If we’re being honest, while the NLS brand made Sondhi stick out at the Kar HC bar, it was the Cottons and Bangalore Club network that really boosted his career on the client-side (at least in the first decade). If that’s not Old Boy privilege, what is?
That school has sent many students to NLS and other NLUs and DLCs. Many have become good lawyers. In addition to Aditya and Gopal, there is Karthik Mahalingam of SAM/Flipkart, Manav Nagaraj of Tatva Legal, Anind Thomas of AZB, Lahar Appiah, Sam Mani, ex GC of Infosys, THM Deepak of Luthra, Rahul Rao who is now a prof at Oxford, Vishnu Jerome of AZB/JMP etc etc.
Actually, 17.1 is being unfair, and 17 is sort of right. More recent intake into Law School has been far more democratised than before - and I'm told there's an increased inclination for Day Zero and such. Obviously, a more diverse student body may not have the same privileged backgrounds of preceding generations where the long-grind of litigation, public service and so on were easily affordable.
I don't think this has much do with NLS. A lot has to do with the individuals concerned. Aditya was about 40, the youngest in the pack when he was designated by the High Court. Gopal was 41, again the youngest in the pack when he was designated by the Supreme Court. I am sure there will be others from other NLUs who will also make a similar mark when their time comes. In fact, why NLS, because of Aditya and Gopal it could be argued that Bishop Cottons in Bangalore is the best institution (because they are both from there).
He is not a rabid ruthless capitalist like his batch mates.He is an erudite gentleman unlike his peers many of whom hold senior positions in leading bourgeois firms in Bombay, Bangalore and Delhi.
Complete misstatement, lacking any supporting empirical data and research. Over the last 10 years, increasing number of the top students from several NLUs have opted for non-law firm careers including higher studies, research, litigation, civil services, think-tanks etc. I sometimes wonder how reliable the legal advice provided by the various commentators in the real world can be, given their propensity to jump to generalisation and conclusions without doing any kind of research or data to back such conclusions up.
There's a very simple reason why other NLU alumni have failed to match up to NLSIU alumni in non-law firm careers: very few of them take such careers. They have a typical middle class mindset where they prefer a safe, salaried job. Those who opt for litigation, human rights NGOs etc are usually the lowest ranked students of the batch, whereas NLSIU it's the reverse.
Most of the Rhodes scholars from other NLUs are doing comparable work, actually. There are also several entrepreneurs, one from NUJS or NALSAR I think, who's quite a young graduate, but his work with online ADR is changing the disputes scene slowly but steadily. Even the government and the judiciary and foreign universities like Harvard have recognised those efforts. Pranjal something. Then there are celebrated IPS, IFS officers from other NLUs doing equally good work. While Vidhi might have been started by Arghya, its success is owed to graduates from all NLUs who actually work there. There are actually people from lower ranked NLUs who have been doing some amazing work for their communities, few of them being IDIA scholars. There are also published authors and poets. Quit measuring your d*** against others at every available opportunity. Had you actually had any achievement of your own in life, then you'd have known better than to belittle others with your ignorant generalisations. I don't even know why Anant's work with Daksh is worthy of celebrations right now, but maybe another NLSIU guy who has actually built a world class institute in India already is Rajkumar. As for foreign or MNC-related work, there are plenty of lawyers qualified in multiple jurisdictions from other NLUs, as well as investment bankers and consultants.
Can you name these people? Apart from the 3 who have been named here. Not trolling, just genuinely curious. It's quite nice to see good people making it to the Bench. I know both Saraf and Sondhi personally, and both are exceptional professionals.
Feel free to think like that. I don't really care. It's not my job to do your research for you. If you want to give yourself a medal, go right ahead and do that too. As someone with non-Indian degrees, I don't really have any horse in this fray like you seem to. The quality of your education is visible for everyone from your lack of logic, analysis, and plain sense actually.
Hardly a matter of jealousy. It's more to do with the way the list has been compiled. Those same people might actually have loads of professional achievements too, but the list only focuses on click bait things, like "selected to meet Mark Z." I mean, really? And introducing Bhatia as a "famous blogger"? "Dean of Daksha Fellowship"? That fellowship might turn out to be a good thing, but so far, it is less than a year old and being offered by a private university, that's all that is there to it. At least have parity and consistency in forming a list! Katju's work is apparently less important compared to her having been featured in Times. It all reveals a problematic mentality of the compiler.
@12.1: You reply is a complicated way of saying "Sorry, I cannot even name one alum of NALSAR, NLUD, NUJS etc with comparable achievements because our students are social conformists and mostly work for law firms."
