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Out of all the batches that are currently there in NLS, the 2026 BALLB batch arguably consists of the most hardworking and smart bunch of students (and this has been acknowledged by many professors). Like someone else pointed out, this batch alone has earned crazy accolades in terms of moots, ADRs, publications and what not. But still, uncertain future looms large for them curtsey the admin's hypocrisy in actively promoting a much mediocre LLB batch. Had it been a fair competition, you would have seen what does it mean to get smoked.
Get this- the Day the admin stops actively promoting you and actually creates a fair ground for competition, the BALLB will show you its mettle. And if any of you LLB guys want to respond, make a logical to the points I made here.
The people who know how to distinguish themselves, know how to handle adversities, can pivot and adjust easily according to fast changing realities will succeed no matter which batch they come from.
The grade inflation is real. Their average grade lies somewhere between 4.5-5 while it's usually around 4 for BALLB
Hopefully things settle down and everyone gets ample opportunities. btw, as rcc what do you think will happen to the future batches with the batch increase, eg my batch has 240 kids + 60 LLB too, how hard will it affect placement in the future?
1. Yes, the 3 year LLB program is pushed for by the admin, and no, there is nothing wrong with it. It's a new program, it's budding, how is it wrong for the admin to try and provide it a nudge? We can't be so competitive, they are legitimately our peers. While it can be a bit frustrating to see it this way, it's important to be mindful of this program, and see them as our peers rather than competitors who will take our jobs away. They bring a lot of diversity, and particularly, skills in the social science on the table, and we all stand to benefit from it, provided we collaborate and engage, rather than ranting about minor things that the admin may have done.
2. As far as extra-curriculars go, it is true, the 3 year LLB program has 'underperformed' till now. If you look at the intra-university moot and journal results, this becomes very evident, with barely 1-2 students from those programs making it to the top 30. 3-4 BA-LLB (Kartik Kalra, Manhar Bansal, Priyansh Dixit, Sukarm Sharma) students probably have more publications than the entire LLB (Hons.) combined. Similarly, all of the top moots are taken by BA.LLB students. However, this is not due to any superiority on the part of us B.A.LL.B students. It's simply because we are young, and more invested in this process. For a person who has already completed their degree, and lived a large chunk of their college life, these things seem infinitely less valuable - and perhaps reasonably so. In that light, it is difficult to draw comparisons, and such comparisons benefit no one.
3. There are some tensions, naturally, between the two cohorts. I do think both B.A.LLB (seeing the 3 year LLB program as outsiders) and LLB Hons. (seeing the 3 year LLB program as pubescent teenagers) are partially to blame. This can be resolved through some mutual respect, which frankly does not seem likely presently, for whatever reasons.
You have to compete with 400 people batch then also compete with 400 people LLB batch.
If you are in the position to choose today, I mean actually have a good rank, which NLU would you pick.
checks out, look at some of these comments
This comment also makes no sense. OP has said the program don't do ECs because they aren't undergraduates anymore? Which is...a perfectly expected trend? In the light of the six BALLB bot students who seem to remain logged on this website constantly lobbing insults of 'oho they can't moot', the point was that they don't care about moots in general. Nothing in this post is worse than what some of your cohort have said about these people, which has just been mindless mudslinging. Just about anything would look rosy in comparison. They have included one line about loving their peers which you have caught one to discredit what appears to be an essay-length account of their experiences? Ever thought that...it's possible they don't hate everyone they go to college with?
For more context- Fin Sec offered 3 internships out of 6 odd applicants(Batch of 45) for the LLB batch while only 2 out of idk of their 80+ batch.
Secondly, may be the OP has not gone into the aspect of "hypocrites and backstabbers", probably because they may not have had such an experience. Or even if they had, they arguably know how to handle such issues because of their maturity and experience in life. Something which is a serious life issue for 18-23 year olds may be a total non issue for 26-32 year olds. Not saying that all older people are mature and all younger people are immature, but age does play a significant role in tempering down extremities. Something which the kids who spread hate about a whole cohort of students on this platform lack (moderate temperament and empathy).
Thirdly, using of familial and financial privileges to secure some position in life is not a problem that is exclusive to one group of people (LLB-H) alone. You can find such examples everywhere (probably even in the "flagship" program of NLS). Problems like nepotism and favouritism are universal.
About expansion- I'm all in favour of expansion of seats, not just in NLS but in all premier institutes of India of all fields, not just law. We need more number and a diverse range of students graduating from such institutions. That's the need of the hour. All this talk about "oh more number of people will reduce quality/brand value.. blah blah" is such elitist gatekeeping nonsense which honestly I didn't expect from students of NLSIU as an outsider.
