This article is written by Abhyuday Agarwal, COO, LawSikho

Do you dream big? Are you passionate about justice? Does your heart cry out at the state of justice and law and order in this country? Do you want to go beyond personal concerns and make a difference to the community? Do you want to build India’s next big legal startup?

Are you a law graduate looking for a job? Are you a final year law student looking for placements? Are you a working lawyer/ law graduate looking for a fresh start? Are you someone who has a great interest in law? You believe in learning and understanding law as a passion and not just as a profession?

We are working for a cause.

We want to bring justice to everyone’s doorsteps.

We want to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and practical knowledge.

We are building a system of online education which simplifies law to an extent that deepest concepts can be understood by anyone by investing least possible time. We are making a system which will enable young graduates (whether from NLU or not), to get jobs easily and even start their own practice which will be at par with the knowledge of a lawyer with experience of 3 to 5 years. This system will also enable experienced lawyers and professionals to refresh and polish their knowledge.

It will also help young lawyers to get an unprecedented opportunity: to build and get access to a massive community of clients and peers and a chance to reach one million users daily for a noble cause.

We see the resignation lawyers have about the legal profession, the justice system and questions such as how they not being from a national law school will impact their career prospects. This is a universal complaint.

We don’t accept the status quo. We’ve bet our careers to alter this. However, this cause requires much more than individual effort. It does not require one Steve Jobs. It requires an entire Silicon Valley at least to impact the current reality.   

Given the situation, you have three options. You can either sit outside and just blame the current system for not providing enough skills needed in the industry.

Or, you can learn those skills and get some job or start your own work and still sit outside and blame the current system. We offer a lot of courses that will help you to do just that.

But maybe you want to engage on a deeper level. Maybe you are hungry for more. I know there will be very few such people, but if you are one of them, we want you.

You can also join us in this cause, where you will not only acquire skills and take your own expertise to a whole new level but also make a meaningful difference in the state of legal education and access to justice in this country.

We want those who have good communication skills in Hindi or English or both. You must have the law as a passion in your blood. You must be willing to work hard for your passion no matter it is day or night, Monday or Sunday.

Additionally, you need to be willing to unlearn unproductive ways of working and invent yourself newly to deal with bigger challenges at work every day. Hard work alone will not enable you to be a match to the challenge involved.

You will fail on many occasions, so you need the strength to cope up with it mentally.  

Of course, training, guidance and mentorship will be available. The entire work at Lawsikho is about coaching, guiding and enabling people to achieve new levels of success in their careers.   

What will you be doing? Well, we convert law from a mere boring subject to a fun and interesting concept, and a superpower to ensure justice, so we like to hire people who don’t consider it as work but follow it like religion. They eat, breathe, drink and sleep legal education and access to justice.

Take Harsh for an example. He cracked judiciary exams multiple times. He cracked NET JRF and several bank law officer exams but never joined anything, because he wanted something much bigger than a nice, prestigious job. Instead, he works with us to bring a new paradigm to legal education, He owns acres of farmlands – all self-acquired through hard work. He doesn’t have to work for money, but he works for passion. Here is more about his story.

There is a lot of work. Write and edit articles, coach others to do so (once you’re excellent at it),  develop study materials for courses that individuals or top companies use, making an amazing youtube channel or Instagram page. Building institutions. There is a lot to do.

There is a gold rush for legal startups. We are going to change the profession forever. If you have the passion and courage and humility to work through this, we are calling you out.

It does not matter if you read the above and you feel you cannot accomplish the tasks mentioned currently. We know that’s where our reality stands today.

What matters is – “What are you willing to do to learn and be the person you want to be?”

Your answer to this question will determine your growth and shape your future.

If you are interested, apply to [email protected].

Proof: people who work with us go on to do amazing things

While we didn’t run this kind of a program earlier specifically, but I can tell you that those who work with us long term usually go on to do amazing things and are highly in demand in the market. We may be a small company, but the work we do is cutting edge and our standards are very high. If you can learn to meet these high standards, everyone in the market will want you.

Where our former colleagues work now speaks volumes about the kind of training and development they got while working with us.

Amartya Bag: The first team member to join iPleaders. Worked with content and operations. He is now working with SREI Group as a Corporate and Legal Consultant.

Aayush Shrivastava: After iPleaders, he founded Amicus Technologies and got acqui-hired. Also worked at Amazon Web Services and is currently CPO at Startereum Project.

Mohona Thakur: Worked with the marketing team. She is now an Associate at Trilegal, Mumbai.

Aditya Shrivastava: Worked with the marketing team, instrumental in initiating An Hour With Lawsikho, currently an Associate with Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan  

Bhumika Vats: our former sales team member, now runs a company that works in lead generation and sales consulting. Currently CEO, The Empire Consulting Services.

