Let me be clear from the outset: this is a hard response, and I’m offering it only because the original post shows unnecessary disdain for students from tier 3 institutions. There’s a line between expressing personal frustration and dismissing an entire group of people who are trying just as hard—often harder—to break into the same profession. That line was crossed. The post didn’t just question the system; it demeaned fellow candidates purely because of where they studied, as if institutional branding is the only thing that defines worth. That kind of arrogance needs to be checked.

Here’s the truth: if you strip everything down, the only thing that separates you from many of the people you’re mocking is a better CLAT rank on a particular day and access to a stronger alumni network. That’s it. The playing field levels out pretty quickly once you’re in law school and thrown into internships, research, and real-world application. Some of these Tier 3 students go on to outperform peers from tier 1 law schools because they’re sharper in interviews, hungrier to prove themselves, and better prepared to contribute meaningfully from day one.

You mention having a below-average rank at a top 3 school and yet seem baffled that people from “lower-tier” colleges are landing jobs ahead of you. Why wouldn’t they be? Firms don’t owe you anything just because of your college. If someone with a less elite degree but stronger presence, better communication, or more maturity gets the job, it’s because they earned it. Internships don’t mean much if you didn’t stand out. You can’t hide behind logos and expect them to substitute for drive or performance.

This industry doesn’t reward entitlement. It rewards value. If firms are consistently choosing others over you, it’s time to stop blaming the system and start asking why. Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s you.

To reduce everything to “they’re from a Tier 3 school, how dare they get selected over me?” is both elitist and factually empty. You’re not entitled to someone else’s opportunity just because of where you studied. And frankly, many of these so-called Tier 3 students have every right to be where they are—

because unlike you, they didn’t stop at the brand name. They built their credibility brick by brick.

If you're truly frustrated, good. Use that. But direct it toward improving yourself and refining your approach and not belittling others who are grinding just as hard without the benefit of a high CLAT rank or a powerful alumni base. Because once you graduate and enter practice, nobody cares where you came from. They only care what you can deliver. That’s the reality. Everything else is ego.

Truly

A tier 3 kid who works at a tier 1.

JNU is not a jholachap mass producing factory like DU, BHU or a state-led corporate slave production house like NLUs.

JNU has always been a #1 ranked central university for research and academia in social science. Moreover, there are only two major centres specific for law. The Special Centre for law & governance and the Centre for international studies.

The Centre for L&G is only for PhD, not ug or pg, and they only accept JRF qualified candidates ! Moreover it's open not just for law, but from all social sciences, so you can see the competitive quality itself. Also it has globally renowned names teaching in the faculty, that are also given distinguished titles in tier 1 NLUs. Go visit the faculty page.

The CILS faculty has people from international relations as well. Moreover it boasts of the biggest names that studied and researched in India in the sphere of international law like Anand, Chimni, Desai etc.

So before you go barking out like a mad dog, go and learn a thing or two. Seriously, the NLU bubble that most people live in is ridiculous.

Idk which world are you in, but both sibal brothers as a principal did not make Supreme Court as their primary court of practice. Both of them are thriving in Commercial side of Delhi High Court. Especially junior brother who is a go to Senior Adv. for high stake IP litigation.

Frankly, SC practice is no measure for success.

Literally none, Trilegal runs on an equity partnership model. I don't know if everyone followed the news of an Associate in the Trilegal Bangalore office who committed suicide last year. How easily it was covered up, no news in Bar and Bench or Live Law. This should explain everything else on how certain Partners have high attrition rates. In the end, the value of a Partner is in the amount of Billings done, as long as the Partner generates revenue, untouchable.

certain Counsels think they are Partners of the firm. And certain Partners think they are the Managing Partner of the firm. ▮▮▮ Long story short, resources cannot buy people and hence the attrition at Trilegal (across locations) needs some form of training/sensitivity thought leadership across mid and senior levels ▮▮▮

Having a degree in science only impacts your Patent knowledge that said you can very easily make a good name in Trademarks and Copyrights however IP is very niche. Even if you practice IP you’ll probably reach a saturation point in 3-4yrs in terms of learning and then switching PA’s will be tough. It’s better you go for corporate and anyways if you want to do IP it’s not a lot to read up on your own

speaking as an A1 (not so far removed from the same position myself), I keep finding minor errors in things I've worked on after sending them out. But a minor consolation lies in the fact that I keep finding such errors even in work that PAs and Partners send out. Fewer errors but errors nonetheless. With the kind of hands-on work we do and the tight deadlines within which we work - it's only natural that some small typos and stray words tend to stick around 3-4 rounds of edits.