Lastly, I really hope I get through NLSAT, because what the OP said in the end about taking a chance on a program that you'll have to actively build, resonated with me. I'll be honoured to be a part of the formative years of the program at NLS. As for me, I'm not eyeing any corporate placements; I just want quality legal education, which I believe NLS can provide, despite its apparent shortcomings. However, the prospective students who do want corporate placements should not be dissuaded by discouraging posts on this platform. There are multiple ways through which we can reach our destination (if not directly as the above comment says).
PS: Everything is moot if I don't crack NLSAT. So Im just gonna leave this here and go study :P
PPS: I will take the above commenter's advice about studying hard and keeping an open mind. Thanks.
This is not to discourage any aspirant. Please know what you’re getting into. If your idea of the program is to secure a corporate job, please know that it won’t be as direct as this message tries to portray. If your program is to learn about law, the current academic situation at NLSIU does not offer any special education that other good NLUs won’t provide. Ofcourse, there is the aspect of legacy and alumni network. But trust me when I say that they will be of little help. Your hard work, merit, and a damn good amount of luck will determine where you end up. In any case, the college is filled with hypocrites and backstabbers. I am surprised that the OP has chosen to not go into this aspect at all. To the contrary, they have chosen to emphasise on how they love their peers. I disagree with this impassioned rhetoric. There will be a very small group which you’ll be able to trust. I have seen people who claim to be hardcore communists and foaming at the prospects of a corporate job at the same time. It is easy in this place to paint a messiah figure on people like these.
My only advice to anyone who comes to this place is to study hard and have an open mind to learning more and more. No amount of sociability will insulate you from the horrible people in this college. This might be a garden but it is a garden of thorns with roses sparsely scattered. All the best.
I was totally shocked at the vitriol that these kids were spewing against the students of their own college. But they’re kids. One must forgive them for things they’ll themselves cringe about, a few years later.
If there's one takeaway, this would really be it.
For those of you who are curious about specifics, here is how I've divided up the analysis: academics, ECs, internships and career prospects, general observations and what I think of my decision.
1. Academics - On par with the BALLB program. We are taught by the same faculty, take the exact same courses (sans the BA courses and ofc, we take fewer electives) and are assessed along similar parameters (project/moot/mid-term, exam, viva, class participation). From the perspective of a student, things are both easier and harder. I did my BA from an institution regularly ranked as being among the best in the country, for reference, and so writing projects, making sense of articles and cases etc is fine, with some effort. This is ofc less so the case with my peers with engineering degrees since the way you think and study and even approach a question can be drastically different, but they also have picked up on how to go about things by now. A challenge for me is emphasis on minutiae. Someone once described law to me as being about the 'worm's eye-view' and most social science subjects as being more about the 'bird's eye-view' with some exceptions. Analyses on the basis of individual words, placement of commas etc is quite new to most people who've never studied the law and it's easy to lose track of these things but it's an acquirable skill. I regularly learn a lot from my cohort. We often have people with work ex in a topic being discussed be able to contribute that perspective which I prefer infinitely to multiple people attempting to outwit the other by restating the same point in more magniloquent (read: pretentious) language. We frankly are not as competitive just because we've all got entirely different ideas about our lives after law school. I couldn't care less about people who've done better or worse than me because none of them are going to do exactly what I plan to, which is actually fun! It makes the future look less like endless jostling to get jobs that are awarded often arbitrarily based on singular ideas of competence and more about finding out where I specifically can add value. I'm sure there are some who'll interpret not seething with resentment at the success of your peers as being a sign that you're a loser, but I'll take it over endless misery.
ECs: Much has been said about performance in moots, ADR and debates etc. At the outset, the vast majority of our cohorts do not participate in these at all. The LLB to us is akin to graduate school, where you've had the entirety of your undergrad to do impressive, non-curricular stuff but you're more academically inclined in general afterwards or y'know have a whole spouse or family to whom you have responsibilities etc. Why would I choose to play pretend, wear my brother's blazer or something and take up a fictional case and get, if lucky, an award out of it when I can find an advocate doing great work and help them with their cases? I'm not downplaying that you hone your research and public speaking skills etc but these aren't the only way to go about doing that and most of us have gone through the motions of these already in one way or another. Proportionate to the actual numbers of people who participate in moots, plus the fact that for those who do wish to, you don't get quite the same sort of guidance/mentorship qualitatively, I'd say we're doing pretty good? If only a handful people participate, an even smaller fraction getting a good rank is just math lol. On the 'begging for a simpler problem bc they're so dumb haha' narrative, let's please not obscure the misdirected initial allegation that the problem was plagiarised when it was not and then the abhorrent way in which the future legal pioneers of the country talked about the possible origins of the problem from a college in Jalgaon. The LLB response was primarily addressing how fkin full of yourselves some of you are to think by virtue of making it through an entrance exam, you get to demean people who did not. This is also reflected in the absurd entitlement of one of the other comments. 'How dare you get in shamelessly via an easy exam written by fewer people' has the same boomer energy as that one uncle that claims 'kids these days have it way easier. #bringbackcorporalpunishment' It's curious to also note that some folks who got great ranks earlier didn't do as well this time around despite the evidently child's play of a problem. Almost as if degrees of complexity can exist or something, but what would I know. So to conclude, for those who want to participate in these, which isn't most of us, we do just fine. It's up to you as to how much time you want to invest in this.
