All I can reportis that Gopal Subramanium said several times in the interview that results should be out by 16 March.
If the BCI is now saying 20th March through other channels, it was either an internal miscommunication within the BCI on the timelines or there has been a delay or complications in the marking since our conversation with the BCI chairman.
I will try to follow up and find out the latest stance.
All I can reportis that Gopal Subramanium said several times in the interview that results should be out by 16 March.
If the BCI is now saying 20th March through other channels, it was either an internal miscommunication within the BCI on the timelines or there has been a delay or complications in the marking since our conversation with the BCI chairman.
I will try to follow up and find out the latest stance.
1. Vis is coming and this is a nice build-up story to it...
2. This is only a blog, not a news story.
3. This moot is not part of the MPL and there are no points for it.
4. When in MPL Live we interview a winning mooter how is it different from writing briefly about a moot that 7 good mooting colleges took place in to prepare themselves for one of the biggest moots in the world? How does that not warrant a story? Are IPL practice games not covered in the run up to a big match?
5. Nalsar and NUJS are the two top teams to beat in the MPL right now: of course what they do will get covered at this stage. And how they perform at Vis, if at all, could very well decide the winner of the MPL.
@1: We do try to cover socially relevant news from time to time but generally how much can we really add to a story if the TOI, Hindu, Eco Times, Mint, HT, DNA and dozens of other news TV channels also report the same case, fairly in-depth?
Anyway, if there are cases you really think we should write about, please let us know with a short email and we can try to put up short/long stories on them, subject to time constraints.
Thanks for your comment but just because something has two different meanings does not mean it can not be used in a headline.
Please don't quote selectively from the OED - there are dozens of alternative definitions that do not include luck and the full OED probably has 10 pages on Jackpot.
hit the jackpot to win or obtain a lot of money or success She must have hit the jackpot with the sales of her last album.
jackpot - any outstanding award prize, award - something given for victory or superiority in a contest or competition or for winning a lottery; "the prize was a free trip to Europe"
hit the jackpot 1 to win the most important prize in a competition 2 to be very successful at something She hit the jackpot with her first novel, which sold over a million copies.
Anyway, when there is a serious factual error in our reporting or something is actually and seriously offensive we will gladly correct it. When someone objects to the words or style used in a story, we will not entertain such requests as any credible publication should and would as a matter of principle.
We will now moderate any new comments complaining about the headline unless they make an interesting and valid point, otherwise this debate risks boring everyone else to death.
Please celebrate this great result from HNLU's mooters and do not distract or diminish from their achievement.
Before someone raises the point, thought I'd point out that the BarHacker team are working hard to provide a full break-down and analysis of the correct answers. It should be up later today or early tomorrow.
Subject to the BCI giving us the permission to do so, we also aim to publish the full paper for those who didn't take it out of the exam hall.
While debating headlines can become incredibly tedious, how about the following uses of "jackpot":
"Bill Gates worked superbly hard and was a childhood computer prodigy but he hit the jackpot when creating the PC-DOS operating system for IBM and retaining the copyright to it." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#IBM_partnership
Or:
"Up-and-coming film-maker George Lucas' first Star Wars film was a box office hit but he really won the jackpot when he had the foresight to retain the rights to all Star Wars spin-off licensed products and merchandise, bagging him more than $13bn in cash and counting."
Or in other words: "HNLU hit the jackpot with its performance in Hong Kong and - the first Tier 2 Moot of the season - giving it 25 points in the MPL and propelling it up the rankings from 12th (?) place to fifth with a realistic shot now to mix up the MPL 2 top field."
In any case, as a policy, we do not normally change headlines just because they might upset a few people otherwise we would be changing headlines every other day for a law firm or other (seriously).
Again, no offense is intended nor should reasonably be inferred from the title.
Thanks for all your comments - I expected a little bit of flack for this article, as usual, but not this much.
@24 - thanks for your kind wishes, always nice to hear!
@20 Thank you for your constructive feedback too. Please allow me to explain.
1. We intend to write more about HR and legal management because it is an important part of the corporate legal 'industry' in India. And I think HR can be very interesting and underrated, though admittedly not everyone's cup of tea.
2. Disclosing every time whether something was press released or not will quickly get very tedious and should not be necessary. All that should matter is that we exercise our good-faith independent judgment on whether something will be interesting or important to readers or not, which is why we reject a lot of inane or fluffy press releases. Savvy readers who care should be able to discern this. Sometimes we may not be able to please everyone in our selection but we hope that most of the time we manage ok and provide a nice mix of stories.
