Because of relative isolation while studying, single-minded focus on marks and hyper-competitive attitude?

I’m sorry if I rustle any feathers, but I had to ask this question. The same thing is being said on many IIT and Kota forums on Reddit, so just wondering if it also applies to law?

Also, by poor social skills, I don’t necessarily mean being shy. It can include being toxic towards girls. We have unfortunately seen many examples of this, including a CLAT topper who was once publicly called out on social media by a girl some years ago. Plus tons of examples on Medium etc.

There are now tons of executive and hybrid courses offered by the top IIMs, with very low admission requirements. I see a lot of people doing these and adding it to their LinkedIn bios. From what I understand, graduates of these courses are included in the IIM alumni network. Does this help? Is the IIM A/B tag enough, regardless of the course? Or are only MBA graduates who entered through CAT preferred? Any insights?

BTW here is an article on Navya Nanda. It says:

Actor Amitabh Bachchan's granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda recently announced her admission to the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad. Following her announcement, many online users were curious about her CAT percentile, which helped secure her spot at the prestigious institute.

One X user, tagging an associate professor at IIM Ahmedabad, asked, “Prof Promila Agarwal, Navya making it to IIMA news on SM is going big. Did she really get those crazy 99.99 percentile? (sic)”

The professor responded to the query and wrote, "She got a solid CV btw*. You don’t necessarily need CAT. Link**. Irrespective, hats off to everyone for being courageous enough to sign up for a rigorous program (sic)." She also joked about the 'hard life' at IIM Ahmedabad, adding, "PS: Just like other students, looking forward to her posts cribbing abt hard life at IIMA (laughing emoji)."

In a follow-up post, Professor Promila shared a link describing the ‘Eligibility Criteria’ for Navya’s course, the Blended Post Graduate Programme (BPGP). To gain admission, one must be a working professional or entrepreneur with at least 3 years of full-time work experience. Applicants should be at least 24 years old (there is no upper age limit) and hold a bachelor’s degree, CA, CS, ICWA, or a similar qualification (with at least 15 years of schooling).

IMO I don't think AI can take over entire practices of law. Even the most mundane, process-driven practices require human 'cleverness' from time-to-time, and I don't think AI models are there yet (and when they do get there, we should all join Elon on Mars 'cause, you know, Skynet).

What AI can replace right now is certain process like due diligence reviews.

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.

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.

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

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.

I don't think that the demand supply mismatch can be disputed. There are now tons of NLUs, plus Jindal, Symbiosis, BITS, Bennett etc. Batch sizes keep increasing, quotas keep increasing. Yet, the number of jobs is not increasing. In fact, the number of jobs may even shrink with AI. So do certain predatory men take advantage of this and try casting couch-practices? Or are Indian law firms extremely ethical, transparent and honest when it comes to recruitment?

The 'now' is redundant for the reason that he's been doing big litigation matters for a while since Luthra. Not many disputes lawyers have a background in project finance and general corporate law - obviously this goes a long way. Lekin yeh sab theek hai.. pehle batao ki why are you curious now?

Been there when I started out as an associate. Made mistake after mistake even very stupid and silly mistakes. But after many years of working, what's helped me

- Accepting that mistakes will be made especially when you're starting out. Every time you look at your own draft or someone else's draft, there will be mistakes. Even partners make these mistakes. That just means that you're learning. Eventually you learn the difference between big mistakes and small mistakes and learn to make sure that there are no big mistakes and live with the smaller ones.

- For smaller mistakes, I built a habit of checking things thrice (drafts, e-mails, messages, comments to be incorporated etc.). It would take more time initially but this reduced and I just didn't make as many small mistakes anymore. It helped to also write down all the points on paper and keep crossing them out to make sure nothing is missed. For eg. all discussion points that needed to be incorporated in the draft or e-mail or even for proof reading, I would write down redundant words I needed to search and delete so that I wouldn't miss it.

- I realised that I was putting too much pressure on myself to perform as per some vague standards set by my seniors and was told many times how other people could work better than me, so I was constantly afraid which just led to more mistakes. I would blame myself for not being able to do even simple things which I now know was because of mental stress. Once I let go of these expectations from people and decided to work as per what I thought was the best approach and confirming that with seniors, things improved significantly and my work and work relationships improved a lot.

Hope this helps. All the best.

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!

hellos to everyone reading this. i am a second year student at a mumbai based college which is not particularly famous in any sense of the word. i'm looking to make the most of the time i have in law school to break into a tier 1 (one has to be ambitious).

i'd love to hear your thoughts! just to add some context: i am currently a cs executive student, with a publication in a journal (more incoming). i am allured by competition law so for the sake of this discussion that's the practice i want to break into.

no trolls please and thank you.

What? Can you explain? Isn't it much better to retain the same lawyers you have spent years training instead of having them absorb useful skills at your firm and lose it to another? I understand the coming in of new lawyers as a way for a firm to thrive, but not losing lawyers. The only case where attrition makes sense is if lawyers quit/are fired as A0s for poor attitude, since much time hasn't been invested in training them anyway and they are highly fungible for new hires.

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 ▮▮▮

OP here - if you can somehow pivot to a corporate litigation practise of your own and build even a decent sized client base - nothing like that. However operationally seen it to be very tough for first gen lawyers. Some of us have real bills to pay - cannot afford to not earn anything for the initial even 5 years - even if you aren’t supporting your parents. I am sorry if I don’t have better answers - me and many people my age are in a similar flux. No one wants to be 32 and out of a high paying job but the reality is in front of our eyes.

C2 at Trilegal here - absolutely attest to what the guy’s saying - partnerships tracks? Forget about it? Any ounce of stability? Forget about it. Also if you are an A0 who has gotten placed a big firm - just know - they are already discussing about cutbacks. M&A as a practise is literally BLEEDING.

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.