I am missing mentioning many others due to lack of time and space. You know who you are.

What do you have to do during this training period?

You will need to follow our instructions. Take guidance. Reach out if you can’t do something. Don’t sit back to be pulled up. Don’t be quiet and suppressed. Take lead in causing results, even if you have never done that before.

Growth in your career requires growth in you as a person, your ability to take help, to use it, to contribute to others, to deal with problems you can’t solve easily. You will have ample opportunity to perform exactly that.

Daily Tasks

On a daily basis, you will be working on one or more of the following tasks:

• Writing articles for blogs and course chapters, or on the industry (after talking to practitioners). Please be ready to make phone calls.
• Drafting, redacting, analysing or marking-up contracts and documents from other legal proceedings for our courses,
• Giving feedback and coaching (once you develop some proficiency),
• Shadowing experts and coordinating with people in the industry to understand how specific organizations such as banks conduct their operations and the role law plays in that (at a very advanced level)
• Record videos of practitioners to capture insights and knowledge,
• Prepare PPTs and record your videos on the insights you have acquired,
• Research,
• Make content on practical aspects of legal subjects and legal competitive exams,
• Publish and share your ideas and experiences/ learnings with industry

and much more, which we will ourselves discover as we move forward.  

We will ensure you report tasks performed, work completed and results achieved daily. We will give you steep targets to achieve daily. You will be held accountable, even if you hate it. Gradually, you will start using this as a mechanism to support your output and grow yourself.

Want to get a sense of how to go about work? You’ve really got to be a soldier of justice. You’ve got to work like you’re on a mission. You’ve got to become the tag.  

Who will your mentors be?

Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO and Co-founder, Lawsikho

Abhyuday Agarwal, COO and Co-founder, Lawsikho

Komal Shah, Content Head, Lawsikho

Harsh Jain, Senior Associate, Lawsikho

Priyanka Karwa, Operations Manager, Lawsikho

Duration of training

6 months

A task-based training of such duration is necessary. The IT industry has also dealt with a similar problem, of colleges not teaching what is required to be employable and succeed at work. To solve this problem, large IT companies such as Infosys have 6-month long training programs.

We are much younger, leaner and resource-constrained, so the program is not commenced at that scale. It will have more challenging tasks and require a higher level of intensity and effort from your end as well.

Location of work

We have positions in Delhi office at Mehrauli Badarpur Road, next to Saidulajab exit of Saket Metro Station, and Mumbai in Kandivali, where you will need to work from a workspace at Komal’s residence.

If you are interested, please apply to [email protected]. Send us your CV and any write-up of yours which you are proud of. 

Stipend/ Remuneration

First month

There is no stipend in the first month. However, this is the most important phase to go up a steep learning curve.

This month will be the phase to distinguish serious from non-serious candidates.

Don’t take this lightly. We will not continue training those who are not present for work or who take the program lightly.

Surviving this will be the hardest for you.

Don’t pass away time or be absent during this period. We will notice that.

If you are consistently absent, we may not get behind your back, but you should know that the countdown to earning stipend has stopped.    

Second and third month

In the second and third month, you will be paid a stipend of INR 5000 per month. We know this is not enough to sustain in cities like New Delhi or Mumbai, but this is just the start. You will notice your productivity increase. We will count on you for tasks and results.

If you continue working as designed and you are producing results, we will increase your remuneration.

Fourth to sixth month

INR 15,000 – 20000 per month, from 4th to 6th month

Please note that every selected applicant may not successfully complete each phase. The training program for many will be discontinued. However, even for those who are unable to continue, you would have moved forward from where you were earlier. You will know which barriers you need to break, which skills you need to develop further and the responsibility you need to take up for your work, to succeed at any job. When, where and how you wish to develop that will be up to you. In the end, irrespective of the training, resources and inspiration available out there in the world, it really is up to us and no one else, to create the success we want for ourselves.

After 6 months

If you intend to join us after completion of the training, the period of 4th to 6th month will be counted as your probation period and you will get a position as an associate in Lawsikho and remuneration as per industry standards.

The future

Keep in mind that you will need to keep at least 3-5 years’ time to start seeing the impact. Your productivity, achievements, recognition and industry exposure will exponentially expand in this phase. Your remuneration will also increase correspondingly. I can’t even say what that future will look like. We will be a different kind of organization altogether. Much more evolved and advanced. Who knows, you may be leading that phase.

Many of the tasks you perform now in training period will become departments later, where you may grooming people in a team. These will be new kinds of teams doing work on uncharted territory and succeeding at that. (Abhyuday’s book Not a Startup Anymore documents exactly how this happens and the process we follow.)

Don’t believe us? You can hear what our key team members today have to say about their growth journey.

