One Thing I Wish Law Students Knew: What It Takes To Build A Legal Career

I wish law students knew not to worry. I wish they knew that everything will work out. I wish they knew to chase what they liked rather than what they thought they should do. I wish they knew all the possibilities and options that were out there for them after graduating from law. That it wasn’t just about trying to get a good job at a good firm. That disputes wasn’t something you could pursue only if you had a lot of family money, connections in the profession, or a big “godfather.” It wasn’t something you could do only if you had lineage or heritage. I wish law students knew that.

Internships and Finding What You Want

I wish law students knew that they should treat their internships like a job, and not just as something to go to, hang out at, and come back from. I wish law students knew that even if they were in a firm or chambers that wasn’t giving them much work, or if they felt unequipped to do the work, they should still actively seek it out and work all day and all night, if they had to, to do their best. Not to help the chambers or the firm they were in, but to help themselves.

This would not only prepare them much better for the jobs or the work they would eventually take up, but would also develop them psychologically and mentally to be prepared to work incredibly hard, which is a basic requirement of the legal profession. It would also help them decide what kind of work they eventually wanted to do, where they wanted to work, how they wanted to work, and under whom they might want to work, whether in a particular firm or department, a company, an investment fund, an asset reconstruction company, or in another country.

And if in another country, then what did they want to do there? Further education? Work? Something else? All these things. Making those decisions requires you to follow your heart, but also to acquire as much information as possible to help you decide what it is that your heart actually wants. And the best way to do that is not just to do internships, but to treat your internship like the most important job anyone in the world could ever have. And once again, I say: it is not to help the firm or the chambers you are in. It is to help yourself develop and, most importantly, to help yourself decide what you want, which is the most important thing.

Learning How to Approach People

One thing I wish law students knew is how to navigate the profession, how to ask for help, and how to approach seniors, whether they are partners, counsel, senior counsel, or anyone else. Most people are not as unapproachable as students may think. There is simply a way to go about it, which is very difficult to know between the ages of 18 and 24 and takes some time to understand. The emails I get from law students are sometimes mass emails in which I have clearly been BCCed, or general emails saying, “I would like to work at your esteemed firm.” I don’t even have a firm. Or they begin with “Dear Sir/Madam.” I am, in fact, more tolerant of these things than most people are when it comes to these kinds of emails. I think most people, if they don’t have a firm and receive an email saying, “I would like to work at your esteemed firm,” won’t even read further. I still normally try to read the email, look at the CV, and understand the person for myself.

But even to me, it signals that the person hasn’t put in the basic effort required to send a proper email. Why would they put in the work if I took them on as an intern? And, by the way, lots of lawyers and junior lawyers send these kinds of emails even when applying for jobs as junior advocates. Terrible. It signals to everybody who receives the email that this person isn’t even willing to put in the minimum effort required to send one properly. Why would they put in the effort once they are on the job? I wish law students knew that. I also wish law students knew that partners and counsel are absolutely accessible if you approach them correctly. You can find almost everybody’s number online. You can WhatsApp them. But once you WhatsApp them, or call them, you should speak smartly, sensibly, and properly. You should be able to send a short message of just a few lines explaining why they should take you. This kind of thing, I guess, is difficult to be good at when you’re that young. But some people are good at it.

I think I was pretty good. It is something you can learn, and something students should consciously focus on learning. Most people are very approachable if you know how to talk to them and know what to do. And I don’t mean “what to do” in some complicated sense. Just how to be proper and professional, and how to come across as intelligent and hardworking.

Loving the Law and Understanding the People at the Top

I also wish law students knew that they should have an interest in, and a love for, the law. The law should be something they love and are interested in. And I don’t mean merely studying it from textbooks. I mean studying it in society, learning about its history, its implications, and its philosophy, rather than merely learning the law itself. Let me put it this way: if they are not interested in the history and philosophy of law, then maybe they should either choose a different career or a career that is law-adjacent.

If you work for an asset reconstruction company, for example, it is law-adjacent in a sense. If you work in government or the bureaucracy, it is law-adjacent in a sense. It is not the practice of law. And maybe those are also very good careers and options that students should know about. I wish law students knew that the really big idols who make hundreds of crores of rupees are also human beings, with similar, if not the same, insecurities, vulnerabilities, and beliefs that those students have. The really, really big people, whether it is Mukul Rohatgi, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Harish Salve, Cyril Shroff, or Zia Mody, all have insecurities and beliefs of their own. Even the biggest senior counsel, if you watch their interviews and podcasts and so on, whether it is the late Fali Nariman or, in Bombay, Janak Dwarkadas, or whoever else, seem to share a common theme. Even they are nervous when they first start arguing a case, and then they talk about going into a flow state once the arguments begin. But when they start, there is nervousness. And I guess that is indicative of the fact that everybody is a human being and everybody has the same mental barriers to overcome. I wish law students knew that.

What separates the people at the very top is that they are extremely hardworking and that they love what they do. They love the law. They love the history of the law. They love the philosophy of the law. Their psychology is such that failure, whether in a case, with a client, or in anything else, does not cause them so much emotional distress that it impedes them from achieving their goals. Which brings me to my next point.

Failure and Goals

I wish law students knew that they should not be defeated by failure. If they apply to a hundred places and are rejected, that doesn’t mean anything for the hundred-and-first place. They have just learned that much more. Since they are law students and not lawyers yet, I wouldn’t talk about losing cases or losing deals, but if they fail at whatever it is they are trying to achieve, that should not defeat them. I also wish law students knew about goal-setting and how important it is to set goals. Short-term goals, medium-term goals, long-term goals, everything. If you have big enough goals, then you don’t really need motivation or willpower.

The goal itself is strong enough to pull you toward it. You don’t have to force yourself to do anything. If anything, you would have to fight yourself not to do the things required to achieve those goals once you have set them firmly in your mind. That is how strong the pull can be. I wish law students knew that they could set whatever goal they wanted, work toward it, and achieve it. That they will achieve it.