At a lower rung, our job is to get the meat of the details right - that will be the figures, basic logical flow of arguments and structure and language of your drafts. You'll master the smaller bells and whistles and finesse on your work only with time and experience. And even then, perfection is just an aspiration and not really an achievable standard when many heads and hands come together to make a work product.

I'm not saying that you become complacent towards the errors you make. But beating yourself up for messing up things that you've barely spent any time learning to do is not a constructive approach either. Your team with nice people knows this, and they are rooting for you and pacing you to become a formidable resource in due time.

The sense of disappointment, lack of self worth or any feelings of anxiety you feel are your own demons to conquer apart from that. Law firms make for challenging environments even without any of this baggage you bring into your work. Give yourself a fighting chance and don't bow out without a fight!

I work in a law firm in Delhi and my team did an international commercial arbitration in Singapore recently. We were represented by a Singapore SC but the overwhelming feedback we got from both English and Singapore lawyers working in that arbitration was that Gaurav Pachnanda is India’s foremost and the most formidable international arbitration lawyer, regarded most highly by international lawyers and international arbitrators alike.

Had interned there twice. Make sure you confirm which office you’ll be assigned and they generally ask you for your practice area and assign it to you. Transactions and tax teams are good and the associates were nice when I interned. Chances of getting PPOs are less and the workload isn’t that high. One day is work from home.

I started my career as a Paralegal in a UK-based company, a job I took out of desperation to start earning. After working there for six months and failing to find a position at a law firm, I was again incredibly desperate to begin working within the Indian jurisdiction. I ended up taking a legal associate role at a Virtual Asset Service Provider, which, in hindsight, was a terrible decision.

Now, I find myself in a situation where I've forgotten how to read and analyze the law or case laws, as I'm constantly engaged in mechanical, repetitive tasks, thanks to a toxic boss. I always knew that an in-house setup wasn't for me, but law firms seem unwilling to consider me. With almost one year of PQE, I feel like I haven't developed any real legal skills through either of my two jobs.

I would be truly grateful for any advice that could help me revive my legal career, which currently feels like it's on life support.

Agree with the logic but property law can very easily be overtaken by AI given how procedural it is. It is almost pure paperwork, except disputes maybe and those I'd consider civil law and not property law. Criminal law, property law, constitutional law (including taxation - classification matters) arbitration might be AI proof.

The Chennai office of LEx Aeterna Practices has more or less closed it's operations. They have vacated their office space after their Senior Associate moved out with his team. The firm was already dealing with multiple exits in Mumbai, but their Chennai office has borne the brunt with close to nil matters now.

I knew I F-ed up hard when I graduated law school, especially when most of my tech buddies left India to go abroad. Cut to the present, most of them have PR or settled abroad and enjoying the culture, lifestyle and what not. Meanwhile I am stuck here running from chamber to court to cover some influential idiots backside. So, is it possible for us law folks, especially those not in law firms or corporate, to move abroad while sticking to law ? Not changing careers.

P.S. already have an LLM, & not interested in MBA before the "LLM/PhD/MBA kar le" guy comes in.

I was in the exact same position several years ago. I worked really hard, secured a decent rank in CLAT, and got into a Tier 1 law school (though not the T1 of my choice). Still, I felt no real sense of achievement. I had to move to a city so far from my hometown, and nothing about it felt right. I faced several challenges in uni as well, especially because I had to think 5X before deciding to go home. I constantly questioned my decision to pursue law, as it was costing my parents a fortune.

My two cents: if you are from a well-to-do family and can travel without worrying about costs, maybe it’s worth it, despite the hustle. Even if you’re not, it will be challenging, but in the end, attending a good law school, away from your hometown, teaches you a lot, especially if you meet the right kind of people who you can fit in with. They make everything about law school more bearable.

