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What the traditional Bombay solicitor route used to be
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Historically, especially in Mumbai:
- You did an LL.B.
- You clerked/articleship under a solicitor firm
- You passed the Bombay solicitor examinations conducted by BILS
- Becoming a “Solicitor” carried major prestige in commercial practice
In the pre-liberalisation era, many elite commercial lawyers in Mumbai came through this path.
After the creation of the NLUs — especially National Law School of India University, NALSAR University of Law, The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, and others — the recruitment model shifted.
Today, the dominant elite corporate-law path is:
1. Top NLU
2. Campus placement
3. Associate at a top-tier firm
4. Senior associate
5. Partner track
Firms like:
- AZB & Partners
- Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas
- Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co.
- Khaitan & Co
- Trilegal
mainly recruit through internships and campus pipelines now.
So is the BILS exam “relevant”?
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### Still relevant for:
- Traditional Mumbai solicitor culture
- Certain legacy firms and practitioners
- Lawyers wanting additional commercial-law prestige
- People who enjoy structured transactional training
- Some in-house/corporate credibility contexts
### Less relevant for:
- Getting into top-tier firms initially
- Litigation careers
- Modern NLU-driven recruitment
- General practice outside Mumbai
- Partnership track in most modern firms
A top NLU graduate with strong internships generally has far more market leverage today than a non-NLU lawyer who merely cleared the solicitor exam.
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Do you agree with the reply? If it’s true, then why the fuss with this exam? Yes, it has a low pass rate, but then the top law graduates are probably not giving this exam anyway, so won’t it obviously have a low pass rate?