From your tone, maybe you communicated it to them like you were expecting them to be impressed? People don't react well to that kind of thing. Not to pick on you but I'm just pasting what you wrote below and will leave you to find the contradiction:
'if u want to impress others you are in the wrong business", i dont want to impress anyone but it hurts when people are not impressed'

If you want to be happy, maybe reflect a bit. If you don't want to, that's fine. Many people go through life obsessed with external validation.

I didn’t say it was harder than being a cancer surgeon or more worthwhile. Did you read my post ?

I don’t know if it’s easier to get into Harvard for a phd or nls. Maybe the former might have fewer applicants but it still might be more competitive and demand more from applicants to even be considered than NLS does. Acceptance rates only tell one bit of the story. They tell you how many others applied. They don’t tell you how many of the others that applied were serious applicants, they don’t tell you how good the other applicants were - nothing. If you went by acceptance rate alone, everyone working in the services should be a genius and given the small number of people who are ever even nominated for the MacArthur grant, it must be quite easy to get .

Honestly I don’t care either way. It’s the work you do during your phd that matters to me, whether it’s interesting or novel or rigorous, not necessarily the institution. But I will say - on average institutions in the west demand more rigor from the work of their phd students than institutions in India do.

Chances are if they don't know CAM or Trilegal, they'll not know Ashurst or Linklaters.

My relatives think I work in Khaitan the company that makes fans untill I explain to them what law firms are and how Khaitan the law firm is much older than the other Khaitan, the electrical company. They'll will still not care.

Don't get bothered by what others think of you. Get rid of this external locus of validation and you'll be much happier in life.

Simple: those people don't have either the smarts or the balls to even try. They are just venting their spite onto you. Leave them alone. They know they are the trash and who the true giants of Indian legal academia are. While yes there are many who stuck around in India for further study after undergrad, tell me where the majority of them come from? They won't be able to because they know that next to those professors, they are hash.

I don't know, man. There will always be someone who isn't impressed with you. You just have to deal with it. I went to Ivy for advanced degrees. My extended family is more impressed with my cousin who is a cancer surgeon—and that's completely fair. He saves lives. Some folks assume I paid for the degree and didn't earn it, I've heard folks in indian academia essentially argue that it takes no merit to get in or earn those degrees- it's apparently all privilege for reasons they wont explain. I can sit around and fume about it or I can whinge about how unfair it all is. But at the end of the day- I know what my work is about, I know how meritorious or otherwise I am. Wont do to go looking for validation elsewhere.

happened recently. i just went mum. nothing could've been worse. for people who think package batana is the answer, then im not really one of those guys tbh, i dont want to stoop so low because this screams insecurity. this profession, atleast the corporate side has 0 clout for real. disappointed! now dont come and say "if u want to impress others you are in the wrong business", i dont want to impress anyone but it hurts when people are not impressed and feel that my cousin working an entry-level job in the big4 is on a better footing. really looking for an answer as this happens more often that you can imagine! if i explain competition law etc, nobody gives a flying fuck. idk how people get high on doing 500cr deals when they have nothing to do with that kind of money. it's not your money, ur going to get a simple paycheque which isnt uncommon in urban india now. foreign firms pls come.