Dear Scooter

This is a great write up. I would think there would be a quite a few of us at our daily corporate job feeling like this. The way this is expressed is brilliant. Your evaluation is on point and highlights both the struggle and the issues that faces those with this issue. Law Firms across India have started focussing a lot on mental health issues. ADHD is something though which seems like is a baggage we enter this profession with and then have to deal with it because of the requirements of the profession which requires hours of reading and drafting. This is a very interesting topic, and I hope readers keep commenting.

~ R

There was an earlier short thread that had begun regarding good chambers to start out in Delhi: https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/170297-best-chambers-lawyers-in-delhi-to-start-out-at-and-the-pays

Suggestions there for seniors with good culture and pay in Delhi were Rajshekhar Rao, Arvind Verma.

Democratic India was surely not created in a domestic political vacuum, and to suggest Marxist ideas and debates did not play a role in shaping the birth of the nation is obviously facetious.

Are you really trying to suggest that Mahatma Gandhi and others of the era did not read Marx and were not heavily influenced or inspired by the discourse and ideas, to come up with new political ideas and systems and philosophies?

Furthermore, during the cold war, much of the entire 'Western' world was built as an 'answer' to communism. If communism hadn't existed, the world would have been a very different place, ergo, it is definitely important to study it.

And to get back to Germany: without Marx, some of the the ideas of democratic socialism would not be as prevalent and embedded in Germany's and other European countries' policies as they are now.

Surely the point of reading Marx in law school is because he accurately described a lot of problems with capitalism that cause social instability, not that it describes a utopian system that should replace every other political system.

And Marx' writings contain perhaps some of the most influential and powerful ideas of the last few hundred years that continue influencing politics to this day.

The continuing influence of his writing and the 'threat' of communism, has no doubt also contributed ideas to many countries' governance and has acted as a tempering force on unadulterated free-market-capitalism.

Surely many European countries, including Germany, as well as India - would not have had as many (or any?) social welfare systems and safety nets, laws protecting workers' rights, gender equality and similar policies if it weren't for Marx and communism?

Haha, thank you so much for the offer, that would definitely be appreciated (the help part, not the sacrificing your life part)! We're currently putting in place the technological infrastructure for moderators, including fully anonymous moderators. However, if you're ok in the meantime to share your / an email address with us in confidence, can you please email us if interested here and we will let you know: {contactus}

Regarding our hiatus in news coverage, we have responded in a bit more detail previously and are currently working things out as to the future:
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/181428-li-and-news

This is a crowdsourced list of professionals that was going around on the net a while ago. However, not sure if it is up to date and finding a therapist can be quite hard: during the pandemic demand outstripped supply, so good ones may be full up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pzckT6ns2H1IlmwYwJa8EnBh_1u3gRA9cEOoA4zfilc/edit?usp=drivesdk

You'll probably have to write a bit of a cover letter and 'apply' to ones that seem relevant to you.

Note: We changed the moderation labels after the comment had pointed out the inconsistency, we should have clarified that :)

As a side note, comment 2 was originally marked trollish since statements like "NLU grads are the cream" are a little trollish, elitist and at the end of the day, also nonsense... :)

An interesting approach though it doesn't seem easy. How are you intending to get fired exactly, beyond gross misconduct, which could lead to its own problems?

If you want to get fired simply by not doing anything, that might also take a month or two and some uncomfortable conversations until your firing kicks in...

On the other hand, if you resign, you could also choose to simply ignore your notice period and simply not work during it and take a holiday instead, depending on client or other responsibilities? You might also be able to discuss not working out your notice period or shortening it, potentially, depending on how central or valuable you are to the team and how busy they are?

While the claim is partly true, the survey was actually from 2013. Have not found any reference to the majority being 'ok' with the Taliban in charge anywhere:
https://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2013-apr-30-la-fg-wn-survey-muslims-sharia-20130429-story.html

The original survey findings are more nuanced that this comment suggests, and even if a majority would actually 'vote' for the Taliban in a free election, that would still result in a tyranny of a majority and a lot of people to be sad for who do not want this.

