Hi, I'm a part of the incoming BO'30 at NLU Jodhpur. While I'm relatively happy with the general trajectory of the college (from what I can perceive), I often find myself questioning the suitability of the college to my career of choice. I am personally rather interested in international human rights law, and wish to get into the field of academia (which would mean eventually pursuing an LLM, a PhD and so on). I am rather sure of my interests and while people do say that one should take time and explore interests in law school, I believe I am reasonably certain of the path I wish to take. From what I've heard, NLUJ is rather corporate oriented, and there is a general lack of focus on strictly academic pursuits. The faculty seems to be mediocre, and at times downright bad, and a lot of these factors combined make me believe NLUJ as a college might not be the best fit for my chosen career. Jodhpur being a somewhat remote location would also probably lessen the number of guest lectures/seminars and other such events that would help in my academic pursuits. There are a lot more points I would like to highlight, but I feel like it would be much too tangential.

My question, overall, is whether I should move forward with NLU Jodhpur and accept it as my college for the next 5 years, or should I think about moving, perhaps to NUJS or any other tier 1 NLU? Or should I take a partial drop from this college? Advice would be much appreciated.

As someone who is pursuing a PhD in CILS from JNU, I'll suggest some pointers that may assist you. I wish I knew these before or someone had helped me.

1. Any Tier-1 NLU is great. Don't get caught up in this rat race. The tier system is majorly for corporate placements which you do not want. So don't focus much on them. However focus on your CV, and you'll see plenty of examples of tier 2 and even tier 3 students doing well, since they leveraged the NLU tag more. Use your NLU tag.

2. If you are genuinely interested in IHRL, my suggestion is everything in the next 5 years should be geared towards it, right from your internships to your publications. Focus on working with Indian HR related advocates, NGOs, commissions etc. Later on try to leverage this into International HR related organisations in India like UN and ICRC etc.

3. Focus on academics. Have perfect grades, do moots, do muns, do debates, do adrs. Be at the top. And please keep a clean record. Also focus on IL related opportunities.

4. Now comes the part i wish i knew...it's tough but you got this...please...please...please..do your higher education abroad. If you've done the above-mentioned, it won't be difficult to get into an LLM abroad. If I was given a chance I would aim for Netherlands, especially Leiden University since they're the best especially with international law subjects, also easy to get into compared to the US or UK. From today onwards track and tag out everything; the fees, the scholarships, the selection process, the opportunities etc.

5. Once you do your LLM from abroad, getting a PhD becomes easier if you can bag an opportunity to work abroad as well. I know it's tough. But the connections that you establish there will help you.

6. The only IL related university that has a somewhat global recognition in IL and related field is JNU or Jindal. Jindal is more show and pomp. JNU is tough to get into, and is mostly geared towards PhD. If you want to work in India, then definitely join JNU for PhD. But please do a masters abroad.

7. Anything international in India is unfortunately not at par with the global standards. Not one NLU has a decent IL faculty, not one NLU provides decent connections that a LLM abroad can give you. Even JNU is spoken because of it's overall reputation, and even that's limited to the PhD programs.

If you need any more details, I'll reply, ask away

thank you! your response was really helpful, though i was already fairly well aware of all that you mentioned here. i do not plan on pursuing anything but my undergrad degree from india, and the end goal has always been to pursue academia abroad. what nature of internships should i aim for in my first year which would set my cv apart from the rest? i really don't want to go down the generic path of a district/high court internship, followed by an internship at some filler organizations and NGOs. would it be feasible for me to apply for RAships in my first year? I was also hoping to intern at CJLS in my first sem. would you have any other internship recommendations that would be pertinent to my area of interest?

No to all of the above (Not the fellow who wrote the original comment).

Chill in first year. Get a sense of academics in general. Rest. You won't have much downtime soon.

And please don't think you need to work 24/7 all year round to get where you need to. Yes, it is important to work hard and the more the (usually) better. But from a workaholic himself, please consider using whatever time you do have to rest, to do just that – rest.

