“Who-wants-to-be-the-next-Amarchand-partner” or well maybe NOT!!!

It is a bug that bites a few. Yet if it does, it is very hard to aim at a riddance.

The politics of alternative careers, the strife to seek beyond the usually artificially hallowed portals of engineering or medicine, is in itself a quest of sorts. It is not usually a road to be taken to assuage your guardians or ameliorate your otherwise disastrous performance in the more traversed of paths. This road is oft the one less traversed however sure footed one might be.

This road for the present discussion is a career in law and aiming to strive at cracking a law school entrance. It basically translates into achieving a rank good enough to catapault you into the top law schools of the country. What transpires in the intervening period when you are undecided about your career option is best left unsaid since the drudgeries of many are out on our portal in the form of stories by various aspirants. However, it is indeed imperative that we, law school-ites, look at the mission behind Law Schools being set up in this country.

Madhava Menon’s concept behind the first law school at Bangalore was to create social engineers. However, as the criticism often goes, our law schools have become automated assembly lines of sorts, churning out corporate lawyers year after year. This is typically what I would call the:

“Who-wants-to-be-the-next-Amarchand-partner” RACE.

There are indeed other things to do in law school than those activities usually classified as CV building exercises. Looking at some of my batch-mates who helped draft an entire legislation (multiple codes) for the country or those who compiled UN Country Reports I can say that these are indeed such examples.

[However when most students are burdened with a student loan since all NLUs charge a fees upward of Rs. 100, 000 per year with the highest being in WBNUJS of an exorbitant Rs. 200,000 + how does one expect a 23 year old to say no to the ‘forbidden apple’ of a Rs. 15 Lakhs job?]

The inner self of those who can look beyond the corporate firm usually is prey to a dilemma.

“It must be by his death. And for my part

I know no personal cause to spurn at him

But for the general.  He would be crowned:

Now that might change his nature, there’s the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder

And that craves wary walking. Crown him that,

And then I grant we put a sting in him..

And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg

(which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous)

And kill him in the shell.”

-Brutus. Act II Scene I, “Julius Caesar”, OUP 2003 16^th ed. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Something a lot of people often ponder about is whether a transactional lawyer’s job is one suited to law school-ites. I believe it surely is. Is it that easy to be involved in the most complex of deals and advisory positions?

Every career path that one might choose shall be chequered and a learning experience. If corporate is your ambition go ahead without pangs of guilt and self pity.

However, there indeed is a world beyond the race I mentioned above.

We shall bring to fore such a world through an interview with Mr. Aditya Singh, Commonwealth Scholar 2011, Nalsar Class of 2011. Someone who got into both Yale Law School and Cambridge. More about him and more from him about alternate career choices after law school in an interview with Aditya.

COMING SOON! ….