Personal Experience
Legal
Society
Law
India
Social Commentary
Career Advice
Caste System
Legal Profession
Bar hierarchy
Arranged marriage
After 13 years in the legal profession in India as a first generation litigating lawyer my two bit is this. If you have no fathers or uncles in the profession DONT JOIN. There is a very clear almost caste like hierarchy that permeates the Bar. You will not get access to the
Good briefs irrespective of how good or bad you are! Uncle judges will treat their nephews differently. In the arranged marriage market which is 90 pc of all marriages in india you would have no currency. The situation would be even worse if your parents are middle class.
There is also a very clear hierarchy at the Bar. Those with fathers and uncles in the legal profession are treated differently. Especially if you are a woman you should not even bother trying. The Corporate sector is not fair in many ways but if you want to gain some experience
From it and build a start up you are ultimately only responsible to the customers. Here the person sitting in judgement over your arguments is someone who is very much a part of this nepotistic system and hence, it is very tough to expect a sympathetic hearing. Also consider
The percentage of senior counsels in India plus judges who are second generation or third generation practitioners of law. It is worse than Bollywood and ultimately even Bollywood cannot bar the entry of talented outsiders beyond a certain extent because it is answerable
To the paying public. The legal system and lawyers are answerable to nobody. Contrary to what we are told in public. The truth is that our legal system is a miserable failure when it comes to providing justice to the citizens. Pendency rates and the predilection of judges to
Interfere in mechanisms like arbitration means that our record when it comes to enforcing contracts is worse than Pakistan and Sudan. There are very many other careers in india that are more meritocratic. Ultimately why would anybody in their right minds crack the CLAT
Slog at a national law school only to brief senior and junior counsels who have graduated from Amity Law School and whose only qualification is that they were born to the right parents. Our legal system is as bad if not worse than the Congress party because at least within
The Congress there are murmurs against dynastic entitlement while in the legal profession there are none. Advice to all young people is that there is no point in aspiring to be part of a rapidly failing system that works on the principle of dynastic entitlement. Better to set
Up one's own business or become Instagram influencers. Will achieve quick success. Last bit of advice is to all the girls out there who read Simone Beauvoir and feel that they are going to change things when they become lawyers. Well you will do no such thing. You will spend the
Best years of your life slogging 14 hours a day for a wage equal to what a janitor gets paid. It is a waste of your education, potential and life. Dont make the mistake :) End of Rant!
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