i. Not well paying, by any standards.

ii. It seems they have more interns and 'assessment interns' than permanent lawyers.

iii. The core team is the founder and her brother, the principal associate who graduated in 2019. (This is information you can find on their website and linkedin).

Should give you an idea of their standing.

Based on my experience of being associated with the firm for 3 months as an intern I would like to share my opinion. This office is great place to work for person willing to learn, grow and looking for steeper learning curve than being a cog in well oiled machinery. You will have opportunity to learn diverse things within short duration of time here. Putting two years in this firm will put you ahead of your peers both in terms of learning and compensation. To summarize -

1 1. Compensation offered by the firm commensurate experience and skill set of the candidate with promise of great learning opportunity and mentorship

2 2. Location of office is accessible with all modes of transportation with metro station nearby

3 3. Office is aptly located in a farmhouse away from traffic noise and amidst lot of greenery

4 4. Office culture is great where you get opportunity to learn from the experience of founders and also to develop sense of accountability (for which you can get scolded at times)

Sarvaank Associates is one of the best place for any law graduate to start with. Their founders have susbtantial experience in a sector where some of the major law firms of the coutry are still struggling to understand. Startups are a different lot and cannot be dealt with like a regular large client and Sarvaank understands the nuances of the ecosystem and the business better than any other law firm. Its true that they have a small team and they are just starting and hence the salary/payscale might not be comparable to other large law firms (who would have started like this only abt 20 yrs back0. One has to understand that at the beginning of the career its the learning that matters the most and Sarvaank provides the right opportunity and environment for that.

See, all of this is just justifying what the firm does, not denying it. Which is understandable considering you guys are transactional lawyers and do not often have to 'vehemently deny' averments.

So there may be justifications from the firm's side for such behaviour. A potential candidate intending to work there still needs to be aware of the conditions, justifications aside.

PS: Your "principal associate" has ~3 years' experience. Come on.

Hi, whatever your concern is but I am surprised to see you are judging capabilities of a lawyer based on number of years of experience. Years of experience is just a number for a lawyer or professional, what matters is how he is taking the responsibilities towards growth of the firm. Even bar council has not prescribed any such experience and its totally business decision to whom make associate, senior associate or principal associate or partner. If someone is registered with the bar council as advocate on role, he is even eligible to start his own firm and at that time he will be managing associate. Please understand the value of an advocate. He is able to give advice, frame transactions, defend cases in any court of law etc etc. Even if you are an advocate then you can also be proud on yourself and respect the profession of an advocate. If you are not getting chance to be principal associate then don't blame others but improve yourself.

Pls take this as geniune guidance and not take otherwise

No, all of that we get. We understand that it is your business decision. We are just questioning the sensibility of it.

PS: the "If you are not getting chance to be principal associate then don't blame others but improve yourself." kind of snarkiness is also a major reason why people here are against you; and frankly, it appears to be representative of the culture you seem to promote at the firm.

"don't ask for money, it's the learning that matters"

Then why shouldn't the fresh law grads learn at places where they can be paid better?

And, you (assuming you are representing the firm, you're clearly their PR agency) don't have any response to the other points people have raised? Nepotism; lack of experience in the team (barring the founder, which too is frankly not much though); shady practices of using graduates as interns and what not.

No one has stopped you to move in a big law firm. If you have capability then you can join and if are joining middle level law firms just because you need an employment opportunity because you are not able to face interviews of big law firms then please don't do this. Because of these types of employees, many law firms started taking indemnity bonds from freshers giving commitment to work for atleast two years which is not holding good in some cases (such as marriage of a female employee) and they suffer due to these types of not committed employees. If someone is affording you his space and sharing his infrastructure and knowledge to make you succeed in your career then you should also show some respect and commitment

With this I'm going to assume Sarvaank has accepted the criticisms mentioned here as true; thanks. Your justification is simply "oh if we are so bad why don't you try your luck at the better firms, losers?". Are you running a professional law firm or a sweat shop?

You get commitment when you pay. Otherwise we know the 'hire-and-fire assessment interns' strategy firms have lol.

Indemnity bonds??

I very seriously doubt your chops as a lawyer if you think Indemnity Bonds can work on a lawyer.

Hell, simple google will tell you that they are practically unenforceable.

Ruk jaiye, aisi baatein kisi ko shobha nahi deti, log mazaak udaate hain

What would that sector be where "some of the major law firms of the country are still struggling to understand"? Your run of the mill simple PE VC transactions are something that you can do independently with 6 months of experience. They only have one client whom they keep servicing so everything is pretty well laid out for anyone there.

Further, the said client is an AIF, they are the money, so they can bully founders around, again, making lawyers' job easier. Real challenge is to negotiate documentation from the founder side.

