Monday, June 20, 2011

Course in law is turning out to be an excellent option

Aditya Sondhi, an alumnus, has written a good article on " Why to become a lawyer' in TOI of 20 June. She sums it with a very apt quote from her friend, Menaka Guruswamy, on why one should be a lawyer. As she writes, it is "to advocate, for those who cannot tell their own stories, to defend those whose freedom is in peril, to prod a nation to ask of itself: for whom am I, and for what was I created?"

More importantly, from the career viewpoint, course in Law offers all the four attractive options that can help you 'make' your career the way you want ( it has all the advantages that engineering option offers to students):

1. You can work both in back office ( corporate jobs) and front office jobs ( such as litigation)

R Venkata Rao, VC, NLSU, Bangalore in his interview on TOI of 19th june, says that 'Out of 80 students, 40 go to corporate, 20 go to litigation, 10 go for higher studies, and five to NGO's'. Depending on your fitment, you can chose either of the option.

2. It offers different subject area focus which one is interested in: You can focus on Social issues like pollution or child abuse, medical issues, insurance issues or corporate issues. This freedom enables you to make career in your subject of interest.

3. It offers jobs with different kind of employers: Corporate companies, NGO's ( they are called activist lawyers like Prashant Bhushan who is with Anna Hazare on Lokpal Bill) , Freelancers are some of the known options. Aditya Sondhi lists down some interesting options like radio jockey, IT entrepreneur, politics, theatre, art, (fiction) writing, and fashion. It offers jobs in justice delivery system, where you can make big impact.

4. It offers options to work part-time and full-time, working from home or office, because of internet. LPO's, like BPO's, are becoming quite popular because e-enablement of law. So you can work from your home, helping your client in US.

Like any other course that becomes popular, many colleges are mushrooming in India. It is therefore important to find the right college. The list of top ten colleges in the country, that appeared in TOI of 19th June, will help you find the best and also the required CLAT ( Common law Admission test) score that is required to get admission into it. Some interesting info on Law is also at this link.