3. Yes, we and everyone else likes the serious deal and legal news but Legally India should also be a fun place and not all work. Therefore we sometimes publish more light-hearted stories such as this one. We will not turn into a full-on gossip website but occasionally we hope some of our articles will also inspire water cooler talk. With this article I know for a fact that it has done so.
It's all about balance and like any newspaper or website, it is the reader's choice which pages/sections to read (or whether to pick up the publication at all). And if you really think other websites provide a better and more credible mix of news and original content, by all means check them out and compare.
Thanks again for your feedback both good and bad - it is nice to see that readers care enough about LI to bother writing in - we could not wish for more.
Just to clarify, the BarHacker guys have actually been working overtime to get the answers.
First problem was: getting hold of an answer sheet because many invigilators actually wouldn't permit removal. (and no one has been too forthcoming in sending one to us, despite requests on FB and Twitter).
Second problem: putting the answer sheet in a presentable format (we currently have a huge PDF, which is unwieldy and needed cleaning up).
Third problem: Making sure all the answers are correct.
They are working on putting this in a format that people can understand without the answer sheet too - please bear with them, they are a lot of questions.
@14 & 17 - I appreciate your views but with all due respect you do not really seem to understand how PR works.
Unlike most other publications, we do not report half the things that law firms 'trumpet', as you put it.
I heard about this happening and took a call that it would be an interesting story to write about and I asked for the newspaper clipping. And clearly people are interested as the number of comments and hits on this story show. If it had been press-released or sent by a PR agency we probably would not have written about it at all.
At the end of the day this is clearly a fun and topical human interest story with some HR/management elements thrown in - if such stories do not appeal to you, please feel free not to read them.
Best wishes Kian
Ps: Was your A & Ovary mispelling intentional? If so, very good joke for Women's Day! :-)
Hi - please do tell us about other firms that also celebrated Women's Day. I thought Khaitan's initiative was interesting but we can not be aware of what goes on at every law firm, however much we try.
I have checked with Allen & Overy and they have said that all queries should go to the Nalsar email ID above, as it is Nalsar that is responsible for deadlines and admissions to the course.
Hi - I would be very very surprised if the pass mark was 60%. All the BCI materials and official intimations state that it is 40%, so if they were to change it at the last minute they would have to do so through the official channels (and arguably even then they'd be opening themselves up to liability to change it at such short notice).
So I think that the mark is still 40%, as long as you get the minimums in each category.
@18 - We can't know, but I believe the BarHacker material works in tandem with the official materials, which makes it so useful.
@19 - thanks for the apology. Sometimes it does feel as though on some days I spend a good part of the day 'defending' LI from commenters. :-)
In this case, perhaps more than in other cases because some of the charges were serious.
If people think we are selling out or dishonest in our dealings, I would much rather set the record straight and be transparent about the way we operate, since people clearly seem to care.
Or maybe I care too much about this kind of stuff?
On the neverending debate of comments, perhaps we are a bit too permissive especially when someone criticises stories. But you never know, sometimes criticism is justified so we generally err on the side of caution rather than censoring things which claim the story is 'rubbish'.
They might sometimes have a point, in this case it appears there was nothing substantial.
We will try to keep on top of the issue but I have the feeling that the law firms and ministry will move to fix it fairly quickly.
Nevertheless, you are right: we assume that a lot of associates will not have had the time to study yet, so if they would like to take advantage of some assistance we are happy to give it. And many clearly are happy with what we can give them and are willing (and easily able!) to pay for it.
A lot of effort, time and cost went into producing this course and we are barely likely to even hit break-even on this project. Calling it 'nasty' is not just extreme but irrational, although I understand the resentment that CLAT preparation and other places have inevitably drawn, although everyone seems to use them anyway.
I think that any attempt to charge lawyers money for services or admissions tests or general education will always meet with resistance. However, in almost every other country this is a legitimate way that a publication can try to cover some of its costs.
More than anything here it's a take-it-or-leave-it-thing. The post is marked as sponsored in BIG letters at the top and if you prefer not reading/commenting on it, that is fine and you can ignore it.
On your final point, yes, we do intend to be posting other sponsored posts from time to time from various organisations but we will always, always be transparent about it. And as soon as there is any commercial element or money that exchanged hands for a story, we will continue to be clear about it, and that's a personal promise.
