In this article, Maanvi Jain of ILS Pune discusses life in a corporate law firm.
Introduction
Corporate Law Firms are prevalent in India for a long time such as Khaitan since 1911, and Amarchand & Mangaldas since 1917. However only after NLSIU was established in 1986 by the efforts of Karnataka government and the Bar Council of India and other National Law Universities later, that students were acquainted with this new option of working in a law firm. Litigation and Judicial services were the main courier options in front of law students before that. However, after liberalization and globalization in the 1980s, many legal issues arose and therefore, more corporate law firms were established.
In comparison to litigation, it seems like a normal desk job with better pay and less risk. Â But it has its own pros and cons.
Life as an Intern in a Corporate Law Firm
First Day as an Intern
Most of us who have worked as an intern in a Tier- 1 corporate law firm, know of the nervousness of the first day of entering that big building. Usually, an intern is made to wait in a room to receive the basic instructions. By the time a person from Human Resource department comes, who is usually the one to introduce the interns to the firm, you look at the other nervous interns and get acquainted with them. The HR gives the basic instructions on the rules and guidelines of the firm like the timings to enter and leave, the way to issue library books, the measures for the safety of women employees, transport facilities etc. Some firms even provide a brief about itself – it’s organizational structure- whether a partnership or LLP, the fields in which it specializes, it’s founders etc. However, the interns are most taken aback when they are provided with some additional documents besides the internship worksheet like the confidentiality agreement and the disclosure of assets agreement.
The main purpose of the confidentiality agreement is to not disclose information provided by the firm to the interns during their course of internship which is valuable to the firm and of commercial interest. It sometimes comes as a clause within the Non-Disclosure agreement.
The Disclosure of Assets agreement is incomprehensible at first glance. It has columns to list all your holdings as well as your relatives’ holdings like shares and other assets in any company. The purpose of this agreement is to stop a person from misusing information for his benefit. The corporation wants to know in which companies you hold assets so that if you are provided with that information of this company, you may not use it your advantage or disclose it to your relatives. There is a separate agreement to disclose your relatives’ assets in a company.
Number of Hours per Day is Noted
Some corporate firms provide you with a biometric identity card which automatically records your time of entering and leaving the firm. At other firms, you are either supposed to fill your time of entering or leaving the firm or send a mail to your teammates at the time you enter and leave.
Seating Arrangements of the Interns
The interns are then taken to their sitting places which might be a cramped up intern room in the basement or some corner room. Very few firms give interns a place next to their teams. In most firms, interns are not allowed to use their personal laptops and are given an office computer as well as a username and password to access the Microsoft Outlook (most common software used by the firms). In some firms, you require the associate’s ID to open confidential documents. Interns are prohibited from taking files home to work.
Type of Work given to an Intern
An intern is provided with a team guide who he/she can approach for work or any other issue. Work given to interns in corporate firms usually includes due-diligence, proof-reading and researching on case laws.
Assessment of the Intern’s Work
As an intern, you are required to maintain a worksheet and update it with your daily work. At the end of your internship, your team goes through your worksheet, approves it and signs it. They assess your work and provide a feedback to the HR whether to call you back for an assessment internship or give you a pre-placement offer. The potential of an intern is usually seen from how long he can sit and till how much late in the night he can work and not by his quality of work. The interns already get an experience of the hectic life of the corporate firm.
Privileges as an intern
As an intern, you get to experience the work life of the firm. However, you also get to go to the firm’s canteen, have as mean teas, coffee and lattes from the coffee machine for free, have innumerable sutta breaks and bond with associates over that. If an intern is made to work for extra hours in the night, most firms pay for your dinner and you can order from whichever place you want. They also provide you with transport facilities especially for girls when it’s late in the night.
But the best part about interning at these law firms is you get to strengthen your networking skills while you are in college which might help you in the future.
Also, you get a first-hand experience and training in all the work you would be getting as an associate without the pressure of boss and competition which the newly recruited associates have on them.
Life as an Associate in a Corporate Law Firm
Incentives of Joining a Corporate Law Firm
Most of the associates in a tier-1 corporate firm have a starting package of Rs.5 lakhs to Rs.18 lakhs1. They also get additional bonuses. They are paid for their traveling expenses due to office work. Some firms have tied up with cab agencies like Uber who have an additional payment option besides Paytm and cash, where the name of the firm is provided and by clicking on that the fare of the cab is cut directly from the firm’s account.
Working Hours
Corporate firms tend to have normal working hours like any other private office starting from    10 am-7 pm. But the competition to exceed, to get better projects and the strict deadlines that have to be met act as an invisible pressure on the associates and they have to sit for extra hours every day after the usual timings. Sitting late is so normal nowadays, that if you leave early you are looked at with questioning eyes. Also, there is no overtime pay for the extra hours you sit. This is because they have not asked you to stay but you choose to sit for the extra hours.
However, there are some associates who have to sit back the entire night in the firm to meet last moment deadlines and still work the entire next day in the office. Associates are to consider this as their responsibility and do it voluntarily.
