Legal profession as career option
- Part 2 -

Ranjan K Baruah *

After passing law course aspirants may become magistrate, public prosecutor, judges, attorney general, solicitor general, advocate general, notary, etc. Selection or appointment is from government side and for some selection tests are being conducted by Public Service Commission. There are also opportunities in the defence forces for the lawyers to join Judge Advocate General Branch.

Both male and female may become officers in the defence forces after passing Law and appearing for the interview of the defence forces. Many lawyers join non governmental organisation and different civil society organisation which work for the rights and justice of the poor and marginalized people of the country.

Lawyers do get chance to work for international organisation like United Nations or Amnesty International if they have skill and knowledge. Some may also join teaching profession and become teachers while many choose to become journalist or writer.

Some of the students take admission in courses like Chartered Accountancy or Company Secretaryship and practice as CA or CS. Some may also join in legal outsourcing as this has demand. In legal profession one may specialise on these or more to become and expert and build a strong career.

Some of the field of specialisation are as follows and most of these are important in India like Civil/Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Human Rights Law, Family Law, Taxation, Corporate Law, Business Law, International Law, Labour Law, Real Estate Law, Intellectual property /Patent Law, etc.

One of the common and important entrances related to law admission is CLAT which is known as Common Law Admission Test. CLAT is an all India entrance examination, conducted on rotation by National Law Universities (NLUs) for admissions to their Under-Graduate and Post-Graduate degree programmes.

Having a degree in law does not make someone employable. There are skills and attributes needed to be successful in legal profession. One must have good oral and written communication skills, logical reasoning, power of concentration, patience, good memory to relate and quote past cases to prove your point, ability to argue and discuss matters with a variety of people, self confidence, courage to deal with threats especially in criminal cases etc.

One needs to have patience and strong networking skills to get clients. Mere wearing the black coat does not guarantee getting clients but one must have good reputation and credibility and for fresher they have to work hard to make them credible. Students while studying law may start to make networks with different agencies or law firm to get more exposure.

Many students join different rights based organisation who work for the rights and justice of the people. Student may make best use of technology like internet to explore more. Command over different languages is another added point for all those who want to practice as lawyer. In the initial stage many lawyers work under seniors and experts but some may work independently depend upon their skills and ideas.

Remuneration would be small in the initial stage but later one may earn good amount of money along with name and fame. In the present day situation one can think of becoming legal entrepreneur and innovate new ideas in the profession.

Updates: Common Admission Test: Common Admission Test is conducted by Indian Institute Of Managements for its admission to Post Graduate Programmes and Fellow Programmes. Candidates aspiring to get admission to the IIMs need to appear for the CAT. Apart from the IIM’s, various other Management Institutes use the CAT score for short listing the candidates. CAT is conducted once in a year usually in the month of October-November. Aspirants may apply before 19th September.

GATE: Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is an examination conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (at Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras and Roorkee) on behalf of the National Coordination Board (NCB)-GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. Aspirants may apply on or before 21st September.