Have also not seen any accounts that the reality of the Taliban takeover was about police or military being 'ok' with the Taliban takeover, but it seemed more a matter of insufficient coordination, infrastructure support and too little motivation of individuals to risk your life to fight hopelessly for a broken and corrupt existing system.

Could this be the relevant thread? https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/173669-alternative-career-options-public-policy

Yes, you're right, we need to add a proper search functionality soon!

You're not entirely wrong on some counts - though there are several of Trump's policies Biden's clearly reversed or is opposed to, or is trying to reverse but can't push through due to the effectively deadlocked Senate and Republican Filibusters (against a backdrop of Republicans primarily thinking about how they're going to lose the next election because their base is ageing and disappearing, and they have no ideas beyond pandering to Christian fundamentalists and the rich). Dems as a whole are not much better and dance to many of the same paymasters, though they sometimes pay lipservice on things such as healthcare, global heating, gun control, etc.

The problem and Biden's boon is that Trump had such extreme rhetoric and unreasoned / unpredictable policies / diplomacy that everyone else, however bad or sleepy, seems reasonable and a relief by comparison.

Second, you can bet that Trump would have also pulled out of Afghanistan in the second term: he would have been relying on the same flawed / optimistic US intelligence that everything on the ground was fine and the Afghanistan state could stand on its own, and by 'ending the war', would have wanted a feather to put in his cap as much as Biden.

Not disagreeing, what's happening is a disagrace and a tragedy and Biden should be condemned for it. However, nearly the entire political establishnment is complicit in this disaster for years now (the outcome of which was entirely predictable 20 years ago already, when Bush Jr first went in).

Is this trollish? It does sound trollish, considering use of the word 'lib' and 'woke' both, and that both parties' platform has been to pull out of Afghanistan because they got bored with the mess they (mostly the Republicans) started... On the other hand, it is true, in that both parties in the US are probably a disgrace, though one of the parties doesn't even bother pretending anymore that they care about democracy or governance beyond holding on to power.

Do feel free to agree :)

Prior potentially related threads:
General book recommendations:
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/164466-book-recommendations-for-lawyers

Constitutional law recommendations:
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/171612-the-best-books-on-constitutional-law

Please take care with responses here. Anything that is obviously advertorial will be moderated, as well as things that seems like rants. That doesn't leave huge space for responses but hope the above makes sense.

Honest general questions though: does where you go for CLAT prep really matter hugely? Are some much more expensive than others? Are there any free materials online that could provide similar value, or in order to crack CLAT do you really have to pay for it?

This constant trickle of threads on certain legal education providers either seems like a bit of a disingenuous attempt to start flame wars or veiled advertisement for private education providers, which is a potentially slippery slope and will invite more spam and marketing. In this specific case, it does seem like enough digital ink has been spilled on these topics though in other threads and unless a thread genuinely offers a new insight or discussion, we'll be moderating these as trollish.

So sorry to hear that. First of all, if you are having such thoughts, please please please do try and call a confidential suicide support hotline, such as this one: https://hellolifeline.org/

Your life is a million times more important than any exam, even if it might not seem that way to you in this very moment. And family pressure is hard and there are no easy answers to dealing with it, but know that things will get better, 100%, even if it's hard to see that longer perspective right now.

Also know that in a couple of years, all of this will be a distant memory. Life is really long and will have so many more opportunities that you can't even imagine right now, and which don't depend on a single exam, which at the end of the day is primarily a lottery.

However, the advice we can give in an online forum will be limited - please speak to someone you can trust and you can be open with about how you feel, even if it is a telephone hotline with counsellors.

In any case, things will get better, even if not immediately, you will get through this setback and discover new opportunities.

Hehe, would agree but this was actually a comment of someone quoting a specially encoded JPG picture 'inline', which unfortunately can't be displayed by our boards at present.

A sneak preview of what the comment looked like: "data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD" etc for 2234 'words' :)

Sorry for the confusion, we have now deleted the comment.

English.

(seriously though, trolling aside, we hear French is a little bit useful due to the ICC being in Paris and it being used in some parts of Africa. End of day though, any foreign language will be valuable in some way - pick one you like and that's spoken in a country you'd like to spend some time in some day, and go for it, a language learned is never a waste of time).