Yes, there are plenty of alumni from other NLUs who do match up actually to some of these people. However, some of the names that you've mentioned are more about fame as per you than the actual success achieved in any front it seems. However, what you can claim with accuracy is that NLSIU tends to have more alumni of this quality on an average compared to any other single NLU.
Let's look at 10 random NLSIU alumni post 2005, outside the corporate law firm circuit. Does even a single graduate of any other NLU match up? I don't think so. For other NLUs, success is only measures by corporate law firm partnerships. These are just 10 random names used as examples. One can come up with at least 100 equally impressive alumni.
1. Arundhai Katju, LLM SJD Columbia: Advocate ranked among Time magazine's 50 global newsmakers. 2. V Niranjan: Rhodes scholar, BCL topper, DPhil Oxford, Barrister in London at One Essex court 3. Naiyya Saggi: Fulbright scholar and Harvard MBA entrepreneur, selected to meet Mark Zuckerberg. 4. Arghya Sengupta: Rhodes scholar, DPhil Oxford, heading Vidhi. 5. Gautam Bhatia: Rhodes scholar, famous blogger and writer. 6. Akansha Midha: MBA MIT, MPA Harvad, senior position with McKinsey in London 7. Prashant Reddy: LLM Stanford, famous blogger and writer for Spicy IP. 8. Anant Padmanabhan: SJD Pennsylvania, Dean of Daksha Fellowship. 9. Gitanjali Brandon: IFS officer with India's WTO mission in Geneva 10. Satyajit Sarna: Novelist and litigator.
He's a Punjabi in Bangalore with no lawyers in the family. Yes, he has connections with Bangalore's elite, but everyone who knows him has seen how he has worked hard and has made a real effort in his litigation career. The courts in Bangalore are full of rich kids with parents who are judges or senior lawyers. If Sondhi has managed to break through, it says something about his calibre.
What a silly observation. NLS does not have a post graduate programme in political science or non-law related Ph.D. Sondhi's MA and Ph.D are not related to the field of law.
The NLUs don't play any particular role in placement or internship anyway, be it with law firms or counsels. At least, none of the top ones does. The students usually do that by themselves. Therefore, if someone wants to opt for litigation from the NLUs, then there is no reason why they cannot, financial conditions permitting (since earning even to sustain yourself can be a challenge in the first 2-3 years at least). Litigation should not be glorified or romanticised needlessly either. For every lawyer who does well after 5 years in the field, there are 999 lawyers who fade into obscurity. Very few senior lawyers really want the competition and therefore pay not much more than minimum wages to their young juniors, while expecting them to work harder than any law firm associate. The entry barrier is quite high too, with some ridiculous and archaic regulations in place.
There is no concept of college assisted placements with counsels.
I joined a law firm after graduating from NLU Jodhpur (we didn't use the initialism "NLUJ" back then) and I can tell you most law firm PE / M&A work, especially at the junior levels, is templated mundane work - it's only challenging because it is boring, typically with short timelines (ie late nights), and the clientele is particularly abusive. I'm not denigrating transactional work (it is what it is and it pays the bills) but it shouldn't be put on any pedestal.
Update: There are actually now three NLSIU grads who are high court judges.
1996 NLSIU alum, Justice Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav, is also a judge on the Karnataka high court. According to the high court website, he "was appointed as Additional Judge of the High Court of Karnataka and took oath on 14.02.2018 and Permanent Judge on 07.01.2020".
Because NLS does not offer an MA degree. Simple. It never did and does not do so even today. His PhD degree was not in a law subject. NLS does not offer non law PhDs. Clear now?
Btw, the first batch of nujs graduated in 2005. Also, NLSIU is a good institution and AS a star lawyer. However, his becoming a HC judge has perhaps little to do with his NLSIU qualifications and more to do with his dedication, perseverance and hard work. Stop this nonsense comparison between law schools every time someone becomes a judge, partner in a law firm or a GC
Very flawed argument. The NLSIU system does not create something special, otherwise a lot more than just 2 students from a group of 2000 plus alumni would have made it to the Bench. These two people were exceptional and would have done well no matter where they studied at. Just like those who study at traditional law universities and constitute 99% of the Bench. You are also comparing people who have graduated after 2003 with those who have done so in the 1990s. The former can't be in their 'early 40s' unless they started late. Most of them would have just about touched 40.
The first NUJS batch graduated in 2004. How many NLSIU graduates post-2004 are adorning the Benches again? Even NALSAR had their first batch graduate in 2003. This is what all that NLSIU training has done to you, it made you incapable of making logical sense.
What are you talking about? Saraf and Sodhi are graduates from the 1990s, when NLSIU used to be the only option. How many NLSIU grads from the post-2000 batches have been elevated to the Bench? Because other NLUs have all graduates from post-2000 only. Are you regularly this high or is this a Friday thing? Pedagogical difference and rote learning, lol! NLSIU faculty members don't employ any special pedagogy compared to other NLUs like NALSAR, NUJS, NLUD etc. Nor do their average students possess any extraordinary legal acumen compared to their contemporaries from other NLUs.