Hi,

Very interesting thread, with topics like freshers, small firms and large firm. Just thought of sharing my thoughts, if allowed

Freshers coming raw in the market after college, they always want to work with Big firm, but do big firm recruit straight from college, baring few top colleges i don't think they do. So for many freshers small and boutique firm is only go to firms for them. They are the one who can provide opportunity to freshers to have the first-hand real-world experience.

The question become is salary should be thought to begin with your exposure, every individual is different and react differently, i believe exposure is the key, money will automatically follow. These boutique firms are the best source of talent to be acquired by big firms, as they got opportunity to work on serious projects and also being small firms they provide direct exposure working with client

Sometime i believe that it's unfair on the firm to be judged whether they are young lawyers or experienced lawyer, the knowledge is the key, if they have right acumen why cant they start a firm. It's being saying a young guy should not start a business, so no one should believe and worked or invested in OYO, this argument of yours should not be held in right spirit, as the premise of argument is not relevant

Coming to compensation, have you ever considered the cost of education for fresher which firms need to spend, and mind me saying this after spending so much cost and time to educate fresher, they will immediately upon receiving a offer from big firm hop on to it, so do they ever be thankful to their first employer for nurturing them and given them the right exposure which help them to professionally grow and become relevant for large firms, again debatable. The team / firm / person who believes in fresh talent and nurture them should be appreciated, it's not an easy job

Office location, people travel from Delhi to Gurgaon to Noida have you seen them 2 hours of travel a daily, and still they don't complaint, amazed to see this is a topic of discussion, early firms who try to establish themself cost of operation is key to manage, and in order to built team initially they have to sacrifice to spend big amount of luxury offices, Naukri.com started from the garrage of the foudner. Do you think all big firms offices where they are today was their first place of operation. Do the study well my friend, if you cry for these things then go and try your luck with big firm.

In nutshell, if you had the opportunity to join a big firm you should not have been landed in small firm, so didn't had other opportunity so you landed up in small firm, they believed in you and taken a punt but still you have the audacity to criticize on this pity things

On culture of the firm will request the people working on the firm to comment, will not be a right person to comment upon

Seems like you are putting the firm as a saviour for young graduates,who have nowhere else to go . There are a lot of PPL who don't get into good firms due to a reasons beyond their control , so it's utter bs to say "you would've jumped into a bigger firm had u been better". Grow up kid , it's the real world , clg tag and connections matters .

Secondly , the it's a firm ,not a bloody recruitment company to train you .They are here to make profit and u are helping them ,so noone is doing anyone any favours ok .Paying the employees well is a requisite and no argument against this is valid .

Precisely. I think these responses can be fairly used for a just estimation of the culture prevailing at the firm, "go elsewhere if you are so good, i am doing a favour by having you". lol no.

Note ▮▮▮: Stop engaging on this thread, you are only making it worse for yourself. Also, if you think the lawyers you hire are terrible, you get good talent when you pay them well, so start with that (at least above minimum wage rate in Delhi, albeit for symbolic purposes).

I guess all discussion are leading to compensation. Compensation is what being disclosed pre hand of any one joining, you get an offer and as a mature person ( which you believe you are) take a call, can you explain or prove if the offer made was more and you paid less, than how this matter, when you accepted offer you know what will you get, when you accepted small firm you know what you get, a decision made by you, no once forced you, if you taken a decision than stood by it, blaming other for your decision will look bad on you

I can only have my sympathy’s with you and your future employer, hoping he pays you in multi figure even if you have the desired talent or not

I think everyone is different they can take call whether they want to work in small firm or big firm, they when meet the team and when offer made they are mature enough to understand is that offer good for them

Definition of good offer is subjective, I only believe in one thing if you work hard and work with honesty the firm and you grow. Rest will leave it to people to judge as it is going to never ending debate, as the person in question seems to blame for his/her shortcomings on other

Sarvaank is a good last option for any fresh law graduate. If you are interested in transactions want an entry in this field, you can join this firm. However, please start looking for other firms within 1 or 2 months of joining this firm as the environment starts becoming toxic gradually as the days pass by. Even if you are loaded with work 24 x 7 and working on Sundays, the firm will not be satisfied and delegate more work to you. In short, if you can sacrifice your mental health for a few months and want to join a firm which makes you work 24 x 7 and still complains that you are not working enough you can do it. Also you will have to learn everything by your own , as the PA of the firm does not have requisite knowledge of laws except transactions. You can try by asking the PA questions on law outside the sphere of transactions, it can be anything related to corporate laws as it is naturally not possible for a transactions lawyer to have information about all the laws.

Most of what has been said here is true.

There's toxicity in the firm. People getting yelled at, regularly.

Hiring and firing law graduates as "assessment interns" for below-minimum-wage pay appears to be the norm.

Growth potential doesn't seem too much either, it seems like even the 'seniors' of the firm are just trying to figure things out by trial and error.

Now that I've seen the responses on the thread, the consensus seems to be that you should only join this place if you have no other opportunities.