As an A0, I was supposed to attend hearings in a matter before the High Court and then report back to the partner, who would update the client. The matter came up once every couple of months. On one occasion (this was pre-COVID), I completely forgot to go for the hearing.

It was only in the evening, when the partner asked me for an update, that I realized what I had done. I could tell he was really upset, but he stayed completely calm. It was really eerie. He just told me that mistakes happen, but going forward, whenever a hearing date was fixed, I should send out a calendar invite. He also said I needed to take more ownership of the work. No shouting, no drama, just a clear conversation. As a stupid A0 i also told him that I would inform the client that it was my mistake. He said, the buck always stops with me. One of my saddest days.

He then called a professional colleague who was arguing the matter, who told him the case had been adjourned anyway. So, no awkward calls with the client thankfully. After that, the partner called me again and said, very calmly but firmly, that this could never happen again.

I’m still genuinely grateful for how he handled that situation. The way he stayed composed and dealt was a great learning in how to handle oneself. A great boss, and an even better human being.

I was interning in my first year of law school at a Tier 1 law firm in litigation. One day, the Partner called me into his chamber and asked,

“Are you working on anything right now?” I hesitated and said, “No sir.” So he handed me some work on the Societies Registration Act and a bit of stamp duty stuff. As I was about to leave his chamber, he stopped me and casually asked, “By the way, do you know what a society means?”

Now, I had this terrible habit back then of saying “yes” to everything just to sound smart. So I confidently said, “Yes sir.” And then I explained: “Sir, a society is like… where people live. With parks, roads, buildings…” (Basically I described Gokuldham Society from Taarak Mehta 😭). The Partner just stared at me for two seconds. This man was an Oxford grad.

Then he calmly asked - “Which year of law school are you in?”

I went - “Sir… first.”

He nodded and said,
“Dude, you better brace up.”

I replied,
“Thank you sir.” 😭

And I walked out like I hadn’t just ruined my own career in 30 seconds.

As an A0, got entrusted with a big ticket consumer dispute. We were the defendants and the plaintiff had been dragging their heels on filing replies, had changed counsels multiple times, and overall a ripe case for imposition of costs. SA told me a day before the hearing to attend it and not return without a costs order. Spent whole day going through the case, researching through the night, sent a research note on costs to SA at around 2 in the morning. During hearing, partner and SA were virtually watching from another court, argued for 20 minutes but the judge was obviously pro-consumer. Absentmindedly, i left the podium just after arguing, as the order was being dictated. Almost halfway across the courtroom, half the lawyers made me publicly realize to go back and wait for the order. The judge was in disbelief as well but luckily brushed it off. Back at the office, got welcomed with a "itni jaldi kahan hai jaane ki?"

what's wrong with Indiankanoon tho? I never share their case copy, always download it form SCC/ Court website. Apart from that IndianKanoon has almost all the court orders and it's very easy to find recent applications of judgements. I make sure to cross check the case status and facts, could you share why does it have a bad reputation for research? Not questioning you, just want to make sure I am not missing out on something that might impact the credibility of my research.

A0 mistake

We were working on an advisory for a foreign client and I had done a shit ton of research for the matter. My practice area is smaller and more niche so not a lot of research comes as easily as Gen Corp / disputes.

Turned over the research, sat with my seniors, finalised everything into one doc and got ready to send it to the partner. Started proofreading the doc on a whim right before sending and realised that I had switched the appeal status for two cases with the same party name (one of these was a writ and the other an appeal).

Completely lost my shit because I knew that it had the potential to change our legal opinion (which could take days longer) and hyperventilated for a full hour - finally summoned the courage to message my PA - who promptly got on a call with me - only for both of us to come to the conclusion that it didn’t really impact our assessment and a couple of words had to be changed. Apologised to the PA about 10 times only for them to say it was completely fine, and it caused no issues. Made the change - sent out the doc to partner and subsequently to the client - life went on.

Moral of the story is that fuckups are only as big as we make them out to be (usually).

My anxiety however, continues to pervade my daily work life, and I do check a case status thrice before I open my mouth about it now :p

When I was in my second year, I interned at a Tier 1 law firm and it was my first ever internship. I had no connections nothing, still got selected. There was no one to guide, or no one to explain that what needs to be done. I had hardly attended my college lectures. It was my second or third day at the law firm and one PA gave me a research work. I did some research and explained the PA about my research. After explaining her, she asked me one question - which legal database I had used for this research. And I told her INDIANKANOON. After hearing this she didn't reacted. And next time when I went to her asking for some more work, she was like I'll let you know. Now, at present date, i.e., after 3-4 years, whenever I remember this incident, I feel so embarassed and guilty. And in life you have to move on from things and start working on your mistakes. So, right now I am working at a Tier 2 law firm, with good pay and good work environment. And every I try to learn something and try to avoid my past mistakes, thats the only path to a successful career life. Cheer!

