pre-placement offers

Exclusive: HNLU Raipur has leveraged internships and pre-placement offers to secure corporate and law firm jobs for 36 students of its batch of 48, while four entered litigation at the bar, six studied for judicial services exams and two would go on for foreign LLMs.

Pre-sript- The links in this post will take you to some invaluable articles. Please do click on them. I have spent quite some time researching for this piece. Links at point 3 and 15 are specially brilliant. Some of you might like to move straight over to point 11, from where the advanced tips start.

Anyone can make a good CV provided you are ready to work for it. Paths are made by walking, not waiting. Touche.

1.) Learn Great English. Learn to speak english, write english. Learn how English eat, blow their noses and clean their bottoms. But to remain cultured, stick to the Indian culture. It is better, politer and more suave (Poets tend to be chauvinists).

However just to pin- prick your pride here is Wikipedia's article on 'Hin'glish. Don't make the silly mistakes pointed here. BTW as I said, poets are chauvinistic; if you prick my pride with a pin. Ouch! It swells!

2.) Intern in every possible break. Intern after college hours, if possible. There are also online internships possible.

The online internships offered by the National Judicial Academy, Bhopal and the Volintern program of Nishith Desai Associates are doable.

3.) Research. Write papers. Write professional blogs. If you want to get into a corporate firm write on corporate law. If you IP is your field get cracking on IP topics. Look for call for papers here. (In your comments you may thank me for this link).

4.) In summers do summer courses. In winters do winter courses. With all this workload you will not remain a SPRING CHICKEN. But still, try doing a SPRING course.

Soon from a chicken you will turn into a hen. An egg laying hen actually. If you do not change, you still will be a productive chick. In your CV you can be really cocky about this.

WIPO has summer courses on IP law. ISIL has a course on international law every year. CCS has short courses for the socially inclined too.

5.) Get great CGPAs. Be in the good books of your faculty members. Bootlick them, if necessary. Or ask them "Sir/Ma'am, can I be your research assistant".

This will sufficiently ego massage them. Scratching their heads, they are bound to ponder, "Have I turned into such a BIGSHOT, that I need a research assistant"?

6.) Moot. TOM should moot. HARRY should moot. DICK should moot. JOHNY with his mouth full of sugar should moot. ALICES in wonderlands should moot. Even if you are bad at it, moot. The drunk PIPO was brave enough to moot. What keeps you at bay?

7.) Get into the College's Law Journal board. Everybody can't be the editor. At least be a member.

8.) Present papers. Go to seminars and make contacts there. You will do well to read this book I am planning to read. It is called 'How to work a room' by Susan RoAne.

9.) Make best buddies with the best seniors at your college. When you meet them say a loud 'Wassup!'. Show some teeth with the lips curved upwards. They might soon employ you.

10.) Do online courses. Attend webinars. Be a sponge. Take in good from everywhere. WIPO, Asian School of Cyber laws etc. have good courses. (Readers, please come up with some more).


ADVANCED TIPS

11.) Intern once. Intern twice. The third time you go there as an associate. Pick a firm whose practice area you will like to immerse yourself in. Follow this advice. Impress. The elusive PPO will be yours.

12.) Make sure 'googling' your name gives great results. We will soon burn our telephone directories. The smarter ones among us will save them as 'antiques' for diverser investment options. However, Google will be your buddy for some more time at least.

If you are on google you are a stud. If you are not you are a dud. Duh!

13.) Attend events. Attend seminars. Be a people's person. If you don't want to get in a pee-pool, get to know people.

I accompanied Mr. Basheer for the NUJS diversity project to Sikkim. He had spent a month there earlier and we were well received. His friends included two, grade 11 kids: Suku Singh and Palzor; the most respected monk of the area, the hotel attendant, the school teachers and the bakery owner, among others. Get the point?

The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell tells us about three kinds of people: The connectors, the mavens and the salesmen. Atleast be one of these.

14.) Develop a good LinkedIn profile. Study what like minded people are doing and shadow them. Do read this article on how law students should use LinkedIn.

