As someone who did this, don’t do it without a few years of work experience atleast. A T1 job is not worth throwing away for the CSE gamble unless you’re 100% sure you will never want to return to corp for money and other perks. Unless you get IAS/IFS or maybe IPS, the rest of the services have work profiles that are as dull and even more thankless in terms of pay and prestige and you will be treated as if you didn’t even succeed in the exam. And I’m sure even you’ll feel the same way if you don’t get a top 100 rank and crack the top 2-3 services. Even IPS officer repeatedly attempt the exam year after year for rank improvement which tell you all you need to know about the design of this exam.

Big mistake. Huge. There is so much luck built into an exam like UPSC, I dont know why anyone would give up on a whole career path to take years off to prepare for it. Its one thing if you dont have a job generally- then yeah, you can use your time to prepare for exam and try and crack it. But to give up a career on the offchance you might get really really lucky and be- what?- a babu? ridiculous trade.

Woxen and SLSN are good but there are other good in Hyderabad like Mahindra University- Law (they are the one having some of the very good collabs apart from JGLS); BML Munjal and BITS. Christ Banglore one has got good ranking too. Sai Chennai can be a good pick, in 5 years, I am sure they would have a different reputation. Apart from these, VIT Chennai and VIT AP is very promising given their leadership and curriculum.

Comeback when AI will be able to deal with requirements like collecting all backups, going through them to ensure all are in place, how to tackle the situation when the relevant backups aren’t there. When AI is able up understand when a fire noc or an SE license is not required or is it okay If we skip the part regarding the years of experience of a kmp or smp a lot of these things bankers get done with the regulators on the side, it’s very subjective how a transaction in cap marks ultimately plays out. If AI will eat sth up, it’ll eat up the plain simple drafting jobs in PE-VC, M&A.

Yeah agree. I hope AI does something so we have to slog lesser. But it’s not there yet. There are far too many complications and PandCs for AI to handle as of now. In India it can’t happen in two weeks, period. Would take at least a month or more, depending on the kind of issues.

People keep asking this over and over again. Perhaps because they're so nervous about their futures. But the truth is, no one can know enough details about your individual profile to give you a good answer.

What people can tell you generally is that getting a good GPA- in the top third of your class from a top university means you will be able to land a job at a big law firm just because of that.

If you don't have either of those things- a top GPA or a top university—you will have to work significantly harder. It's unlikely that large firms looking to hire a bunch of people based on short interviews will trust you have the skills because you don't have the GPA or the university. They have no reason to believe that you can do the work. You can try and assure them in the interview, but every single student with a low GPA believes it doesn't reflect their true qualities and will make the same argument.

Your best bet, if you don't have a top GPA or a top university, is to choose one mid-sized firm or litigator and intern with them multiple times for a long period of time. Build trust with them so they will prefer to hire someone they know, someone they know can do the work, than a stranger with a decent gpa. Its going to be hard. Many places will let you intern endlessly without even discussing your career. You should take the initiative to be direct. Ask them pointed questions and refuse to let them get away with evading an answer. Do it in a way that is professional and not entitled.

Instead of repeatedly asking strangers on internet to assure you about insecurities- just think about what an employer would want from an employee, and then try to become that.

hi interned at phoenix earlier, few things to know:

- they have a pool system there for interns, i.e. you are not assigned teams. 4th/5th year interns did get assigned teams a week in, but most of them did not get their first preference and were sent to disputes.
- you need to go to associates desks multiple times daily to ask for work, you can try mailing too, it works sometimes. try within the first week to build a rapport with the associates in the team you want to intern with, they will call you for work themselves once they're able to trust you. phoenix takes ALOT of interns so its important that you have 1-2 associates who regularly assign you work. makes life easy.
- there is very limited contact with partners. some junior partners did interact with the interns tho. if you are going to the internship through a partner, you can ask the HR to meet them.
- if you are interested in getting an assessment (4-5th year), you can ask the hr towards the end of the internship. she will ask the team you worked with and according to their review you be considered. when i was at the firm only one assessment intern got an offer out of 4-5 people.

i barely worked with gen corp and there are some young associates there who most interns had negative experiences with some of the younger associates. b&f and disputes team are really good tho.

Looking at the comments so far, sad that there are always people trying to get you down. Here are my two cents - please bear in mind though that I don't have exactly comparable experience, as I haven't prepared for civils, but I have hired (good) candidates who had career breaks due to UPSC prep.

1. You mentioned you've been at a T-1 firm for 6 months, I'd suggest you stay for at least 6 more months (if not more, if that works from your UPSC age limit perspective), rounding your work experience out to a year (if not more). If UPSC doesn't work out and you want to get back into private corporate practice (firms or in-house), the more law firm experience you have, the more desirable you will be as a candidate for both firms and in-house roles.