For sure - I got lucky, and I only realised this much much later in my career. In retrospect, there were many issues with that firm but I think it was much better than I knew back then. Since then having seen other Tier 1 firms at play, it is very clear to me that a lot of law firm partners run their practice on sheer brutality. It's kind of sad. Hope this changes as Gen Z and Gen Alpha get better at setting their boundaries.

1. During my time as an A0, I had to prepare and send my senior some 125 signature pages to be signed next morning. It was my first month in the job and I didn't knew that emails through Outlook are actually sent around 5-10 seconds after hitting the send button. I was working on this till very late; was super sleepy so just pressed the sent button and immediately put down the laptop lid (before the mail was actually sent) and went to sleep. Unfortunately, the email was not sent and remained in my outbox. Senior kept waiting for the signature pages to be sent to the client. He even called me but it did not wake me up. Eventually, the signing was delayed. My Partner was super angry and I was scolded a lot. Nevertheless, the signature pages were sent in the afternoon and were signed the same day.

2. A few months later, I issued a CP Completion certificate to investors even though one of the CP was not completed. Informed my senior about this and he panicked a lot after learning about this blunder. We soon contacted the Company Rep to issue us the completely executed document which was the missing CP. Resent the CP Completion email. No one said anything and we never discussed about this mess I created.

Corporate Lawyer A1 here:

I was working on a PE/VC transaction representing the Company. The investor counsels finally gave the greenlight and I was supposed to circulate the document for signing. It was Diwali Time and I was in celebration mood. So I didn't check the pre-execution versions thoroughly and just updated the placeholders, formatting etc. and circulated the transaction documents for signing on DocuSign. The investor counsel calls me few days later saying that clause referencing on the circulated doc is incorrect and to edit it in the final doc. I started checking the document to correct the clause referencing and meanwhile realised that there was a major fuck up - i.e. while I was formatting the document before circulating on DocuSign, I had also deleted several important clauses like liquidation preference, pre-emptive right etc. by mistake. Now the document I had circulated on DocuSign to all parties didn't have these clauses and only I knew it. I couldn't cancel the DocuSign document since majority of signatories have already signed it and also since Promoter had wanted the document executed on Dhanteras, which day had already passed by then. I was afraid that the investor/their counsels/client/ Partner will find out and was super stressed. Once the document was fully executed on DocuSign, I downloaded it and tried editing it. But since few clauses were missing in entirety, editting was difficult since DocuSign had the envelope ID on top - which meant I couldnt add a new page in between with the missing clauses. In the end I finally added pages in between and copy pasted the DocuSign envelope ID to the new pages so that it didn't look like it has been added. But still because of these clauses insertions in between the formatting ended up very fucked up - by which I dreaded my opposing counsels would figure out the manipulation I did to the document. I sent the updated executed doc to investor counsels and dreaded their call regarding the docs. Finally days passed and investor counsel didn't notice and nobody noticed and finally I felt relieved 😅..

While this is certainly the intern's POV, what nobody will tell you is that the intern didn't bother checking the work even once: when he wanted to impress someone to get a job, no less!

Also, forthrightly (we've all done it) blaming IT is the easiest thing to do when you've screwed up; the thing about making a change but it not showing up is probably because the change needed to be made in multiple places not just one.

I have been doing this for dog's years so I had to think back (not becuase I haven't badly fucked up since but because I have gotten very good at solving any bad fuck up since).

We had to send out some documents on a deal, and there were very similarly named founders in competing companies. In one, we were representing the founders on the deal - one of whom was named Karan M (name changed obviously lol). In another deal, we were representing an investor (ABC VC) who investing in a company run by a founder named Karan A.

Accidentally sent a mail with one of the transaction documents - not super confidential - but still having some data that I was supposed to send to our client Karan M, to lawyers on the other side, as well as the other counter-party founder - Karan A.

Karan A then contacted: (a) our client, ABC VC, and told them that I fucked up, (b) our client, Karan M, and told him that I've leaked confidential information of Karan M's company to Karan A, and (c) Wrote a mail marking ABC VC and my partner calling me out for being careless and saying that he doesn't want to work with ABC VC because he's not sure if the confidential information being shared by him (Karan A) with ABC VC would be safe in our law firm's hands.

Thought my life had ended in that moment honestly.

But I was quite lucky to have two good things happen to me then: (a) My partner was a gem of a person - atleast on things like this (an absolutely asshole to work with, but stood by his juniors on everything, and (b) Our client ABC VC was an amazing client who I had, personally done several deals with.

