some basic skills to do well here and if you do not meet that standard, no amount of training can help you.

5. OP has put all the blame on the system. I assume he or she has taken the time to reflect on why, by their own statement, other associates were in "war rooms" with their SAs and PAs while he or she was not.

There are two sides to this, and because LegallyIndia is crowded with the As, you may not get the whole picture of the SAs, PAs and others who have no time.

Inspired by a similar post on the front page.

Summary: Guys wake up and take the train to Trilegal ▮▮▮. They're hiring at a much better pay and it's no more toxic than JSA is anyway.

I recently left JSA ▮▮▮ but even my colleagues wouldn't know because EPs control whether exit emails are circulated are not. A trend started by [...]. Just one of the many many awful toxic traits of JSA. Only on Legally India are there people claiming JSA is a good place to work at.

No mentorship, terrible pay and bill share is a ▮▮▮. JSA has the same pay bands as it did in 2017. Let alone inflation, they haven't even kept up with tier 2 firms!! Bill share is only beneficial to partners who will slash your hours on whim and fancy. Forget mentorship. No matter which team you join, you will have a 1:5 ratio of associates to SA-PA-RP. The office is a dingy old building in ▮▮▮, smells awful. While other firms are doing the biggest deals in the history of Indian M&A, JSA is now a diligence factory. No PPOs means no talented recruitments, only leftover students who couldn't get placed anywhere. The list of issues is so long.

Current JSA ▮▮▮ attorneys, if you have a different view please share. I would love to hear the other side.

P.S. [...] if you are reading this through a screenshot someone sent you, please fix the issues at JSA and your team first instead of going after twenty something year olds ranting on Legally India :)

I am OP here and sharing an update on life since I put up this post.
Some members from my team sent me messages on WhatsApp, reminded me that I have an obligation to conduct myself gracefully, that no one will believe what I have written on LegallyIndia, that LegallyIndia is a sham and there is no basis for me to make these comments. I've been told (again) that my career will be over soon.
I've only one thing to tell you: (1) Freedom of speech and I have receipts for all that has happened, so come at me (2) I hear your threat to write to Mr. Sagar himself, and I assure you, that changes nothing for me. Mr. Sagar is the person I look up to the most and he sure as damn hell is nothing like you are, he's a self made man who is the most humble and respectful person I have ever met in my life.

To put a different perspective on this: I have a friend who went to law school in England. She interned at JSA in the summer vacation of her first year, before doing multiple vacation schemes in her second year and gaining a TC at an Amlaw20 firm's London office, where she's been working for the last five years. I once asked her what was the difference between her internship experience in JSA and VS experiences in England. She said that the JSA lot tended to 'throw folks in the deep end' far too readily and were 'reluctant to provide guidance', while their foreign counterparts tended to give tasks that were managable, and were more than happy to provide guidance about those tasks, if and where needed. My friend also felt very scared to ask questions, because people seemed so busy, and, on the occasions when she did ask, was responded to rudely. JSA, if American law firms (even their London operations), which are known to really drive people crazy, compare favourably to you in terms of work culture/toxicity, I think you may have some deep reflection to do.