Gareema Ahuja (currently performing a marketing role)

I had joined in November 2015, for managing the iPleaders blog and coordinating the webinars. In October 2016 I was heading sales with 4 members in my team. I do not think any company in India will give the opportunity of such growth in such a short span of time. I not only grew professionally but also discovered my hidden talents. The difference I have made in the life of law students, professionals by just a 20-25 minutes career counselling call inspires me to keep doing the work and improving at it. My dream of impacting people and making a difference in their life becomes a reality with every sales call I make. This was only possible with the training I got from Abhyuday and Ramanuj, the trust they had in my capabilities which I doubted at times and the hard work I put in to achieve the results. The results of the calls I make is firstly good sales and the incentive is I receive Whatsapp, messages on LinkedIn calls thanking me. They share that they got their first job or were promoted because they trusted me and followed the career advice I gave them. This again aligns me with my dream of making a difference in the life of others.      

Komal Shah, Content Head, Lawsikho

I was drawn towards iPleaders by the sheer depth and mindblowing quality of content. I hadn’t seen things so deep explained so simply before. I joined the team as a Content Editor in 2017, just to get access to that. This team does not sleep. It lives its dreams and this quality is infectious. You will be pushed to work far beyond what you think is your capacity and in some time, this will become natural. Over the period, in addition to writing such useful content and building utility based customised courses, the passion made me take up and get involved in making videos, communicating with experts and students, building simulation exercises and lastly, taking highly engaging and interactive online classes. I even led a team of content developers and freelancers who stated that they gained a lot from the group communication and mentoring. As the Content Head, I am now not only a part of but am leading the creation of such content in all forms with a team of three people. Its fulfilling to a crazy extent.

Harsh Jain, Senior Associate, Lawsikho

Being from a non NLU background, I was never confident that I can secure my place in the legal industry. I always wanted to bring some change in the common thinking that only NLU students are worth hiring. When I talked to Ramanuj sir, I was immediately inspired by him and decided to join iPleaders an intern. Abhyuday sir mentored me as an intern and I started seeing a new world where I could develop my potential, contribute and grow. I also worked with Komal ma’am who inspired me a lot.

It was not all nice and easy – scolding from Abhyuday sir and support from Komal mam moulded my career and took it to new heights.

Very soon, I managed a few interns as an intern group leader, then an intern manager, then I was included in the content team, then I became a senior associate.

I realized that with proper guidance and training anybody can do anything. I never thought that I can manage 30-35 interns at a time, but with trust and support of Abhyuday sir, I did that also. I never imagined that I will make some courses of my own, but here I did and I am doing that also. I never thought that I’ll teach advocates having experience of 10 to 20 years and can contribute to them.

Priyanka Karwa, Operations Manager, Lawsikho

I have been a part of iPleaders from the past 3.5 years. I started with being an executive handling a small part of iPleaders Club with some back-end jobs to being a manager of Customer Support. The job slowly became customer facing as well. As work grew, I started building an operations team. The work has been increasingly demanding as we are adding new aspects every day to enable students to succeed, but it has also been exciting and rewarding. Every day is challenging here because we do not stop with just being excellent in what we do, we dare to challenge ourselves with what’s unconventional, to expand results and impact at the level of legal education in the country. We are not there yet, but we have started, and our students will tell you that. We work on delivering more than what’s expected from a regular online course. My tasks in the past 3.5 years have challenged every capability within me, that I was unaware of possessing within me. Every day was one step taken towards a BETTER ME! I am proud of being a part of this team. I can no longer imagine being elsewhere!

Everyone above has contributed to the organization’s growth, led teams, and ensured our evolution and raised the bar for legal education in the country.

The conversation you didn’t have with your parents or teachers (in school or in law school)

Before signing off, we want to share something with you. Abhyuday was having a conversation yesterday with Daisy, our team member who evaluates and coaches students on performing exercises about the components of what a successful career is about.

It really was broken down into the following:

• Earnings – How much do you earn?
• Position – What is your designation in the organization?

The above two criteria are often the most visible criteria used to determine what everyone looks at for jobs. However, if any of the factors below are missing, it can lead to tremendous dissatisfaction or instability at work:

• Level of responsibility – What are you accountable to produce?
• Impact – What is the impact your work has on the industry, economy, community ecosystem, or society?
• Meaning – What is the meaning your work holds for you?

Our culture does not emphasize looking at careers this way, but at Lawsikho we are deeply aware of it. When nothing else works, this is the fuel that enables us to continue performing the work we do. Often, it leads to new breakthroughs, the creation of new industry standards. That’s how we stay at the cutting edge, and you can, too.  

We live our lives too, by the way. The team comprises of all sorts of people – mothers who work from home, married people, single mothers, everyone.

If you are interested write to [email protected] with your CV. We may give you a task to perform or an article to write.