Both got onto a call with Karan A and absolutely tore him a new one for escalating a minor issue. Told him that it was a genuine mistake that can happen to anybody - and that he was the one who escalated and spread more confidential information.

I still got a talking to, but nothing that was the end of the world.

I now double check my "to" and "cc" fields multiple times before sending out.

During my initial years of law college, I was interning in a chamber back in my hometown. It was a busy day for my senior with multiple matters in multiple courts and quasi judicial bodies. There was an execution petition matter where we were representing the judgment debtor and as my senior could not be present at the time, he asked me to get a passover through another advocate.

I agreed to do so, but then I felt very awkward about going and asking another lawyer to seek a passover. I made a couple of half hearted attempts which did not translate and ultimately, the matter was called out, and there was no representation made, which led to a warrant being issued against the client.

He was obviously miffed but did not scold me. I have no idea how i got off easy on that.

AO Mistake

In my first year, I was asked to follow up on a matter on daily basis to track its listing for hearing in a particular court. Saw the listing and still sent an email saying not listed (copy pasted from last email - what a rookie mistake) :P

Seniors got to know early morning - I guess through the Client, and I got yelled at badly and got fired :(

Ten years down the line, learnt a lot from all such mistakes - now a Partner at T1. So fuck yeaahhh :)

I was interning at a T1 firm. The partner of directly gave some work to me, he is a very prominent & successful partner of that firm,(he is head of that particular practice area in that firm) moreover he also has a good reputation in T1 NLUS and various other areas. He was evaluating me and showing interest in me(maybe) by discussing my CV as he is expanding his team. Now regarding that work I did some really stupid mistakes and later, due to some technical glitch of IT staff of theirs( I took assistance from IT staff when i was facing a problem) the same work got sent twice to him. When I entered into his cabin(note- its a big think to enter into his cabin and directly talk to him - you need to take appointment from his manager 1first) - he got extremely angry ( until then I had not realized that the file got sent twice to him) - he kept arguing with me and I was so shocked and taken by surprise that I first tried to defend myself but he was not ready to listen( justified as he is not required to know the problem which I encountered and ideally should receive proper work) - then he opened my file and OMG I HAD DONE SO MANY STUPID AND SILLY MISTAKES WHICH I COULD NOT EVEN FATHOM, THAT HOW CAN A PERSON DO THAT - THE MISTAKES WERE SO STUPID SUCH AS FOR EXAMPLE I WROTE 'THERE' INSTEAD OF THIER' - AND I DID SIMILAR MISTAKES EVERYWHERE - HE KEPT HIS CALM BUT STILL GOT ANNOYED 2-3 TIMES IN BETWEEN THE DISCUSSION - He said some words to me during that discussion which I will not share but they still often revolve around my head. Then again we discussed the same work after editing and he seemed happy and gave me a very specific change to be made to the document. I WENT TO MY PLACE AND REMEMBER CHANGING THAT THING and shared it with him. He called me the moment I shared it after skimming through it AND I REALISED THAT THING HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED - IT WAS A SINGLE LINE ! - I did not know what to tell him in that encounter and I do not even wanna remember that convo. After internship got over I got my full body checkup to see if there is some deficiency which made me do that stuff (like remember changing and actually not changing). (Later I got to realize that he usually gets very angry at work and says a lot of similar stuff to interns, moreover his own associates keep leaving the firm because of his behaviour.)

Filed a petition, forgot to add the annexures. The judge points out to my senior that besides the impugned order nothing is on record so he can't pass any orders. Application was withdrawn (obviously), client ran away to some other office.

I apologised to the boss, he didn't say much - he's good natured and I hadn't really fucked up often so probably allowed a pass.

--

At the very start of the career, didn't know district courts (in Delhi at least) had a separate list for bail matters, based on the bail-roster of the district. Told the boss that our matter is third, not taking into account the separate list of 15+ bail matters. He reached the court at 10, only for our matter to be taken up around 12. He had to miss at least two other hearings in other district courts because of this mess up. He was fuming the entire time, but didn't say much to me directly.

I was interning with a Supreme Court advocate. Quite a prominent one.

I was asked by one of his senior associates to carry a file back from his court chambers to another office.

I was carrying the file with me and on the way I got distracted by a game of stakes being played on the streets. I played that game and then went to the office only to find some important document missing.

I started dreading if the game of stakes was not a setup to steal the file from me while I was playing it on the street? The game was being played in quite a close distance to the destination office.

I never knew, nor I could find out. It's a mystery and a stupidity that I have to live with without any closure :|

I was briefing a Senior Counsel, and he had asked me to watch the display board since he was on his feet and arguing in another court, virtually. The Court in which we had our matter, skipped from item 25 to item 65, and I had absolutely no clue, only found out upon refreshing and item 66 was being called already. Needless to say, biggest mistake ever.