2. For the remaining duration that you choose to stay in your T-1 role, I'd advise against trying to prep simultaneously. In my experience, multi-tasking is a myth and humans do better when they are concentrating on one thing at a time. Instead, focus on doing a good job at work, build a network to the extent you can (don't stop staying in touch with your network during civils prep either), and save whatever you can - ensuring respectively that when you leave, you will have some goodwill that can help you land opportunities if UPSC doesn't work out, including a return to the same team if that is what you want + providing you a financial cushion.

3. Set an outer limit for the number of unsuccessful civils attempts you will allow yourself, so you know when it's time to activate your backup plans.

4. Also assess how easy it was for you to land your T-1 job. The sad but brutal truth is that at least for folks who pivot to law firms after unsuccessful civils attempts, it's easier for candidates from more established colleges to get a foot in the door (at least an interview, trainee associate position etc.) than others. For e.g., my post UPSC prep hires (with several years of prep) were from well-ranked NLUs.

5. Accept that should you choose to return to private practice, there will be a hit to your PQE as nothing but work experience will be counted towards that.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Some differently abled students had asked SBA and UGC (as well I guess) to specifically direct all teachers to not give SCC copies but only manupatra copy or other OCR enabled copies as reading materials for the sake of accessibility. I don't think that was implemented back then. Nevertheless, SB the labour law professor and later even RS, the corporate law professor acknowledged this and was sharing accessible copies only. Don't know what is happening now.

Nothing personal, imo. There are such partners across firms who dont take resignations well (and end up proving to you even more the exact reasons why you quit) but then you’re on notice, who gives a fuck? Take it head on, and leave happily, thats what hurts them the most, not seeing the associates get hurt

It's been few months into tier 1 law firm and I have been often get looks by seniors when I say I don't have bandwidth. My peers at other teams also says it is brave of me to tell it in a blunt manner. They often take more work then they can handle and though they are able to deliver most of the time, they get chided for delay or quality. On the other hand, I feel I need time to learn things and it is difficult for me to handle multiple things at once. But even I have got remarks that I shouldn't say that I don't have bandwidth on senior's face. Instead try to hint at it indirectly. I don't understand what is wrong with saying it directly when you know that you cannot handle workload. Further, if I should say it indirectly or hint at it, how should it be? My rationale is that it is lesser evil to not commit to do the work and let the senior give it to someone else, than to commit to take up the work and do it in such a way that the senior would have to re-do it again. Also if I am not sure about whether I can balance the workload or not, should I just take it up anyways and face the consequences of a bad work or say I might not be able to do it. Idk how you all are able to handle this. At one point you have to be 100% accurate pulling out every law, rules and notifications etc and at the same time you have to do it in record time, managing multiple stuff. But somehow I see seniors are able to manage it because I have never heard them saying they don't have bandwidth to their partners.

+ Khurana & Khurana, Wadia Ghandy, Singhania, Supreme Court, PwC, EY, GT, KPMG, RBI, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM).

Two things to remember: The first batch has completed its 7th semester, and the batch sizes are just under 40. Law firms are starting to assign work integrating forensics and law to NFSU Law students (the niche is important and high value).

There aren’t a lot of firms that specialize in Corp law in Chennai, in comparison to the other Tier 1 cities at least. The ones that practice Corp don’t pay that great excepting a few. That being said, I think ICUL pays around 45-50K to a fresher, however I’m not 100% sure, I could be wrong. The best paying firms in Chennai for Corp are probably KCO, AZB, SAM, and maybe LKS.

1.1k rank in clat, i might get MNLU M by vacancy but its a tough bet. Did not get SLSP, got SLSN. Got offer letter from jindal but idts im gonna qualify for scholarship. Id consider bits but again scholarship is an issue. Im from mumbai and dont want to go to a tier 2 or worse city unless the college is wow. and im from a middle class family a little above middle class id say, my dad doesnt exactly work that much but my mom is in the corporate banking world at a good position and has contacts. Im looking for a college that had corporate placements and good exposure. If i dont get mnlu m, should i go for NMIMS, GLC or SLSN?

Yes, while mainstream T-1 firms may not be hiring actively, there are many firms which don't freeze hiring until the end of your final year. For instance, Bharucha & Partners, JSA, Tatva Legal, Tuli & Co., AP&Partner, Acuity Law, S&A Law Offices, S&P, Keystone etc.

(This list is based on the EOIs received, may or may not be true for every batch)

Idk what the original comment was, but man, just check your privilege at the door and stop invalidating other people’s experience.

I really hope and pray for people like you to have extended durations of discomfort doing some dogshit job like lawyering which is really just a family business for the privileged class, in order to just create some financial comfort for you and your family.

Maybe then you’ll understand.

Go with Rahul's. The fee is defintley on the higher side, no denying that but the course is also longer as compared to other coaching instiutions and it is worth it. They have a set time table for classes, provide notes and other study material. The teachers are good. Other coaching institutes will finish the course sooner by not teaching you half of the syllabus. Now it is for you to decide which one you want join. Hope this helps.