Without doxxing myself by disclosing specifics, I am a junior academic in the Global North seeking to move to India. Can anyone give me a good idea of which institutions to start talking to? I am looking at JGLS and BML Munjal University. I need a good salary (much more than UGC scale that NLS provides) and a low teaching load for this move to be fruitful. How do I approach this? I would love to know from current academics for suggestions on how to initiate conversations, negotiability of terms, the hiring process and the like.

Dont do it. The corruption at these places is quite out of control. at least for junior academics (assistant professors) there is somewhat pay parity between NLS and Jindal after Sudhir. Teaching load might vary depending on whether there are other faculty to teach your courses. Jindal asks you to teach one core course to two sections per semester or one core courses to one section and one elective each semester. If you make associate professor that might change , but very little. NLS will as you to teach one course per term. You will get the opportunity to teach an elective every other term or at least once a year.

Initiating conversations- just cold email HR at Jgls/ pritam at bml, sudhir at nls.

There’s low level and high level both. At private universities you are required to put company before everything else. So you will be asked to change grades, pass students , look the other way when assaults and violence happen. There is a lot of bribery and financial scams going on as well. You might have to look away or worse - you might be forced to be a part of it. It will erode your soul after a while and you won’t feel joy going into work.

At government universities your experience will often turn based on who the VC is. Some VCs will themselves engage in financial scams, other VCs will not do that but they will have a preference for their little coterie and you might have to ingratiate yourself with them. There is nearly always tribalism and some sense of “loyalty” toward godfathers instead of yknow - professionalism. The current NLS VC is largely honest though- and as long as people are producing research and doing their work , the admin will leave you alone. But if you’re gonna give up a life to move to this institution - you have to think about what happens with the next VC and the one after that. This might be a flash in the pan after all.

If you’re satisfied with the work you’re doing there and see a way to advance -for purely reasons of personal growth and contentment- you should stay. Young folks on here will tell you to come back and change the system - but you’re really unlikely to make a dent and more likely to get moulded into a different kind of person.

Interesting. I did not know grades had to be changed for reasons other than what is written in the assignment. Are you sure about this or are you speculating here?

In any case, as you say, the current NLS VC may be good, but I am looking at institutions rather than VCs. Plus, NLS does not pay well enough. Not really looking at NLUs, therefore. What about JGLS?

Not speculating. Was asked to do it at the private institution you seem keen on. Have not really been asked to do that in public institution. NLS pays well enough at the assistant professor level. I would not assume, I would ask colleagues who are in the positions I would apply to.

Take a look at JGLS attrition rate. they lose hundreds of faculty employees every year. I heard from someone in admin that 200 people quit last year. I worked there too- fairly corrupt in my view. Especially since I came from public universities and went to an elite american university after. quite a shock.

I am a prof at Jindal and here is my advice:

1. Jindal is much better than Munjal and also has the most foreign profs. You will like it better there and you will meet like-minded people. Also, if you are white (as opposed to Indian-American) you get preferential treatment in terms of salary. If you are white AND have a degree from Oxbridge or Harvard, you will get red carpet treatment.

2. Jindal offers a lot of academic freedom (certainly in comparison with government universities). However, there is fatigue setting in, both among students and management, with the large number of left-wing human rights profs recruited and the repetitive, ideologically driven nature of their electives. Adding to this the Modi government has been pressurising Jindal to focus more on STEM and business, after various comments by professors were leaked on social media. Thus, you would do better to teach hard law courses instead of woke courses on human rights, intersectional justice, critical race theory, caste, decolonisation, Kashmir, Palestine, Foucault, Marx etc.

Hi, I find myself in a similar boat. I did my undergrad at a T1 NLU, and then an LLM at at a top UK/US law school (not disclosing further). I went in wanting to be an academic. But the path to a career seems much harder that I'd envisioned in undergrad. Global universities have way more applicants for teaching positions than they have vacancies. And I hear horror stories about Indian law schools' recruitment processes. Any guidance would be a treat help.

Question is, where do you want to be an academic? If you want to make it into the US market, it absolutely NECESSARY that you get an SJD from a T14 school and make connections. Clerkships also help, but only if they are at the state supreme court, SCOTUS or circuit courts.

For clerkship, see here: https://community.lawschool.cornell.edu/careers/judicial-clerkships/clerkship-advice/why-should-i-clerk-and-where-can-i-clerk/

For fellowships post-SJD or at the end stage of your SJD, see here: https://www.law.columbia.edu/careers/academic-careers/careers-law-teaching/fellowships-and-vaps

SJDS are unlikely to help you land a career in American academia, to be honest. They're perceived as lesser degrees given to international students. They are also many of them unfunded or partially funded. There are exceptions to this- if you get any doctoral degree from harvard, yale, stanford, maybe columbia- things might change. but T14 is expanding the net too far. most new faculty in law schools have JDs and PhDs from the top 3-4 universities.

under federal law non citizens cannot be clerks. Most state courts will also not entertain an application from a non-citizen.

Interesting. Citizenship was not on my mind when answering.

I never said that an SJD will land a job, but for a person without a JD, it is absolutely necessary to have one. Necessary, but not sufficient. I would say T14 is still the norm unless you want to teach at places that are incredibly parochial like Harvard and Yale who only take Harvard and Yale graduates. Except for UVA, I have not seen different T14 schools being perceived differently at all within US academia. Exceptions apply, of course, so better have a Harvard degree than one from Cornell, but that by itself cannot offset a weak CV otherwise.

youre better off trying to get a PhD than an SJD if the goal is to enter academia anywhere there. an SJD is an unfamiliar degree given to foreigners and in the job market this can be seen as a handicap. we can just look up who is teaching law at most respectable lets say top 25 universities in america- theyre usually all from the same schools.