I used to work for a Tierless corporate law firm in Mumbai. I joined the firm at a pay grade which was just ok. I agreed to the salary, as they said they would increase the pay much more within a year. I was anyway not getting many opportunities in my hometown.

I used to stay alone, it was a non-negotiable, in my hometown I had my own room, and it was just my grandma and parents. So I took up living in an SRA, I didn't have any furniture, zilch. I used to have one thin mattress, no gas connection, no fridge, no other appliances, 2 plastic plates, 1 bucket. No almirah, Used to live out of 2 suitcases and a laundry bag. I used to hand wash my clothes and iron them. It was a fuck all living situation. I moved out soon to Delhi after 2 years of living that way. Rent was almost half of my pay.

The other major expenses included, taxis, alcohol and cigarettes and food. There were days I had spare change by the end of the month.

I then started obsessively tracking my expenses, it helped me bring in control a lot of my wasteful expenses like swiggy and faasos, taxis and so on. Eventually helped me to build a bit of saving as well. But at the cost of almost no going out with friends, no vacations, no splurging, no entertainment like OTT and so on.

smh I am in a similar situation, 2nd year of a decent law school + CS professional. I also have an interest in direct tax and want to build career in that only. Being in 2nd year, it is really hard to get an internship in law firms, finally got an internship under an advocate who practices tax at DHC.

All these threads make me wonders where pursuing DT will be wise move or not. I should perhaps start reading the ICAI final DT module

Honestly, no. While age may not be a factor for everyone’s hiring decisions, they will look for other reasons to not hire you. Granted everyone is always optimistic and thinks they’re the exception - you will have to be exceptional in the true sense of the word. Also you’ll be yelled at by people a good 10 years younger for things you think are trivial.

It’s not worth the effort and aggravation, certainly not when you’re 10 years (atleast) older than any of your “peers”.

Some tax benefits. You can earn back most of what you pay as TSD when you file for taxes. Plus, allows you to keep your Bar Council enrolment active. You can't be a licensed Advocate if you are an employee on the payroll. Lastly, as someone else mentioned, here you are being retained and hired for your services (retainer being a contract for services; the contract and firm policies determining your rights), unlike an employer-employee relation (which is a contract of service; the labour law statutes and company policies governing your rights).

As the subject indicates, I am a blind person and a law student, in my third year of my undergraduate law degree. Inspired by another LI thread and angered by the amount of ignorance and openly discriminatory assumptions I have faced, I decided to post this thread. Basically, ask any questions you have - any at all - on how I navigate life as a law student while being blind, my aspirations... or any other topic you think might interest you. I promise that, however rediculous or rude the question, I will respond as maturely as I possibly can. Abuse (if published) will, naturally, be ignored. Mods, please moderate comments (even obviously problematic ones) with a light touch, if you can. I'd rather maturely respond to ableist assumptions on my own terms (I chose to open the pandora's box) than have them papered over or covered up. Looking forward to responding to questions (if this is published)!

What is done is done and cannot be changes. So you can always focus on the way ahead and what you can change and is in your control. So take care of your health, study well for the remaining exams, make contacts, get good internships, perform well in those internships, be in touch with your seniors (who may one day become your mentors), do co-curriculars, and that's basically the way ahead. You will be fine, just don't give up.

I am not going to address the substantive point about the BMTC. I will confine myself to addressing just one word of this, "immigrants". Heavens above! As a former resident of this city, I will say this: the attitude that the use of such language demonstrates is unworthy of you. To those who have felt excluded in Bangalore, I absolutely get it. So did I. I am happy to report, however, that I am now living in a place where I, at least, haven't experienced this kind of snobbishness (though it has its own unique problems). I hope I never have to return to Bangalore.

PS: If anyone wants to know how/why I felt excluded, I'll say only this: try to imagine navigating the city, either on foot or by public transport, either on your own or in company, if (1) you were to be completely blind; and (2) you have Cynophobia (have dog/cat phobia) (hint, Bangalore has a street dog problem, whatever its other virtues, also think about street/public transport accessibility).

Oh one more glaring fact about compensation that they hide from new joinees until they join.

They have a system called "Factor System". Your monthly salary is not fixed.

The compensation that your contract says, a percentage portion of it is dependent on monthly recoveries. So suppose your salary is 1 lakh, you may only get 80,000 in a month and rest 20000 will depend on how much you were actually able to collect (credited with the firm) in that month out of your expected monthly collection. If you manage 100% only then you get that 20000 but if you dont, you never see that money.

Also they keep that target so high that barring 1 or 2 teams (cyclically) no one meets that collection.

So as a thumb rule, everyone has to discount their on-paper compensation by 20-50%. Yeah that variable percentage of 'factor' keeps increasing with increase in level. Though they dont charge factor system on first years, but its upto them to decide. Also its depressing when you burn the midnight oil to churn out deliverables (you will need to) and then you dont even get your full pay coz the client has not made the payment yet. Oh you may think that we should just charge advance billing. Guess what, seniors hate to do that coz clients are so old and that would be insulting to ask.

Therefore it is expected that apart from being a lawyer in a big firm, you have to be a collection agent. You are expected to call and remind clients to make payments. In the politest of manners, again and again. Every week you would have to allocate some hours for it. Time that could be spent on doing actual work.

And they only tell you all this on the date of joining, when you are too late to make any informed decision.

In my view, the factor system is the most nauseating thing that exists here and only here. I have not come to know of any other firm that does this. Firms usually keep the monthly compensation fixed and only year-end bonuses depend on actual collections (which makes total sense).

So look before you leap guys.

There main teams are tax ones (indirect tax biggest one which brings lion's share of billing and direct tax at second place). IP team is then next biggest but they mostly prefer engineers/scientists over lawyers. General Litigation (with IBC work), Corporate and Tech Teams have sparsely spread work. They used to have Trade and Competition teams until those walked out and rebuilding has been tough.

I dont know how to answer the avoidable team question coz if you are in the main teams, they have most politics, but you get to learn by sheer quantity of work you are expected to bill. In the lesser billing teams, life is chiller but moving laterally becomes difficult coz no one in industry treats you as an experienced asset.

Oh btw, firings happen regularly. In higher billing team (if you can't keep up with pace) as well as in lower billing team (if they feel you are not doing anyting).

Didnt expect this much traction. I guess people do care about honest feedback.

Hi,

You will mostly be focusing on due diligence and proof-reading. It helps to be thorough with the Companies Act, ICDR, LODR. You can also pull out and refer to DRHPs, RHPs, Prospectus online and that will help you understand how it works.

As a query to teams working specifically on cap markets - why is it that pagination takes so long? Is there a particular way of going about it that takes hours?

They are just keeping options open ig. Many reasons can make one move to a T2 from a T1, if there are no openings in T1 firms. Could be due to bad team, lack of connection to work, burnout, family issues, and so many other reasons. Money is not the concern for all, though it may be for most, but again health and peace >>> money. If no health and peace, then no learning at work.

That is a bummer, yes. I have seen this may or may not be the case with all associates jumping shift to a tier 1 from a non-tier law firm. At this point don't know what is the criteria. Which practice sector is this? And any insights on how you got this job? Did the discussion on discounting the experience happen during the interview process with the firm? Wondering because most recruiters don't help with recruitment at A0 level.