I know that domestic media and other publications in even this space do not necessarily follow this practice but I believe intelligent readers are able to discern this fairly well. Therefore and out of principle, we strongly intend to retain our editorial independence and credibility, while also managing to be a commercially sustainable publication.
If you value Legally India and our content I hope you will allow us to do so in a reasonable manner, without compromising on our overall quality.
However, I am also always happy for you or other readers to take me to task or question me for anything we do and publish.
Interesting, but I still fail to see your point. How is the interpretation wrong?
We were alerted to this possible interpretation by a law firm associate who did not want to be named. He called me on Monday night and asked what these rules would mean in this regard.
So we called up two tax lawyers and asked them for their view on this point.
If you think the view is incorrect, I would honestly be very interested to read an alternative interpretation of the facts/law.
#5 - I am not sure what you mean - it is clearly marked as (sponsored) in the headline.
@3 and 4: Partly we are branding the product, sure, partly we are excited about it being well-received and want to share that story.
If you are not interested in sponsored posts, you do not have to read them, that is fine.
Another big point: We needed to let people know not to use the pirated earlier version indexes. There is no way for us to contact all of them, and it would be a shame for our 'branding' and for them if people went to the exam thinking these indexes are correct. What other way would there have been to get that message out?
Our T&Cs do not permit recirculation for partly that reason as we can only have responsibility to our subscribers but not to the world at large in viral emails.
Anyway, we think it is great that the course is catching on and people are liking it, that's all.
Feel free to sign up if you like, it's your choice and we are not forcing you to do anything.
Hi - sorry about that - some debit cards do work on PayPal I believe... Please give me a call on 0900 405 6651 and we can arrange an alternative payment method if you like - I will still be up for a while.
Hiya - you can actually pay by Visa and MC debit card, by cheque, demand draft or online transfer too...
Unfortunately the internet banking gateway would have taken 3 weeks to set up so it was not doable in time for the exam.
Call us if you have any questions on payment - check the BarHacker site for more details... If you really want to take the course and pay for it, we will make it possible for you!
The only issue I can see is technological since I have never hosted a live webcast before. Are there any free services that we can use that anyone has experience with? Google shows up several options for free webcasting. This could host the video and we could run a live blog in parallel, for example.
Thanks for your comment. It does slightly amuse me how much some readers suspect conspiracy wherever they look with respect to the bar exam or legal profession.
I'll state again, just for the record, that Legally India is not in a tie-up with the BCI or RM. When we have tie-ups we disclose them transparently, just as we have done in the past, now and will do in future.
We have videos of RM on the site because they were interesting and publicly available on YouTube. Would we be in cahoots with the Times of India if we cite one of their articles or link to a blog or to an analyst report?
In terms of timing, sure we could have offered a course earlier but there were still doubts about the date of the exam and we hadn't thought of doing this tie-up with iPleaders yet, although they've had most of their materials ready.
In any case, the course is perfect for a few days study and I expect that many grads will have left it to the last minute anyway so this could be very useful.
Thanks #25, glad you like the material and the site!
We do strongly believe that the product will help the vast majority to pass.
@22 - yes, you are right. BarHacker is run by the same students who set up CLATHacker. They have not yet graduated but have produced courses for leading CLAT training institutes and have spent months poring over the Bar Exam materials and mock tests and analysed good strategies to pass it.
Hi - yes, it is 100% true, is not a gimmick and we fully intend to honour the money-back guarantee.
Make a free account on BarHacker for the full Terms & Conditions, which are very benign.
In a nutshell you need to contact us within 8 days of your failing the bar exam and we will send you a cheque for the course fees within 28 days. And you need to have taken pass two of the mock exams and downloaded our materials. That's it :-)
Thank you for your comment and for the introduction! It would be wonderful if all journalism could exist without any commercial pressures but I am glad some readers seem to understand and continue to trust us that we will try to do a good job.
@18 - I agree with your point. That is partly why we have an editorial policy not to write about study tools for example, unless in very rare cases.
The core target we write about are law firms and lawyers, not the dozens of products and services that are being sold to them. For one, it'd be boring, and second of all it'd be a potential conflict and more difficult to maintain independence as you rightly point out.
Our current policy therefore means that we shouldn't be facing any difficult decisions about whether to write about a potential competitor or not, because we simply don't write about those markets at all unless they are marked as sponsored posts.
I don't know whether it's necessary to go into this in detail but I think RM and LI are in quite different verticals, although inevitably sometimes overlap will occur since this is such a small market.
First off, Legally India was, is and will always be about independent and unbiased news and facts first and foremost, as best as we can manage.