You think that a technical degree will make you Mark Zuckerberg but that's for markets not education. Do you see Harvard inviting him to be president? Western technological thinkers learn philosophy and other key parts of humanity. They are not being trained mostly for BPO work or building what some Silicon Valley white boy wants. One or two of them make it to thinking spaces but those always learn the humanities. It's okay if you don't want to be a leader but law schools train leaders and thinkers and they need the humanities. Everything else they can learn on their own depending on what path they choose. Modern Indian civil services definitely do not want officers with their own ideas so of course they will look for BPO type people who will do what politicians and the peope funding them want.

A law school, as you rightly pointed out, is required to teach law. But that is the only thing you analysed correctly in your defensive and frankly, misguided written diarrhoea. In a bid to justify why a BA degree makes sense today in a world where a BA degree (absent an LLB degree along with it) is not going to get you any job, let alone a good job, you conflated an LLB degree with a BA-LLB degree. Your entire tirade against people with actual bachelor's degrees (and NO - BA is not a degree, and you cannot convince me otherwise despite 90% of this forum comprising of people with these degrees), Like B.Com, BBA, B.Sc. is very ill-founded too. As you would understand, a bachelor's degree equips you with skills, and not just knowledge. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in say, B.Sc. will inherently possess a better grasp of fundamental logic which is so crucial for any lawyer to be able crystallise legal points and make arguments or draft crisp agreements or memos. While with a BA degree you can indulge in mental masturbation and feel better about having read Marx or some other old fart, it is not going to help you make an argument in court nor draft an agreement. But the fact of the matter is, that law school and the profession of law is agnostic to your bachelor's degree (even though some bachelor's courses may actually give you an edge in real life lawyering - but any hardworking lawyer can and will reach the same level with a bit of brains and hustle regardless of his/ her bachelor's degree). Where regulators have felt the need for a specific bachelor's degree for a specific area of law, they have mandated so - viz patent law. But you seriously cannot make an argument that BA degree is better than B.Sc. or BBA or B.Com or any other 'actual' degree, unless of course, if yourself are a BA graduate and lack the proper analytical skills which typically only 'actual' degrees develop in students.

Also, the argument that what has worked for 10 years doesn't need to be changed is also a faulty argument from the perspective of pure logic - something wrong can keep working for years but still be inefficient - doesn't mean that we shouldn't make our systems more efficient. You may have overlooked this while you were romancing Marx in your reveries while typing out whatever the hell that flowery BS you wrote.

All you need is to clear the AIBE. As long as you do that your degree doesn't stop you from working full time. Sit for AIBE with 9th semester results and put your degree when you get it. Many colleges have delayed results and degrees specially with public universities.

Above comment is incorrect, trainee as a position is not dependent on your degree.

Assuming that you're a first gen lawyer, it will be a very tough transition to leave a T1 law firm (something that people will kill for) and go for a chamber practice (where you will be killed). Better to take a smaller pay cut and move to the disputes team of a lower tier law firm / litigation firm and start your litigation journey there.

In my final year, placements are coming. im from and avg nlu w avg marks and 8-9 decent internships in gencorp and disputes. im interested in disputes but i have no idea what that life will be like and i know that jobs are relatively easier to get in gencorp but might not be as interesting. i havent been able to gauge enough in my internships (as they generally only give research work to interns).

PLEASE HELP, absolutely any insight will be appreciated!!

Hey, final year student here, tier 2 nlu avg marks, with an intent to get into litigation in mumbai. PLEASE let me know of senior advocates who might be hiring/ offering assessment internships. would also appreciate if alternate paths to having a successful commercial litigation practice in mumbai are discussed here.

thanksss

some people in the firm seem to be nice but are extremely toxic and back biters even with one another. one of the associate also shifted all the blame on me and laughed about me being incompetent behind my back. just my opinion tho.

the partners are great mentors for sure. the deals are also very good (at least were when i was interning there)

why do people think they wont be found out, it's so obvious to spot AI generated english. and if people are ok sending AI generated stuff without making an effort humanising it, why are they afraid of speaking in hindi? either way we get to know that the person isnt proficient.