Internships and Placements: What everyone's dying to know :o how have they gotten internships?! maybe it's the admin pushing their program, maybe they do voodoo at the crack of dawn, maybe it's maybelline. The tune was once 'firms don't know they exist' to 'no good firms know they exist' to 'admin push'. I hope quid pro quo favours won't be alleged next but who knows. The admin, you'll be unsurprised to know, are utterly useless. We didn't get our internship policy as in wtf we even have to do for each break until very recently. A ton of places have thus said it's way too late. We had to push for our curriculum to be reorganised so we weren't doing public international law before corporate law when we have only 3 years. The SWO cannot in good faith be said to help anyone really. What they have done is route some applications/talks by firms through the University and not individual RCCs, thereby making all programs eligible to participate. If a firm is visiting campus, they'll ask for an LLB volunteer to also be there and pitch the program. If there's an opportunity they hear about first through the general NLS email ID, it's open to everyone etc. This is part of a general centralisation measure that's a common trend across the University. Aside from this, there is no special admin assistance whatsoever. As to how the internships were facilitated? The current second year RCC are ridiculously persistent. They will email and call over weeks and months until they get a concrete response. They're always present if anyone associated with an organisation is on campus.They don't think any place is too 'low' for an NLS student to intern. They don't ride on the institution's coattails and actively sit and explain to potential employers how their program works and what they can contribute. They mention coursework undertaken prior to NLS. Organizations people have worked at. Awards people have won. The 'mediocre' students who have gotten T1 internships as someone described was not because of admin assistance but because these people, aside from being in the top of their batch at NLS, have interned at investment banks, taken serious coursework in subjects like AI and/or have stellar academic records from their undergraduate institutions. None of which someone would know unless they see their CVs, which most of these organisations actually have and most of you have not. In general, a significant chunk of the cohort aspires to judgeship and litigation and academia. It's very few who want corp jobs. If you want one, and have a good academic record, you should be set. I suspect RCCs will diminish in value as everything slowly becomes centralised so hopefully there'll come a day where your future prospects are not dependent on the free labour of a likely self-interested peer. Some negatives though: you have fewer breaks, you take fewer electives so really need to think and choose what you're interested in fairly quickly, if someone has not heard of the program, you need to advocate for yourself actively and follow-up, offer to be interviewed, offer to submit references, writing samples. Saying 'I'm from NLS' is slowly dwindling in importance in general but you especially can't sit tight having just gotten admission. That's where the struggle really begins. You need a good rank and CGPA or need to know someone who knows someone, in which case your mediocrity will be welcomed with open arms.
Final Thoughts: I've seen some interesting (in the same way a Cosmopolitan article on who is having an affair with whom is interesting, to be clear) discourse on deservingness here. We don't live in anything close to a meritocracy and institutional identities are seen as a shorthand for quality. So the current anxiety is as to whether the LLB Program will dilute this somehow. Both in terms of the number of people claiming to now be from NLS increasing as well as who they are. Older, non-uniform, unfamiliar, unknown. There seem to be opinions that suggest that a BALLB student is more deserving of opportunities than one from the LLB program which is why the anger around ‘taking’ what is ‘yours’. Here’s the earth-shattering truth: nothing is just yours. Not the campus, or the faculty, or the ‘tag’ or the jobs. Some would even say not even any of your accomplishments are just yours. You have two options then: spend the years you’ve got on campus whining on a forum visited by others who are also similarly dissatisfied about other kids getting your favourite colour crayons. Or distinguish yourself, your dreams, be singular enough that even in a batch size of a thousand, no one could miss you. The fact that you’re from NLS being the most interesting thing about you or the most noteworthy should be a reason to seriously introspect.
To (finally) conclude if you’ve even read until here, I don’t regret my choice. I love the law as a field, love my classes, the company of my peers. I am fairly certain I will get a decent job, though whether it’s the exact one I’d want idk yet. I think, despite all this, it's important to remember that this is an unverified though sincere anecdote from one person and that the future of the program is dependent on what people who are currently in it do. So idk whether this will be a legacy-setting institution to come or something that will fade to the background over the years/be shut down entirely. It’s almost like the very first batch of the BALLB Program, who were also up against stalwart 3 Year programs in other colleges. You’re taking a chance on a program that you will also actively have to build. Aside from everything NLS is already known for, if that is something that sounds remotely interesting to you, you should consider writing the NLSAT. Good luck!