Like other publications, however, Legally India too has to find a way of monetising its platform in order to enable the news portion to continue being independent and unbiased - journalism unfortunately does not pay for itself.
There are many commercial areas worth exploring in the Indian legal market and as long as they do not conflict with our first mission we will try to explore them, whether by ourselves, with partners or simply with advertisers.
In fact, I should add that Legally India and I personally have been offered a variety of commercial roles and ventures which would have conflicted with our news mission, and we have therefore turned them down.
By way of clarification, we do not offer recruitment but a jobs posting platform, like Monster or Naukri but more tailored. This has been running for close to a year now.
As for bar exam preparation we identified a clear need and demand for mock tests and instruction surrounding the bar exam. Since no one else was filling this need, what is the harm in using the Legally India platform to publicise this, help a few people and also making some money in the process?
Offering training services such as this does not pose a conflict for us since we generally do not report about training companies or other legal industry services providers (RM having been the exception since the Bar Exam became a topic of general and national importance, but even so we have never indulged in any "bashing").
I hope this explains things well and if you have any feedback about our strategy, please let me know anytime.
Thanks for your comment but this post is clearly marked as a sponsored post in the title, as are other posts that are not editorial but commercial or advertising.
I have known the NUJS students for a long time but when in Kolkata I happened to chance across the material they had prepared, which I thought was an excellent idea and would be helpful to graduates who did not have time to study yet or were worried about passing the exam.
Legally India helped to build the product and was closely involved in launching the site and I think it is a great initiative and a wonderful product we are offering.
It may not be useful to everyone but why don't you try the free mock test and see if it works for you? And download one of the indexes for free - they really will come in very handy for the exam. And for the full course there is also a money back guarantee if you do not pass and we waive the course fees if grads are below the poverty line.
Good to see you people taking an interest. But I would like to add two things:
1. Neither Legally India, iPleaders or BarHacker are in any way affiliated or connected to the BCI or Rainmaker. And unfortunately I highly doubt we will get a leaked question paper.
2. iPleaders and BarHacker is run by two bright, hard-working and enterprising NUJS students.
They had a great product and we decided Legally India would be a good place to spread awareness about it to some people for whom it may be useful.
We will tell you a bit more background about BarHacker and the philosophy soon.
In the meantime, feel free to give the mock exam a spin, it's quite fun and we are adding more content rapidly.
If you are signed in there is a button in the bottom bar that lets you translate the page into Hindi (courtesy of Google). Not perfect but I have been told it works, sort of...
@1 - I'm afraid AIBE opposition is probably exempt from the traditional definition of Legal Aid, sorry :-)
There can't be 9 lac law grads every year. If there are 600 colleges that would make every college have a batch strength of 1500, which is a tad high.
I think the official guesstimate by the BCI is around 60,000 grads this year. I think they did some fairly thorough research asking every college for batch numbers etc, so that number may be in the right ballpark...
The comments are back online now, with the false identity redacted. Thanks for catching the attempted identity theft and please don't continue to feed that troll.
@48 re giving 5 points each to a shared award: we will generally try to avoid that as moots in the same tier should at most be worth the same number of total points - that is the point of the tier system after all.
Hope that makes sense.
And congratulations to all the winning colleges and mooters!
I'll definitely be on campus tomorrow, room 006 most of the day, probably the debating final by day-end. Come say hello - also goes for anyone else around tomorrow, always happy to chat (and slightly more coherent with hopefully 8 hours of sleep after a bath tonight!).
Will try not to wear my platform shoes tomorrow cogita :-)
Great work on this conference Noojies, very impressed, hope this will be an annual event!
Really interesting conference and well organised too. We'd like LI to report a lot more on legal aid cells at law schools - please get in touch and let us know what you get up to, we'd love to hear from you!
I just want to point out 2 things before this turns into a mudslinging match again.
1. We asked to interview Deepak, for obvious reasons.
2. I would hope that comment #1 means that if #1 were a recruiter, he'd hire Deepak, or that interviews are generally a nice way to catch recruiters' attention, if that were necessary.
Anyway, just thought I'd add before discussion went off track again...
If the BCI is now saying 20th March through other channels, it was either an internal miscommunication within the BCI on the timelines or there has been a delay or complications in the marking since our conversation with the BCI chairman.
I will try to follow up and find out the latest stance.
Best regards
Kian, Legally India
If the BCI is now saying 20th March through other channels, it was either an internal miscommunication within the BCI on the timelines or there has been a delay or complications in the marking since our conversation with the BCI chairman.
