Internships for Hindi Medium Law Students

May 25, 2019

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Image Source - http://microbiology.science.oregonstate.edu/bhs-410-internship

The Article is written by Bhavna Singh, Fairfield School of Law, Kapashera affiliated to Indraprastha University, Delhi.

In the article, the author has discussed many law firms and legal institutions where people talk in Hindi. She has provided contact details of some institutions where Hindi Medium students can apply for internships.

I am from Hindi medium background. When I decided to pursue law, it was a big decision for me because I was worried about studying everything in English.

In my 12th standard, I had English but only as a subject. I was afraid if I could be able to do study law in English for 5 years. I prepared hard, attended regular classes to improve my English, took law entrance and then somehow I managed. During the initial period though, it was tough for me to compete with the people who were habitual of speaking English. Doing projects in English was also a challenge and I constantly worried about falling behind those who studied in English medium schools.

When it came to internships, I was afraid again because I had heard that we have to work and talk only in English. We can’t even speak in Hindi in law firms!

However, I realized later that there are many organizations where you don’t have to be fluent in English even if you work as a lawyer. There are NGOs, district court lawyers and trial lawyers and advocates doing property related work who actually do all their work in Hindi or other local languages depending on the state or locality.

I remember when I worked with a well known supreme court lawyer, some associates there used to talk in Hindi and interns were not forced to talk in English. Even when I interned with Senior Advocate Salman Khurshid, Many people there used to speak in Hindi.

In the legal world, English is a priority. It is the language of record in High Courts and the Supreme Court. It is also a sine qua non if you want to work in transactional law firms. However, in district courts and all sorts of local government works are done in the local language, and lawyers with a superior grasp of the local language have a great advantage in these things. In fact, practising criminal law in any state is next to impossible without being able to read and write the local vernacular language.

However, there are law students who study law in the Hindi medium. They find further challenges, especially when it comes to internships. Where can they intern?
Recently, Ramanuj Mukherjee, founder of iPleaders, was approached by few Hindi medium law students after he delivered a keynote speech at Dehradun Law College. All of them complained about how it is terribly difficult for them to get internships because they did not study in English medium law colleges.

After this, Ramanuj floated a message on LinkedIn asking which lawyers and law firms were willing to take such students for internship. The response was very encouraging. I am listing out the names and contact details for benefit of Hindi medium law students.

If you know more places, please share name and details in comments. Let us build a comprehensive list of lawyers and law firms that are willing to take Hindi medium law students as interns.

I am sharing the contacts details of the same.