I do it. I earn money in USD, which comes to 35 lakhs a year before tax. Enough for me, as I don’t splurge on expensive cars and watches, plus I stay in my family home. I am happy driving a Swift and wearing Titan watches.

Of course, if I get married and have kids then it’s not enough and I will have to do a traditional law firm job to earn more. 🙁

Idk why you're getting shit on. Wanting to fit in is a valid emotion and law firms can be very intimidating. Just remember that even a Tom Ford and Lora Piana combo can't mask sweat and poor posture.

Shower, moisturise and (gently) spritz a fragrance of your liking. Opt for aquatic / citrus fragrances so that you're not burning people's nostril hair off. CK is a good choice, but keep an eye out on sales on the Paco Rabanne website. The Invictus line is inexpensive and good for office wear. Use a good deodorant, carry wet wipes for long days, keep a shoe buff in your drawer. Invest in comfortable shoes with good heel support. Your confidence will take you a longer way than most brands do. Smile wide, sound strong and have a firm handshake. Nobody will think twice about your shoes if you get that right.

That's not true. A lot of students aspire to get placed however, given the bleak placement ratio, a lot of students are left with no option but to pursue LLM. While it is true that Jindal places a good number of students, the batch size is around 900 (600 in BA/BBA LLB and 300 in LLB). Although it's true that a good number of students do not want to pursue law seriously, even the ones who wish to land a job find it difficult to secure what they want.

More importantly, while students at top tier law schools have expectation of landing some kind of job, the same cannot be said for JGU students. The reason that to land a job, first we must compete amongst ourselves. And then with the top law school students. Also, at least half of the "placements" are secured through PPO. Till 2023, the placements were good even in proportion the batch size, from 2024 (graduate) batch, the proportion of students getting placed to the students who enroll in the courses has gone down.. With NLSIU and other top tier law schools increasing their intake of students, it will become even more difficult to secure a job from Jindal in the upcoming years.

Please stop spewing lies, I was part of the batch. Jindal is the most corporate oriented law school because jindal kids are only fit for sitting in AC rooms and working in law firms. 50% of the batch easily wanted corp law jobs, so that was still 70/500 approx. Go for any good law firm internship and you will find half the cohort is from JGU

70k!? Brother, OP's "flawed" budgeting would have lesser expenses than you if they were also privileged enough to have "self-dependent" parents. But because they don't, not only do they have to send the money home and pay off an education loan, but also health insurance for the parents becomes a necessity because they can't afford a health crisis to put a dent in their finances. So if you remove those expenses, OP seems to be spending just 55k rather than your 70k — who needs a lecture on budgeting now?

And also? Obviously everyone is going to get tax returns, I don't even see how they're relevant. And most importantly, I found housing in Grant Road and it's still costing around 30k for a half-decent room in a bare minimal house, and if you add cook, groceries & maid charges, that does end up coming near about 40k.

It may serve you well to touch grass and acknowledge your privilege before comparing your finances with others.

Before people rush into saying, "hey, we've been there; not as bad as that", hear me out. Mumbai rents have seen a 30-50% rise in the last two-three years, when compared to pandemic & pre-pandemic times. Some studies also attribute this to the slowing of construction activities in that period. So, overall, while rents have straightforwardly doubled from 10 years ago, most firms like CAM, SAM, Indus etc have seen a minor pay hike of ~20%. So unless you're from the batch of 2023 or 2024 and have lived in Mumbai, you did not, in fact, have it this bad. CAM not making any pay hikes even now is just abysmal, and I can only hope that this post serves as a caveat to incoming batches — unless you stand your ground and openly tell them that you'll be opting for other firms because they don't pay as much, this won't change.

Tell me you're not from Mumbai without telling me you're not from Mumbai!

The 38k is the highest figure and inclusive of all basic expenses: cabs, cook, groceries, maid, and basic furnishings — all of those other things combined will take you at least 10k, no doubt about it. And if you avoid having a cook and eat out, it'll not only be probably more expensive but also riskier because ill-health has its own set of expenses.

That said, coming to rent — you can't find a single room, regardless of how basic it is, in South Bombay for less than 20-25k — unless you actually go & live inside a slum, which I'd actually considered for a little bit. That itself takes you to 30-35k, and if you take a place for 30k, you're probably gonna be living farther from office and farther from a railway station too. Add to that leaving from office post 11:30 when the local trains become infrequent, and you're stuck with hefty cab fare costs. There's no metro in the entire South Bombay.

This is no classy or grand lifestyle that I'm talking about. People who've looked for rental accommodation in 2024 will be able to tell you that South Bombay has seen a 30-40% increase just this year itself — the room that my senior got for 28k fully furnished is currently going for 35k semi-furnished.

And no, I refuse to share a room because I value my privacy. The primary point here isn't about my personal expenses; it's that a job that puts you in a struggling position such as this can't be the driving force behind children from ordinary middle class families taking up CLAT!

OP here, let me clarify this: If you're counting the head of 'basic expenses' (inclusive of cook + cleaning person + groceries) as total 30k, that would imply that rent for a room + furnishings cost something around 20k — if you find something like that in South Bombay, then either you're a real estate maverick who shoulshou take masterclasses on this — or you're just unaware and lying.

