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I am a Civil Judge myself. Its been around 2 years I am in the service and I pretty much understand the curiosity around lifestyle and pay scale of a judicial officer, work life balance, pros and cons.
Work Life balance
See, the initial 1 year is going to be a bit hectic as you will be learning everything from the scratch. Starting from the functioning of how exactly a court works to how to handle the advocates to handling your court staff, reading hefty files in Hindi, to handling other court administrative work. You will be the master of your court. Everything might feel intimidating at first because you won't be hanging with people your age, you will be ordering people of your fathers age. But once you get hold of such things its a cake walk, trust me. Most of the things are repetitive. So work life balance is a solid 4/5 here.
Stress/Workload
There's stress and there's workload but its all about time management Once your learn that most of the things are doable. I would give it a 3/5 for stress.
Family life/Social life
Family life ain't that great here. I literally have to wait for the weekends to go out, eat junkies and meet my friends and family. I make a list of everything I need so i can go for grocery shopping in the weekend. As a judge you can't socialize a lot with general public. I have been given strict instructions to avoid going to this famous salon near my house and not been caught eating pani puris in public. I am crying while writing this.
This is by far the biggest con of the service. If you are someone who loves to go out and make friends you should consider joining this service.
Job Security
My job comes with great security until and unless you are caught taking bribe. Still better than the corp sec for sure.
Pay
I earn around 1,50,000 a month which is more than enough considering I am posted in a tehsil.
Holiday
15 days vacation (summer+winter)
13 Days CL
3 Days OL
30 Days EL
Protocol
Judiciary has a lot of protocol. Boy, I can have a whole rant session on that but lets leave it. Its strict man, its strict.
Conclusion
You chose your battles buddy. If your priorities are having a stable life, money which comes with a cost of living in a tier 3 city or may be village and you are okay with not socializing a lot. This service is great. Oh one more thing, judiciary gives sooooo much respect man, people salute you and respect you all the times.
It will take more than just a movement to dislodge these inept dynasts. Their tentacles are deeply entrenched in the system. People are either beholden to them or in awe of them. The exceptions merely prove the rule. This explains the latitude they enjoy, especially in the courts, and why some lawyers charge upwards of ₹18 to 20 lakhs per hearing, payable in advance, mind you, while others charge a few zeros less, payable only after a minimum 60-day delay, in tranches, and with at least a 30% discount, all of which you learn about only after the fact.
And if only the chamchagiri stopped there.
In a recent hearing before a certain court/tribunal, I watched a counsel with over 17 years of experience roll out the red carpet for a designated senior advocate, one who appears before that forum regularly, who needed an adjournment to fend off multiple provable perjury claims. This junior counsel did not even oppose the adjournment despite holding all the cards. In fact, they actively helped the opposing side and said, “last chance,” with a sheepish smile. That sort of generosity no doubt earns a pat on the back, and perhaps a future client referral from the senior.
The lesson? Our systems are deeply fucked, and Trump, for all his shortcomings, was not entirely off the mark when he described India as a “shithole” country. In many respects, it is. The evidence lies in the numbers. We are not only losing our brightest minds from NLS, the IITs, and the IIMs; people who can afford to live abroad are leaving in unprecedented numbers.
Ever wondered why someone like Virat Kohli might prefer living overseas rather than in one of his villas or apartments in India worth hundreds of crores?
That should tell you everything you need to know about India and about us Indians. The sharp and disproportionate class divide has little to do with Congress vs BJP “misrule”; it points instead to a deeper corruption in our values as Indians. We rape, pollute, shortchange, and kill our own in the name of class, caste, and religion. We feel no shame in using institutions like the Gymkhana, which, before Independence, banned “dogs and Indians” - to signal our social superiority over those without such memberships.
Which is especially rich considering these so-called clubs pay a pittance for land that would otherwise fetch several hundred crores in rent alone.
So, yes, I won’t miss the Gymkhana. I would, however, have preferred the DDA taking it over and running it like Siri Fort. But honestly, anything is better than the status quo at this point.
