This is gonna be a long one so bear with me. My belief is that I believe that if a person starts out at SC in litigation he would have a better career trajectory if he gets under a renowned Sr Adv (Provided that he does trial work on his own or gets that trial exposure through internship). This belief partially comes through reading about many renowned lawyers who directly started out at SC (For eg, Vikas Pahwa and Gopal Sankarnarayan). Now the whole issue revolves around this fact that if a person establishes himself in trial and hc how would he be able to shift his practise in SC and have a proper arguing counsel type practice in SC?

Start working under a lawyer who do commercial matters or IP litigation at HC. Delhi HC has ordinary original jurisdiction. Companies pay good chunk of money to initiate cases in DHC. Consequently, such lawyers have good paying capacity. Many join district courts and SC and later neither their pay increase nor they get clients (obviously a generic statement - exception is everywhere - but are you exceptional :-P). Going independent is a thought that exist sub consciously but never happen for a 'very long period of time' and that too without surety. So try HC (commercial dispute - IP litigation).

As you serve as a junior to a senior working for corporate matter or IP litigation in HC and you are in direct touch with client (which you would) then after a long period (while you are compensated nicely) you have a chance that client recognizes you for your efforts that you are putting up for them.

Then later, there is a chance that out of many clients you are in direct touch with decided to move on with you only. That's how 'boutique firms' open. Even if otherwise, your pay is somewhere around 80k-1L after 5 years. While its not as fair as other practice area, but at least its not a desk job. You argue and get the satisfaction of being a lawyer for which you actually did the law school.

Sometimes you get a very good senior. Fortunately I am working under such senior who prioritise work-life balance and also a great mentor.

The idea is that you are secured that you are getting paid decent. When I say getting paid decent, I mean 30k-40k as fresher. If you wish to find such clientele based senior, then its better to track them through HC cause list. (I gave 0 efforts in typing this reply, so please pardon my English and writing style).

Hope it helps :-)

Yes, going independent is a very tough curve ball. Infact, EXITING from senior's chamber is as equally important than ENTERING.

I also agree that almost every lawyer has dreams to scale the mountain from Trial Court -> HC -> SC , but it rarely happens . One big reason is that, if your own independent matters start picking up in Trial Court, then you wont really find time to network/ take on more work load and burden of other Courts especially in today's time when litigation is not preferred path of many grads and Juniors are expecting payments too (including me).

In a nutshell, directly hitting Commercial / IPR litigation in Delhi HC makes sense. Its a hack.

District two years. High Court one. You are a junior, stay like a junior and act like a junior, i.e. you do not take up any case in your private capacity. However do talk with the clients and make them aware that you will be moving to the SC. After 3 years exp, any SC lawyer would take you on broad easily. Start preparing for the AoR exam. Crack it. And you're done. Hundreds of people have done it. It's not rocket science. Most of these responses are from NLU firm walas who look down upon working in district court. Trust me when I say a 2 year experience in DC is so much better on the CV, as majority people including those who come from top colleges jump directly into SC and have no rats ass clue as to how to even file an FIR.

DC-HC-SC is the ultimate way to go... All that matters is you don't linger around in DC and HC for more than 2 years.

The other way is possible if you're still in your first year. If you're seriously interested in litigation. Like that's all you want to do. Do all your internships in the DC & HC. That would mean atleast 3-4 in DC and 2-3 in HC. And then you can directly join SC once you graduate.

The way it's done in DU and GLC is that they intern all their 3 years post classes. So by the time they graduate from 3 years. They already have the same experience of 2 years in DC and 1 year in HC. So that's why they immediately join SC. Trust me DC experience goes a long way in SC. Including in the eyes of your peers and seniors in SC