Yes, it should assume the same position as DU and other traditional universities, since those actually have produced most of our judges. So far, these are still graduates from the time when NLSIU was the only NLU. Let another few years pass and then the actual comparison can be done between contemporary graduates from all NLUs.
Some NLUs have an emphasis on other things, like mine is basically focused entirely on corporate placements (NLUJ). It's understood that only the ones with bad grades will go into litigation and judiciary. Not saying this is right but it's just the way it is.
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I think other NLUs need to seriously introspect as to why they are not producing any judges and Senior Advocates. Granted these institutions are younger, but the oldest alumni of NALSAR, NUJS, NLUJ and NLIU are now in their early 40s. By this time people who are really good usually get elevated as Senior Advocates or judges. For example, Aditya Sondhi got elevated as a Senior Advocate in 2014, when he should have been around 37-38. He is also a first-generation lawyer.
The probable answer could be that other NLUs emphasise rote learning and gave less stress to litigation in the syllabus. Remember that Sondhi himself taught at Law School, so students had both a quality lecturer and a role model. Also, maybe the culture does not encourage students to think beyond "safe" and mechanical corporate law firm jobs, instead of pursing a challenging career in litigation.
Besides being a 1998 batch NLSIU Bangalore graduate, he also holds a 2013 PhD from the University of Mysore and a 2006 correspondence MA in Political Science from Bangalore University.
The Supreme Court Collegium has proposed the appointment of Senior Advocate Aditya Sondhi and judicial officers Rajendra Badamikar and Khazi Jayabunnisa Mohiuddin as Karnataka High Court Judges.
http://www.hcmadras.tn.nic.in/csnj.html
4 in Karnataka, 1 in Calcutta, 1 in Madras and 1 in Orissa (LLM).
1. Arundhai Katju, LLM SJD Columbia: Advocate ranked among Time magazine's 50 global newsmakers.
2. V Niranjan: Rhodes scholar, BCL topper, DPhil Oxford, Barrister in London at One Essex court
3. Naiyya Saggi: Fulbright scholar and Harvard MBA entrepreneur, selected to meet Mark Zuckerberg.
4. Arghya Sengupta: Rhodes scholar, DPhil Oxford, heading Vidhi.
5. Gautam Bhatia: Rhodes scholar, famous blogger and writer.
6. Akansha Midha: MBA MIT, MPA Harvad, senior position with McKinsey in London
7. Prashant Reddy: LLM Stanford, famous blogger and writer for Spicy IP.
8. Anant Padmanabhan: SJD Pennsylvania, Dean of Daksha Fellowship.
9. Gitanjali Brandon: IFS officer with India's WTO mission in Geneva
10. Satyajit Sarna: Novelist and litigator.
I joined a law firm after graduating from NLU Jodhpur (we didn't use the initialism "NLUJ" back then) and I can tell you most law firm PE / M&A work, especially at the junior levels, is templated mundane work - it's only challenging because it is boring, typically with short timelines (ie late nights), and the clientele is particularly abusive. I'm not denigrating transactional work (it is what it is and it pays the bills) but it shouldn't be put on any pedestal.
1996 NLSIU alum, Justice Siddappa Sunil Dutt Yadav, is also a judge on the Karnataka high court. According to the high court website, he "was appointed as Additional Judge of the High Court of Karnataka and took oath on 14.02.2018 and Permanent Judge on 07.01.2020".
It's a work-in-progress, so views, criticism, etc are more than welcome.
The probable answer could be that other NLUs emphasise rote learning and gave less stress to litigation in the syllabus. Remember that Sondhi himself taught at Law School, so students had both a quality lecturer and a role model. Also, maybe the culture does not encourage students to think beyond "safe" and mechanical corporate law firm jobs, instead of pursing a challenging career in litigation.
Happy to be corrected if anyone disagrees.
Was he always at the Karnataka bar right from the start?
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Sondhi was additional advocate general of Karnataka from 2016 to 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adityasondhi/
Besides being a 1998 batch NLSIU Bangalore graduate, he also holds a 2013 PhD from the University of Mysore and a 2006 correspondence MA in Political Science from Bangalore University.
If his appointment goes through, he would follow NLS 1996 graduate Shekhar Bobby Saraf: https://www.legallyindia.com/the-bar-and-bench/nls-96-grad-shekhar-bobby-saraf-becomes-cal-hc-permanent-judge-20190905-10827
Saraf first became a high court judge in 2017 and was made a permanent judge in 2019.