Competition within the Firm and the Criteria for Assessment of an Associate’s Work
The competition within the firm is high. Nowadays, the Human Resource (HR) Department has an Employee performance evaluation system that can be used for salary reviews and promotional considerations. Besides, the recommendation of the boss, the working hours, the cooperation and other things are taken into consideration. The associates have to not only be in the good books of their employees but also of the HR department. Nowadays, there are separate organizations that the HR department can tie up with who have an organized employee performance evaluation system which can be used by the HR to grade employees and evaluate them.
Hence, these create competition, however, it is not very healthy. Many associates can’t bear the pressure and go into depression. Also, it is detrimental for the firm since they do not have an inspirational and happy workforce which indirectly affects the quality and the quantity of the work that they do.
Hierarchy inside the Law Firm
The firms have also organized the sitting structures of their employees differently. Partners in usually all the firms get to sit in the cabin.
In some firms, new recruits are made to sit together, then junior associates at one side and senior associates at the other side. This creates a hierarchical structure and a feeling of competitiveness. It helps in certain cases, where there is an age gap between senior and junior associates and hence when people of same age group sit together, it is more easier for them to bond.
In certain other law firms, the whole team consisting of new recruits, junior and senior associates sit together and near the partner’s office. This helps the team to bond and work more efficiently.
Work-life balance
The assessment of a person’s work is assessed differently in different firms. In some firms, they give you the work and the deadline and it is upon you how you complete it. However, in some firms, they assess you by how much extra hours you sit back in the office after the normal hours. Many associates find it difficult to maintain the work-life balance. They cannot take out time for personal life. Even if they try, they fear the competition and the loss of the work. Work is given to an associate on the basis of his capabilities and the amount of hard work he does. Hence, work becomes a burden and many people try avoiding it or wishing for the weekend.
In most of the firms, Saturdays are working and if you have a deadline to meet or a demanding client, you would have to jeopardize your Sunday free time to work.
Recreational Activities for the Associates
There are parties also organized by each team once a month or so, to cheer up the associates and create an informal and friendly environment once in a while. There are music, drinks and the opportunity to show off the glamorous dresses and the dance moves.
Office romance is not promoted in some firms and one of the conditions in the form signed before joining includes not dating a colleague. This is done because it gets difficult for the HR to deal with the sexual harassment charges.
Some firms along with the Bar Council of India organize sports league like the Mumbai Masters Cup cricket tournament organized by Economic Laws Practise (ELP) in January 2018 and won by Khaitan.2 This not only provides recreational opportunity to the employees of the firm but also provides networking ground for the peers in the industry and this, in turn, helps build
the camaraderie within the legal fraternity.
No Ventilation in the law firms
All the law firms now have centrally controlled air conditioners. Most law firms do not have windows near the desks of people. The rooms of partners only have windows which are always covered by shutters. Nobody realizes how the day passes when it turns from morning to night. It’s hard to expect working culture and smart offices like Google’s3 from a law firm. However, having more windows with fresh air coming in, refreshes a person after continuously looking at the screen for a long time.
Is there a Way Out?
The hectic schedule, the destruction of life-work imbalance are things which one does not look forward to. Many associates who are burdened with the work, lose hope and leave. They don’t quit their courier or their job, but that want to regain their life. Some associates feel that their growth after a certain stage in the firm has stopped and hence leave the office.
The students of Stanford Law School in the United States of America have started a new organization called the Building a Better Legal Profession (BBLP). They use data from the National Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP) and create a system of report cards and rankings of law firms. This acts as a way of encouraging workplace reform at these companies. They expanded and have more than 1400 members in different states of the United States with the help of media attention like The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. The students can see the different criteria on which each law firm is ranked and how much they have scored in that field. On the basis of this, students can choose which law firm they will like to work and reject those law firms with bad rankings during their placements. This will promote firms wanting to hire good law graduates from top law schools to have workplace reform so that the top graduates do not reject their college.
It’s a good initiative taken by the law students in the United States.
To get more information about them, their criteria of rankings, their reports you can check their official website and blog4.
This is something which India needs, a kind of students union to pressurize these law firms to improve their work environment similar in some ways as to how trade unions pressurize their employers. But instead of going on a strike we would rank them.
Conclusion
The future of corporate law seems bright. Reforms are required and will come along with time.
Endnotes
1.https://www.livemint.com/Companies/vU1NSyLeitWFe3UioxPPvL/Salary-wars-brew-among-top-law-firms.html
2.http://elplaw.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Khaitan-beats-hattrickers-ELP-at-its-own-Mumbai-Masters-Cup-cricket-tournament-to-pick-up-trophy-%E2%80%A2-CAM-SAM-make-semis-Legally-India-News-for-Lawyers.pdf
3.https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/02/08/13-reasons-google-deserves-its-best-company-culture-award/
Every person works somewhere, so they must have to know all these corporate laws.