Looking at profiles of Supreme Court law clerks on LinkedIn, seems like most of them are from Modern School/DPS RK Puram/Doon-Welham and such other elite schools and non-NLUs thereafter. Not saying that only NLU students should be afforded these opportunities (though I am from a tier-1 NLU myself), but does this mean network matters hugely in getting a clerkship?

Thousands of cases of nepotism will come out if you dig deep. I will give two examples I know of:

1. Top NLU: Student from a political family who entered under a backward caste quota, even though he is a forward caste. Flunked a year and had multiple backs. Ended up working with one of the top lawyers in the country and then joined a top organisation.

2. Another top NLU: Student from a powerful family with political links. Average in studies and had disciplinary issues because of ragging and bullying. Went on to work in very coveted places in India and abroad.

In the real world, how you perform in a competitive exam with (arguably) no intellect required has no bearing. Work on your people/networking skills and stop thinking the NLU-tag means anything. Not being rude but honestly the number of interns who come from these so-called T1 NLUs who are absolutely abysmal with the work they turn in is alarming.

Leave these kinds of T1 kids alone yr....don't know what they are from next time they will also start applying for staff/peon/guard jobs at Supreme Court & will feel proud that they have job at Supreme Court 🤣 same like those guyz who works in petrol pump/restaurants as sweeper/peon in foreign nations & showoff here that ki wo videsh mai naukri krte hai. They are snatching the jobs of Group B/C/D deserving candidates. Don't know y BCI draft or issue notices on type of jobs law degree holder should apply

Large generalization and not entirely correct. Many law clerks here are not from extremely connected backgrounds but have been selected because they have been oriented to judicial/litigation-based internships and/or have work experience in that field. Tier-1 NLU kids generally aim at corporate firms and direct LLMs/UPSC right after law school and only a handful venture into clerkships immediately. And most folks are from DU's 3-year LLB, random private colleges including JGLS and non-NLUs (many from IP University, Delhi, and its affiliated colleges) as well tier-2 and 3 NLUs. These places don't have too many options in the corporate field and so, the clerkship at the SC is arguably the best option for them in terms of both pay and experiential value, especially in the short term. Many law clerks here also plan to join the judiciary eventually. That being said, there are still few tier-1 NLU folks, but they are by and large outnumbered by the kids from other places.

privilege certainly plays a part, those from top schools have some inherent confidence and it shows in their body language and at the time of interviews they shine.

but it doesn't mean they are the only ones who get opportunity, one of my seniors, from a T2 city, a local school and (tier 2 NLU), got an internship opportunity with DYC, and he later went on to clerk for him, went to Harvard, became an assistant professor and DYC asked him to join him again once he became CJI.

So maybe there's hope for all of us.

Good for DYC, he gets hardworking clerks. But what's in it for the clerk? It's nothing but a glorified internship that people do to pad an LLM application. Please don't chase clerkships ad naseum beyond that. Careers have been ruined. Just because a clerk gets to hang out with a SC judge doesn't mean that you get accepted into that elite Delhi bar and bench fraternity, and your litigation career will take off at grest speed. The latter will need grind, it's better to dive straight into that. As for "legal academics", that market is increasingly getting saturated unless you want to head to upstart private law schools and such. But if you're from NLS/Nalsar/NLUD, you wouldn't want to end up a teacher at BML or something. Please plan your careers smartly, and realistically.