15.) Tie shoe laces with the other hand. It improves left brain-right brain coordination. If you are a computer engineer, get to know cyber law. If you are a lawyer learn java and website designing.

Shake things around a little bit. Freshness is good for your lungs and your life. See how creative people can get with CV making.


PS- Or maybe, you could enjoy your life. Do what you like to do. Don't be a fake.
Work in an NGO. Paint.
Write poetry. See how life unfolds naturally.
Naturally. That is how buds flower and cocoons make butterflies.

Q. Are internships helpful in getting a PPO. How do I go about it?

Ans.  Yes they are. Why...I'll tell you later. First get your hands on the PPO thingy.

GETTING A PPO

1.) You have to be in the 4th/ 5th year for that. (If you are in the 5 year course that is).

2.) Then, have a portfolio which is perfectly aligned to the place you are interning.

A 5th year student, interning at Anand and Anand (a leading IP firm) and expecting a PPO should have done at least couple of internships in IP boutiques, presented/ published a dozen papers on the subject and also completed some good add-on courses on IP.

3.) So you are at Anand and Anand. A teenie-weenie 4th year student. Now impress the boss you are working with.

Impress him with your research skills. Pop up the best caselaw for the best law which applies to the case.

Strain your mental sinews. Come up with brilliant analysis. Impress him/her.

Come up with brilliant plaints, legal opinions. Show-off your analytical and writing skills. Impress.

Be in your best formal clothes, best smile, neatest hairdo and shiniest shoes. Impress him/her.

Look like a studious student. Don’t be the dude.

Be the first to arrive. Leave last. Slog like anything. Interact with the associates at lunch. Impress everybody.

Ask great questions. About his/her lawyerly life and about life in general. About what coffee he likes.

Be good with the coffee. Impress.

Be a legal beagle. Wag your tail, always. Sniff for opportunities. Impress.

Be a legal eagle. Observe keenly. Show the splendour in the flight. Impress.



WHY INTERNSHIPS?


1.) Internships are like an add-on course you do.
For example you do a cyber law course from Asian School of Cyber Laws and learn about cyber law in theory (though it may have many 'real life' examples). On the other hand or the same hand (doesn't matter...depends how dexterous you are in using your hands) interning under a stud cyber law lawyer will provide you with a decent practical knowledge of the subject.

So a good 4 week internship, in a way, replicates doing a 100 hour practical course on the subject. (Note the word good. Most internships aren't good). Ah! Ha!

2.) Internships tell that you have an inherent interest in the subject.
In first year, for my NGO internship I intern at NABARD. Then I do internships only in legal departments of banks and niche law firms practicing banking law. The recruiter can bank upon the fact that I have an interest in Banking Law. (PJ...I know).

3.) Every skill gets chiselled. 
Work ethics, practical skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills, THIS skill and THAT skill.


PS- Ideally, one should intern to explore and not to pigeonhole oneself. Coz when the cat comes, the pigeon closes its eyes. He is gobbled up. The pigeon is then not in the pigeonhole. He rather becomes an a**h***. (I might go down in the history books for this quote). Ha!

PS 2- When LegalPoet doesn't write poetry, he deems himself fit to give some free advice.

PS 3- As said before (read comment # 9), I love animals.

PS 4- I'll keep on blasting law firms and hounding Kian till they don't sponsor some goodies for the bloggers. Why is it always that the writers have to starve. :P

PS 5- Then you can't blame us the writers for blowing our own trumpet...or posting the links to our own blogs. :)
 

Luthra & Luthra has made offers to five further students from National Law School of India University (NLSIU) Bangalore after what is likely to be its last campus recruitment visit for the year.

Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai has completed its student hires for the year after making pre-placement offers to nine law students from NUJS Kolkata last week.

The firm's latest offers also included its first hire of a law student who is blind.

Luthra & Luthra has made 10 pre-placement offers (PPOs) to final year law students at three national law schools. The firm has also hired six lateral associates, with the fresh batch of seven new law school graduates now starting.