“Insofar as the complaint of Navrang Saini is concerned, it arises out of the Club having resisted pressure to give him membership. The Club verily believes that since (Mr) Saini was a high-ranking member in the MCA, the harassment that the club has been facing from the Department of Corporate Affairs harps back to that episode,” the club said.
https://indianexpress.com/article/business/companies/facing-harassment-as-we-denied-mca-official-club-membership-says-delhi-gymkhana-club-6413488/lite/
Coming back to the comment made, it’s true that Bombay and Calcutta are “elitist”, but still more diverse in terms of professional backgrounds. Political and government officials (and their families) form a quite small minority of members. In Delhi, it’s the opposite. And that is the root of the problem. Waitlisted professionals like MBAs. CAs, lawyers, doctors etc were denied memberships once their turn came, while the green card system was doled out to political and bureaucratic families. Hence the legal challenges which ultimately culminated in this.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/delhi-news/delhi-gymkhana-to-challenge-eviction-order-in-high-court-101779648321279.html
Now this is like one of the most premium client of our firm which pays big but recently relationship between the client and our firm has not been much good. If this thing gets our that their defense is struck off and proceedings are running ex-parte, my partner will surely fire me and id be left without job so i cant even tell him about this.
The client doesnt have inhouse legal so they havent figured it out, and issue is i dont have any SA, PA like other associates in my firm, as i directly work with Partner so can only report to him. But i can never reveal this to him.
So what can i do, i know i can file Order IX Rule 7 app. to set aside the order but would this even work after multiple absenses in dates and defense struck off. I fear the judgement be passed against us as our written statement and arguments wont be considered.
Without this job i wouldnt have anything to earn, really made a big mistake, any thing i can do without firm knowing about it? If even application is allowed how much cost may court impose as i would have to bear it out of my own pocket.
Need genuine advice on how to go about it and names of firms where it will make sense to switch atleast for a stepping stone?
P.s if you get the urge to says don't switch or something similar, please quit! Thanks!
How do young lawyers handle these chats when you’re not confident on the spot? What do you actually say so you don’t come off like you know everything and give false hope, but still reassure them you’ll look into it properly and get back?
Any practical tips would be great.
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/283017-dealing-with-social-anxiety-in-law-firms
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/415924-can-an-introvert-make-it-in-big-law
https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/229578-introvert-x-law-am-i-in-the-wrong-field
Thank you, Mods pls allow comments
They have not been much posts regarding deals?
Do they have good matters ?
Report foreign travels here.
Great place for money. Average place for IT learning. Bad team for learning litigation. Very high attrition at junior level.
Would appreciate if people could share:
• College, Total PPOs secured so far, Firms offering them.
Would help everyone understand how the market is looking this year.
Anonymous responses are welcome as well.
Join any decent lawyer with mix of HC-District Court practice, preferably junior of a reputed senior (helps to get reference to the senior ultimately), work for a couple of years and move up the ladder.
On a separate note, who are the senior partners at CAM?
It is true that a lot of illegal encroachments and constructions happened during the Let regime. But Green just accelerated it. Now we are saddled with an accumulated mess and I suspect that eventually like always, regularisation politics will happen. So the wheel would get reinvented again.
If the new govt is serious then it should just clear out all the concrete jungle built on EKW. Let's see how it goes after Urbana and ilk.
1. You do know that concepts like RCT etc have been used in economics? That Abhijit Banerjee, the nobel-winning economist, used these concepts? So where is all this "humanities heavy" stuff coming from exactly?
2. You do know that humanities departments (at good universities at least) have research methods training courses on statistical methods? So again, where is this coming from? Sure, some departments do this stuff in a more cursory way than others and sure, there's an argument for maybe teaching it more rigorously, and as far as I am concerned, sure there's an argument for getting statistics/econometrics teaching in at the undergrad level, but still, that doesn't create an environment for the acceptability of this language as a correct description.
3. Finally: For all this guy says, "personal experience" is an important part of the law. Indeed as Holmes says, law is built upon experience. So you cannot discount this stuff. And humanities captures experiences of people - the human condition. Be that philosophy, history, literature... whichever subject. So even to the extent that they aren't Maths focussed, they are important. And the best research often combines the best elements of the two. Look at Hamish Stewart's use of behavioural economics to show the wrong assumptions that Simmonds and Kramer were making in the debate about Fuller's philosophy! Is that not writing about the human condition? Does that not use empirical methods? So again, where's all this bias coming from? Please explain.