I will try to follow up and find out the latest stance.
Best regards
Kian, Legally India
1. Vis is coming and this is a nice build-up story to it...
2. This is only a blog, not a news story.
3. This moot is not part of the MPL and there are no points for it.
4. When in MPL Live we interview a winning mooter how is it different from writing briefly about a moot that 7 good mooting colleges took place in to prepare themselves for one of the biggest moots in the world? How does that not warrant a story? Are IPL practice games not covered in the run up to a big match?
5. Nalsar and NUJS are the two top teams to beat in the MPL right now: of course what they do will get covered at this stage. And how they perform at Vis, if at all, could very well decide the winner of the MPL.
Best wishes,
Kian
@1: We do try to cover socially relevant news from time to time but generally how much can we really add to a story if the TOI, Hindu, Eco Times, Mint, HT, DNA and dozens of other news TV channels also report the same case, fairly in-depth?
Anyway, if there are cases you really think we should write about, please let us know with a short email and we can try to put up short/long stories on them, subject to time constraints.
Best wishes,
Kian
Please don't quote selectively from the OED - there are dozens of alternative definitions that do not include luck and the full OED probably has 10 pages on Jackpot.
In no particular order, excluding the purely poker or casino definitions, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/jackpot
hit the jackpot
to win or obtain a lot of money or success She must have hit the jackpot with the sales of her last album.
jackpot - any outstanding award
prize, award - something given for victory or superiority in a contest or competition or for winning a lottery; "the prize was a free trip to Europe"
2. A top prize or reward.
From http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/jackpot
a large unexpected success or reward
hit the jackpot
1 to win the most important prize in a competition
2 to be very successful at something
She hit the jackpot with her first novel, which sold over a million copies.
Anyway, when there is a serious factual error in our reporting or something is actually and seriously offensive we will gladly correct it. When someone objects to the words or style used in a story, we will not entertain such requests as any credible publication should and would as a matter of principle.
We will now moderate any new comments complaining about the headline unless they make an interesting and valid point, otherwise this debate risks boring everyone else to death.
Please celebrate this great result from HNLU's mooters and do not distract or diminish from their achievement.
Warm regards
Kian
Subject to the BCI giving us the permission to do so, we also aim to publish the full paper for those who didn't take it out of the exam hall.
In the meantime, the unofficial model answers are also available on the BarHacker Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/BarHacker/203989006278010
Best wishes
Kian
"Bill Gates worked superbly hard and was a childhood computer prodigy but he hit the jackpot when creating the PC-DOS operating system for IBM and retaining the copyright to it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#IBM_partnership
Or:
"Up-and-coming film-maker George Lucas' first Star Wars film was a box office hit but he really won the jackpot when he had the foresight to retain the rights to all Star Wars spin-off licensed products and merchandise, bagging him more than $13bn in cash and counting."
Or in other words:
"HNLU hit the jackpot with its performance in Hong Kong and - the first Tier 2 Moot of the season - giving it 25 points in the MPL and propelling it up the rankings from 12th (?) place to fifth with a realistic shot now to mix up the MPL 2 top field."
In any case, as a policy, we do not normally change headlines just because they might upset a few people otherwise we would be changing headlines every other day for a law firm or other (seriously).
Again, no offense is intended nor should reasonably be inferred from the title.
Best wishes
Kian
Best wishes
Kian
From my perspective, the more colleges that cross 100 points the merrier: we have no reason to discriminate against one college or another.
Congratulations to the NHLU team for their brilliant preformance!
Best wishes,
Kian
Best regards
Kian
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jackpot
In any case, no offense was intended.
Pixelation of name and face was added by us after receipt.
@24 - thanks for your kind wishes, always nice to hear!
@20 Thank you for your constructive feedback too. Please allow me to explain.
1. We intend to write more about HR and legal management because it is an important part of the corporate legal 'industry' in India. And I think HR can be very interesting and underrated, though admittedly not everyone's cup of tea.
2. Disclosing every time whether something was press released or not will quickly get very tedious and should not be necessary. All that should matter is that we exercise our good-faith independent judgment on whether something will be interesting or important to readers or not, which is why we reject a lot of inane or fluffy press releases. Savvy readers who care should be able to discern this. Sometimes we may not be able to please everyone in our selection but we hope that most of the time we manage ok and provide a nice mix of stories.
