We want LI to be one of the friendliest places on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too. In other words:
1. Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
2. Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
3. Assume the best intention of others.
Therefore, in using the site, you must agree to do your best to uphold these community guidelines.
Note that what you find here is written and moderated by anonymous people on the internet.
Therefore everything you read here is very likely unverified, rumour, speculation and/or downright false.
In continuing to read anything here, you must therefore agree not to take anything you read here as factual and that you will exercise due caution, diligence and common sense before acting on any information you may come across here.
You also agree to report any inaccurate or malicious comments with the buttons. Moderators take action within 24 hours, as required and appropriate under law.
Our full terms and conditions apply too.
Do you solemnly agree to all of the above?
Also, one piece of advice: the people you will learn from at internships are associates and perhaps senior associates, not partners. So look out for firms with well-qualified, associates and senior associates: NLU grads, grads from decent universities who have done LLMs abroad etc. These people are also likely to be well-networked and with college batchmates in good firms across India, so they may also be able to recommend you to other firms across India. I factored this in while compiling the list.
Tier 1: KCO, Argus, SAM
Tier 1.5: Aquilaw (yes yes, I know the firm is controversial because of the TMC connection and looked down upon, but they get ALL the state government work and you will get to work on headline-grabbing cases — so don’t be swayed by critics!)
Tier 2: Fox Mandal (all the incarnations, LOL)
Tier 3: Sandersons Morgans, perhaps Victor Moses, maybe niche firms like Vipul Kundalia (NLSIU alum), S Majumdar (IP)
Tier 3.5: More niche firms: Maybe DP Ahuja and Davar for IP, a few tax firms
Tier 4: It gets pretty small and fragmented from here on, with most law firms having low reputations and limited CV value. Instead of interning with such firms, you might be better off interning with a solo advocate instead. If you don’t get a top-notch senior advocate, there are some good young lawyers practising. The other option is a company, like PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, ITC, Emami etc.
I do sympathise with people who lack contacts, or who are from lower-tier colleges, and can't manage the internships above. But even then, try as hard as you can, because you may be completely wasting your holidays and CV by interning in a lower-tier firm.
And do they have structured teams?
Tier 2: Argus (Arka's team), Fox Mandal (Arindam's team)
Tier 3: SAM, Aquilaw, Big 4s
Tier 4: Sandersons, S Jalan, Victor Moses