In this blog post, Mr Sharath Sampat, the Founding Partner and Advocate at S.K. Associates  and a Mentor at Project Abhimanyu attempts to differentiate between the different legal career choices that are available to a law graduate. Project Abhimanyu acts as an external placement cell that guides a student about the available career options and job opportunities as well as helps them apply for internships and jobs. 

Query: I’m stuck with too many options at hand. I’m a first generation lawyer and I’m confused between going for a Masters degree (Cyber, IPR or ADR), sit for Judicial Service Examinations (after preparing for 8-10months) or start under a Real Estate Lawyer (The ever rising property disputes intrigue me). It would be really helpful if I’m able to get some guidance in choosing my path as all the experience from your high esteemed panel would be an advantage.

Answer:

I believe that you are confused as to whether you would like to study further, pursue being a career judge or join a practice.

From a perusal of your CV, it seems that you have had basic exposure to all courts in Delhi including the Supreme Court as well as participated in various programmes. The exposure, however, is varied and does not in my opinion truly pinpoint to what which field of law you are more inclined towards.

The question, however remains, what would you do next?

The first and foremost thing that you need to answer is do you see yourself at the bar or bench. i.e. to say have you ever felt that you would want to be a judge or would you enjoy arguing different types of cases before different judges in various forums? From your email as well as your CV it is also not very clear as to whether you want to be a litigation or a corporate lawyer.

Higher education in a specialised field of law is no doubt something you can consider if you feel you would want to be a specialist in the corporate sector or become an in-house counsel of a company, however, if your intention is to be a litigation lawyer, an LLM may not be of that much use initially as you should join a chamber or a law firm which has its practice in varied kinds of cases be it criminal or civil and for a first generation lawyer in today’s competitive environment more exposure to different types of cases would also help you understand what interests you more i.e. your areas of interests at present or maybe something totally different which you may not have considered due to lack of exposure towards the same or due to the fact that it would not have been a part of your curriculum in college.

I would personally be an example of the above as when I graduated, I wanted to be an in-house counsel for a company, however, I decided to give litigation a shot before moving on to what I had initially planned, and as luck would have it I truly enjoyed myself in litigation and then there was no looking back.

Thus, the conclusion of the above is if you see yourself as a judge work towards that and if you see yourself as a lawyer then follow that path.