And no, single occupancy PGs don't really exist anywhere within 7-8km from my office, because the ones that do are taken all the time: trust me, I've tried. And no, I don't want to share a room — I didn't top my university & get through to supposedly one of India's best law firms just to end up having to compromise on having even a very basic lifestyle. Mind you — if my parents had the money to afford even the minimized costs after the scholarships, I'd be comfortably sitting at an established EU college for an LLM. This isn't supposed to be a personal finance post, it's a post about how the economics of dreaming big in law can't be equated to these supposedly T1 law firms anymore, given the insane real estate crisis and inflation. The point I'm making is —with peanuts in pay hikes over the past 10 years, this can't be the dream job that the lower middle class youngsters take CLAT for!

It’s becoming harder and more expensive for EVERYONE to live in India nowadays, because of the high income tax burden and rising inflation. It’s just disgusting that no IT relief has been given in the past decade.

The reason people are investing in stock markets is because of desperation rather than greed. People desperately need more money and this is the only legal way.

Control your lifestyle inflation. You're an AO and you have expenditures lined up like that of a Partner. Get a roommate, take public transport, do some of the household work yourself and sit on the floor (Japanese style) to save on furniture. You can also limit your insurance exposure at this stage.

Happens all the time (faculty member here). Official policy usually forbids it, but when has that stopped anyone? Occasionally comes into the lime light when things go wrong; i.e. either the faculty member turns out to be a creep or the girl wants revenge (yes it is usually a young girl and an older male faculty).

I live in the office only.

Thought of buying a home, but then dropped the idea because the MP once mentioned that consider the office as your home since you're going to spend most hours of your day here than any other place.

Tab se One World Centre hi mera world hai:)

There are a few NLU alumni in politics, but all non-entities. One person from NLSIU won a reserved MLA seat in Karnataka, but she is a nepo kid and daughter of an MLA. There is also Vikramjeet Banerjee, who is a non-nepo kid, but his post of ASG is not really so powerful.

In contrast, multiple IIT and IIM alumni have become Cabinet ministers and CMs.

Didn't the NUJS VC sanction a bomb for having the washrooms etc redone in both the academic and hostel blocks? The "plea" was to make the toilets etc disabled friendly. Speculations concerning actual reason may not be speculation. But let's leave that aside.

The renovation costs was almost a crore or a bit more.

1. No idea if this is true.

2. I would absolutely not be comfortable with a boss who did this. She is bang out of order if she is doing this.

3. However, a human touch from a boss is always nice (except not what she's doing). Like the Hogan Lovells partner whom I remember (vaguely) reading about on RollOnFriday once. At a party, he did some sort of a stunt on a waterslide or something (see also the antics of Sir Edward Davy, the Lib Dem party leader, during the UK General Election). Bosses, confine yourself to that sort of thing, and I think most people will be cool :).

"She is often called Anna Wintour by her employees. One of the many reasons is because she regularly asks them about their relationships via text messages. “I always say, if I don’t know the love life of Amarchand, it’s time for me to step down, she says with a smile. Many employees have migrated from smaller cities to Mumbai and Delhi. “They miss that home touch. And I always believe unless you feel emotionally stable and happy you never can give your best to the workplace.”

https://www.forbesindia.com/article/boardroom/indias-biggest-in-law-amarchand-mangaldas/15382/1

Is this true? And would you be comfortable with a boss like that? I'm not sure if I would want that tbh.

Hello, I have just finished my law school, and am awaiting graduation in August.

I have currently gotten an offer from Fox Mandal and Associates, however it is for a assessment internship. I wanted to know how much salary I should expect if I am absorbed after such assessment internship.

I am also waiting to hear back from Anand and Anand Associates, and I wanted to approximately how much freshers are paid.

I currently live in Chennai, and these offers are for the Chennai Offices as well. However, if no one has any idea about the details for the Chennai Offices, even information based on other branches would be useful.

If the person is good, then yeah. Everyone wants good A0s in the team to take the dirty work off their shoulders. Also, if it’s a team of 5-15 people then word about quality of work travels fast. If A0-3s like the work, they’ll recommend you to SA and PAs who can then give you their work. If you fuck up an A0-3s work then SA/PAs will not give you work so take all work (even if insignificant) seriously. In essence, it’s like climbing a ladder.

1. Don't know about payments.

2. Reasoning could be:

(a) desire for deeper specialisation;

(b) just the 'tag' (though not sure of this);

(c) perception that 'tag' + previous work ex will lead to job abroad; and

(d) desire to change career and go into academia.

https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/wb-teacher-recruitment-case-supreme-court-gives-final-opportunity-to-respondents-to-file-counter-to-pleas-of-bengal-govt-ssc-others-263493

Kunal Chatterjee is one of the nodal counsels. He is from NUJS 2005 and the nephew of state law minister, MG. He is a junior of senior advocate Jaideep Gupta and has been involved in almost every major WB govt and Nephew cases in SC.