3. Yes, we and everyone else likes the serious deal and legal news but Legally India should also be a fun place and not all work. Therefore we sometimes publish more light-hearted stories such as this one. We will not turn into a full-on gossip website but occasionally we hope some of our articles will also inspire water cooler talk. With this article I know for a fact that it has done so.
It's all about balance and like any newspaper or website, it is the reader's choice which pages/sections to read (or whether to pick up the publication at all). And if you really think other websites provide a better and more credible mix of news and original content, by all means check them out and compare.
Thanks again for your feedback both good and bad - it is nice to see that readers care enough about LI to bother writing in - we could not wish for more.
Warm regards
Kian
Just to clarify, the BarHacker guys have actually been working overtime to get the answers.
First problem was: getting hold of an answer sheet because many invigilators actually wouldn't permit removal. (and no one has been too forthcoming in sending one to us, despite requests on FB and Twitter).
Second problem: putting the answer sheet in a presentable format (we currently have a huge PDF, which is unwieldy and needed cleaning up).
Third problem: Making sure all the answers are correct.
In any case, if you had been following BarHacker on Facebook, the team published model answers earlier today:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/BarHacker/203989006278010
They are working on putting this in a format that people can understand without the answer sheet too - please bear with them, they are a lot of questions.
Best wishes
Kian
Unlike most other publications, we do not report half the things that law firms 'trumpet', as you put it.
I heard about this happening and took a call that it would be an interesting story to write about and I asked for the newspaper clipping. And clearly people are interested as the number of comments and hits on this story show. If it had been press-released or sent by a PR agency we probably would not have written about it at all.
At the end of the day this is clearly a fun and topical human interest story with some HR/management elements thrown in - if such stories do not appeal to you, please feel free not to read them.
Best wishes
Kian
Ps: Was your A & Ovary mispelling intentional? If so, very good joke for Women's Day! :-)
We just had to confirm the results authoritative from the organisers which took a little while this time.
Best wishes,
Kian
Please share!
Best regards
Kian
Best wishes
Kian
And I the pencil video is indeed brilliant - there's a copy on the Legally India social network:
http://www.legallyindia.com/Community/General/5-All-India-Bar-Exam-How-to-fill-in-the-Application-Form?userid=83
Cheers,
Kian
So I think that the mark is still 40%, as long as you get the minimums in each category.
Best wishes
Kian
@19 - thanks for the apology. Sometimes it does feel as though on some days I spend a good part of the day 'defending' LI from commenters. :-)
In this case, perhaps more than in other cases because some of the charges were serious.
If people think we are selling out or dishonest in our dealings, I would much rather set the record straight and be transparent about the way we operate, since people clearly seem to care.
Or maybe I care too much about this kind of stuff?
Cheers,
Kian
Best regards
Kian
On the neverending debate of comments, perhaps we are a bit too permissive especially when someone criticises stories. But you never know, sometimes criticism is justified so we generally err on the side of caution rather than censoring things which claim the story is 'rubbish'.
They might sometimes have a point, in this case it appears there was nothing substantial.
We will try to keep on top of the issue but I have the feeling that the law firms and ministry will move to fix it fairly quickly.
Best regards
Kian
Thanks for your comment but I disagree. As I explained recently, if we had had a choice in the matter, yes it would have been nice to have launched the course months ago to allow word of mouth to spread.
http://www.legallyindia.com/201102271847/Law-schools/prepared-for-all-india-bar-exam-stop-worrying-well-help-you-crack-it-sponsored
(see comments here)
Nevertheless, you are right: we assume that a lot of associates will not have had the time to study yet, so if they would like to take advantage of some assistance we are happy to give it. And many clearly are happy with what we can give them and are willing (and easily able!) to pay for it.
A lot of effort, time and cost went into producing this course and we are barely likely to even hit break-even on this project. Calling it 'nasty' is not just extreme but irrational, although I understand the resentment that CLAT preparation and other places have inevitably drawn, although everyone seems to use them anyway.
I think that any attempt to charge lawyers money for services or admissions tests or general education will always meet with resistance. However, in almost every other country this is a legitimate way that a publication can try to cover some of its costs.
More than anything here it's a take-it-or-leave-it-thing. The post is marked as sponsored in BIG letters at the top and if you prefer not reading/commenting on it, that is fine and you can ignore it.
On your final point, yes, we do intend to be posting other sponsored posts from time to time from various organisations but we will always, always be transparent about it. And as soon as there is any commercial element or money that exchanged hands for a story, we will continue to be clear about it, and that's a personal promise.
