There are a plethora of options available to law graduates of the National Law Universities in India. While popular perception of the practice of law—especially among the generation that grew up in the 1960s and 1970s—is that of litigation and practising in courts, the picture today is very different. The change has occurred mostly due to a paradigm shift in how law is taught and an increase in specialised practices. Given below are some of the various options available to law graduates.
It is the classic path, often pictured as the purest form of the practice of law. Litigation involves visiting courts and pleading for justice. This career usually begins as a junior to an established advocate and then progresses toward independent practice. Litigation also includes non-court work such as drafting agreements, affidavits, and wills. This path suits those who have a penchant for speaking and who enjoy the challenge of working with the many personalities involved in arguing a case.
Corporate law firms are a recent phenomenon in post-liberalisation India. These firms focus solely on drafting and facilitating agreements required for corporations to be able to carry out their work. They also help in making investor agreements and shareholder agreements. In an environment where FDI is increasing, the demand and need for corporate lawyers are only set to increase. The hours are long and the work is demanding, but the compensation rightly makes up for it!
A lot of corporations have their own legal teams and prefer to do their compliance work by themselves without outsourcing it to other firms. Such corporations hire law graduates who can be assured of a career that is specialized in a particular legal field.
The judiciary is the most important part of a just state and of course, all judges were once lawyers themselves. Law graduates can enter the judiciary right from the start or enter the judiciary after completing the required number of years of practice.
There are several other careers that one can pick up being in a law school. The above are simply indicative and a small list of them. Law graduates from the NLUs also choose civil services as a viable option. Several graduates have begun entering the fields of management consultancy and investment banking as well. Another trend that has caught up in the past decade or so has been that of entrepreneurship and in fact, many successful ventures have been started right when students were in college! As always, higher education and academia are also popular choices amongst those who are interested in the academic side of the law.
The possibilities after an education at an NLU are virtually endless. The atmosphere, peer group, alumni and faculty are all factors that aid in helping a student make a sound choice about what he or she would like to do after five years of top-quality education.