You can do whatever you feel is right, it could be DC, HC, SC, NGO, RAships, even ask JNU profs for internship opportunities, you may get it. The point is not where you did you internships, it's what you did in them. As I mentioned, gear your internships according to HR/IL. So even if you work with say a DC or HC advocate for one internship, make sure their work is related to human rights. It doesn't make sense to do an internship under an legendary advocate who does work in say, property or tax. Similarly select organisations that work in human rights, they may be the best org in corporate law, but that's not useful to you. When you apply abroad, they do understand that international human rights related work is less, however atleast show them you've worked in domestic HR.

Similarly, Human rights is a vast area, within IHRL select atleast 2-3 areas you feel you would want to work in. So let's say you want to work in something related to women rights, so domestically you could intern with NHRC and work on say prison rights of women prisoners. It's not an international issue, but it's an issue nonetheless, and it shows that you're willing to work for these issues. Similarly, could be for migrants, LGBTQIA, etc. You have to demonstrate that you worked domestically before you move internationally.

Also, You're blessed to know what you want to do early on. Capitalise on it ! Gear everything towards it. Narrow down your areas in IHRL. Look at universities abroad and see what faculty and research scholars are working on. For example within Refugees, climate refugees are the hot topic. But you can't work on all of them, so narrow it to south Asia for now and so on.

Also, search for Tier 1 NLU students who have done their masters abroad. Many of them are now research scholars, and faculty in foreign universities. Find them, contact them, build a rapport with them. They too were newbies in the field. Track their journey.

I would definitely pick NLUJ over NUJS anyday given how the latter has been faring in the past 5 years. Opportunities wise, all top 5 NLUs are very similar - faculty is great only at NLS now so that isn't a metric to go by. NLUD and NLS definitely have the city advantage that others like Kolkata, Jodhpur and Gandhinagar do not.

In less than a month, you realised that people who would teach you over the next few years are all mediocre or bad, despite having almost no legal knowledge yourself? Much wow. What amazing treatise have you read about international human rights law that makes you an expert? Don't go elsewhere with that attitude either, you're unlikely to find anywhere great enough for your esteemed academic luminescence.

Nah dude, you're judging ts way too early. We have plenty of alumni who have pursued International Human Rights Law, dozens of them opting to do international human rights focused LLM programs (like for example, from SOAS) later on. Plenty of people currently within the college too, are interested in the field. It is ultimately your decision to stick to the college if you wish. But I can bet you've not even met a quarter of people here. Increase your sample size.

Name a few, NLUs haven't produced one decent authority on IHRL. The only ones we can refer to are international environmental law like Rajamani, TWAIL like Anand and Chimni, or international trade like Ranjan etc. IHRL, IHL or even PIL doesn't have world class academics in India.

Hey i am a 17 year old dropper. I am preparing for clat 2026. I want towork in corporate law and want a college recommendation on this like which college is suitable and affordable also i know none of them are but still amogst the top. Also please recommend things for preparation and gk,quants and logical.

thank you once again! took heed of your comment and shortlisted a few specialized areas of IHRL that im interested in. im thinking of tailoring (not really tailoring, moreso just slightly adjusting and cutting down) my fields of interest to suit one of geneva academy's LLM MAS programs five years down the line. sent a few internship apps and will definitely apply to JNU profs for internships as well. thank you, your advice helped a lot :)

Not the fellow who wrote the original comment or any comment. I disagree. If you have a clear direction, (which 90% don't) there is nothing wrong with going full throttle from 1st year onwards. This "chill" business can be done simultaneously, to avoid burnout. However, that doesn't mean you end up skipping classes, missing interaction with seniors, joining useless clubs, going to subpar internships and waiting for professors to guide you. No one is encouraging to be a workaholic and skipping fun. However, if someone knows the end goal, they should work towards it. OP take breaks, but don't "chill" because people tell you to, chill when you feel tired and drained out.