I know that domestic media and other publications in even this space do not necessarily follow this practice but I believe intelligent readers are able to discern this fairly well. Therefore and out of principle, we strongly intend to retain our editorial independence and credibility, while also managing to be a commercially sustainable publication.
If you value Legally India and our content I hope you will allow us to do so in a reasonable manner, without compromising on our overall quality.
However, I am also always happy for you or other readers to take me to task or question me for anything we do and publish.
Warm regards
Kian
And please, I beg you, do elaborate and provide an alternative interpretation of the law, I would be really interested...
Warm regards
Kian
We were alerted to this possible interpretation by a law firm associate who did not want to be named. He called me on Monday night and asked what these rules would mean in this regard.
So we called up two tax lawyers and asked them for their view on this point.
If you think the view is incorrect, I would honestly be very interested to read an alternative interpretation of the facts/law.
I look forward to hearing more from you.
Best,
Kian
It is surely a somewhat unintended consequence of the budget and something that seems counter-intuitive at first, no?
Another option I heard the other night is: "Kian, don't be silly, no lawyers ever pay any tax!"
Please do share why you think this is a 'degrading' story...
Best wishes,
Kian
@3 and 4: Partly we are branding the product, sure, partly we are excited about it being well-received and want to share that story.
If you are not interested in sponsored posts, you do not have to read them, that is fine.
Another big point: We needed to let people know not to use the pirated earlier version indexes. There is no way for us to contact all of them, and it would be a shame for our 'branding' and for them if people went to the exam thinking these indexes are correct. What other way would there have been to get that message out?
Our T&Cs do not permit recirculation for partly that reason as we can only have responsibility to our subscribers but not to the world at large in viral emails.
Anyway, we think it is great that the course is catching on and people are liking it, that's all.
Feel free to sign up if you like, it's your choice and we are not forcing you to do anything.
Best wishes,
Kian
Best,
Kian
Unfortunately the internet banking gateway would have taken 3 weeks to set up so it was not doable in time for the exam.
Call us if you have any questions on payment - check the BarHacker site for more details... If you really want to take the course and pay for it, we will make it possible for you!
Best wishes,
Kian
We have also uploaded additional mock tests and more! The course has been getting really good feedback by the way, which is nice!
Great job Ramanuj and Abhyudhay!
Best wishes
Kian
The only issue I can see is technological since I have never hosted a live webcast before. Are there any free services that we can use that anyone has experience with? Google shows up several options for free webcasting. This could host the video and we could run a live blog in parallel, for example.
Anyone has any experience in this field?
Best regards,
Kian
I'll state again, just for the record, that Legally India is not in a tie-up with the BCI or RM. When we have tie-ups we disclose them transparently, just as we have done in the past, now and will do in future.
We have videos of RM on the site because they were interesting and publicly available on YouTube. Would we be in cahoots with the Times of India if we cite one of their articles or link to a blog or to an analyst report?
In terms of timing, sure we could have offered a course earlier but there were still doubts about the date of the exam and we hadn't thought of doing this tie-up with iPleaders yet, although they've had most of their materials ready.
In any case, the course is perfect for a few days study and I expect that many grads will have left it to the last minute anyway so this could be very useful.
Best wishes,
Kian
We do strongly believe that the product will help the vast majority to pass.
@22 - yes, you are right. BarHacker is run by the same students who set up CLATHacker. They have not yet graduated but have produced courses for leading CLAT training institutes and have spent months poring over the Bar Exam materials and mock tests and analysed good strategies to pass it.
Best wishes,
Kian
Make a free account on BarHacker for the full Terms & Conditions, which are very benign.
In a nutshell you need to contact us within 8 days of your failing the bar exam and we will send you a cheque for the course fees within 28 days. And you need to have taken pass two of the mock exams and downloaded our materials. That's it :-)
If we do not do this, I promise that you can take us to the consumer court! :-) Read our FAQs for more info:
http://www.legallyindia.com/barhacker/mod/resource/view.php?id=31
Best wishes,
Kian
@18 - I agree with your point. That is partly why we have an editorial policy not to write about study tools for example, unless in very rare cases.
The core target we write about are law firms and lawyers, not the dozens of products and services that are being sold to them. For one, it'd be boring, and second of all it'd be a potential conflict and more difficult to maintain independence as you rightly point out.
Our current policy therefore means that we shouldn't be facing any difficult decisions about whether to write about a potential competitor or not, because we simply don't write about those markets at all unless they are marked as sponsored posts.
Hope that makes sense.
Best wishes,
Kian
I don't know whether it's necessary to go into this in detail but I think RM and LI are in quite different verticals, although inevitably sometimes overlap will occur since this is such a small market.
First off, Legally India was, is and will always be about independent and unbiased news and facts first and foremost, as best as we can manage.
Like other publications, however, Legally India too has to find a way of monetising its platform in order to enable the news portion to continue being independent and unbiased - journalism unfortunately does not pay for itself.
There are many commercial areas worth exploring in the Indian legal market and as long as they do not conflict with our first mission we will try to explore them, whether by ourselves, with partners or simply with advertisers.
In fact, I should add that Legally India and I personally have been offered a variety of commercial roles and ventures which would have conflicted with our news mission, and we have therefore turned them down.
By way of clarification, we do not offer recruitment but a jobs posting platform, like Monster or Naukri but more tailored. This has been running for close to a year now.
As for bar exam preparation we identified a clear need and demand for mock tests and instruction surrounding the bar exam. Since no one else was filling this need, what is the harm in using the Legally India platform to publicise this, help a few people and also making some money in the process?
Offering training services such as this does not pose a conflict for us since we generally do not report about training companies or other legal industry services providers (RM having been the exception since the Bar Exam became a topic of general and national importance, but even so we have never indulged in any "bashing").
I hope this explains things well and if you have any feedback about our strategy, please let me know anytime.
Best wishes,
Kian
I have known the NUJS students for a long time but when in Kolkata I happened to chance across the material they had prepared, which I thought was an excellent idea and would be helpful to graduates who did not have time to study yet or were worried about passing the exam.
Legally India helped to build the product and was closely involved in launching the site and I think it is a great initiative and a wonderful product we are offering.
It may not be useful to everyone but why don't you try the free mock test and see if it works for you? And download one of the indexes for free - they really will come in very handy for the exam. And for the full course there is also a money back guarantee if you do not pass and we waive the course fees if grads are below the poverty line.
Look forward to hearing your feedback.
Best wishes,
Kian
Good to see you people taking an interest. But I would like to add two things:
1. Neither Legally India, iPleaders or BarHacker are in any way affiliated or connected to the BCI or Rainmaker. And unfortunately I highly doubt we will get a leaked question paper.
2. iPleaders and BarHacker is run by two bright, hard-working and enterprising NUJS students.
They had a great product and we decided Legally India would be a good place to spread awareness about it to some people for whom it may be useful.
We will tell you a bit more background about BarHacker and the philosophy soon.
In the meantime, feel free to give the mock exam a spin, it's quite fun and we are adding more content rapidly.
Best wishes,
Kian
@1 - I'm afraid AIBE opposition is probably exempt from the traditional definition of Legal Aid, sorry :-)
There can't be 9 lac law grads every year. If there are 600 colleges that would make every college have a batch strength of 1500, which is a tad high.
I think the official guesstimate by the BCI is around 60,000 grads this year. I think they did some fairly thorough research asking every college for batch numbers etc, so that number may be in the right ballpark...
Do please keep us posted about DU's activities and events anytime!
Best regards,
Kian
C-26, Lower Ground Floor
Lajpat Nagar
Phase 1
New Delhi – 110024
The comments are back online now, with the false identity redacted. Thanks for catching the attempted identity theft and please don't continue to feed that troll.
@48 re giving 5 points each to a shared award: we will generally try to avoid that as moots in the same tier should at most be worth the same number of total points - that is the point of the tier system after all.
Hope that makes sense.
And congratulations to all the winning colleges and mooters!
Cheers,
Kian
I'll definitely be on campus tomorrow, room 006 most of the day, probably the debating final by day-end. Come say hello - also goes for anyone else around tomorrow, always happy to chat (and slightly more coherent with hopefully 8 hours of sleep after a bath tonight!).
Will try not to wear my platform shoes tomorrow cogita :-)
Great work on this conference Noojies, very impressed, hope this will be an annual event!
Kian
Really interesting conference and well organised too. We'd like LI to report a lot more on legal aid cells at law schools - please get in touch and let us know what you get up to, we'd love to hear from you!
Thanks,
Kian
1. We asked to interview Deepak, for obvious reasons.
2. I would hope that comment #1 means that if #1 were a recruiter, he'd hire Deepak, or that interviews are generally a nice way to catch recruiters' attention, if that were necessary.
Anyway, just thought I'd add before discussion went off track again...
Best,
Kian