#1 Law Firm Ready Newsletter: Batch XIII Takes Flight!
Welcome to the history setting newsletter for the legal fraternity
Greetings from Team LFR,
We're pumped to kick off the First edition of the LFR newsletter which is one of its kind of experiment and hopefully going to be the best newsletter of legal fraternity! Get ready to dive into the latest edition of the LFR newsletter, where we serve up the hot updates (but not the hot news about the extreme heat India is facing). But before we start, let us begin with our story.
What is LFR ?
Law Firm Ready is a mentoring platform where we support law students lacking exposure to navigate various career paths. We do this through pairing mentees with our In-House mentors which include Partners, Principal Associate, Senior Associates and associates from firms including SAM, CAM, Khaitan, AZB, Trilegal, Saraf, S&R, amongst others. Additionally, we now also have various mentors from different streams such as public policy, litigation and alternate dispute resolution.
In the last three years, the Law Firm Ready team has mentored over 300 students from 80+ universities on various fronts, such as how to craft CVs and cover letters, drafting emails and exposing them to various aspects of corporate and litigation law.
Many college students don’t have direct access to experienced professionals due to a lack of alumni base, opportunities and socio-economic factors. This initiative is a small attempt to assist such students and build a kinder and supportive eco-system.
This newsletter has the latest updates for law students as well as for our mentors regarding what is happening at LFR.
1. Batch XIII applications launched with a brand new process
We at LFR released our Batch XIII applications in May and received an overwhelming response.
Over 150 talented law students applied, showcasing their commitment and passion for the legal field. This time we introduced a new interview process (because we wanted to know our folks ;)) and selected 58 mentees who we found were more suitable for this programme. Out of these applications, a whopping 97% are first generation law students.
However, the selection doesn’t mean that non-selected students were not better, some of them decided to use ChatGPT in their answers while some failed to turn up for the interviews (we were sad about that😢). We hope to see you folks applying in our Batch XIV soon (preferably with original answers)
2. Newer Updates for Batch XIII
We just conducted our first orientation session of our Batch XIII which was houseful and over 80% marked it very good and excellent in our feedback form. This was followed up by a session on crafting CV and Cover letter which was conducted on Saturday evening with Saurav Rajurkar and guess what? Even on Saturday evening 50+ people attended the session.
This batch, we are excited to expand the mentorship from just Law Firm and In house support to Alternate Careers in Public Policy, Legal Tech, Masters Applications, ADR as well.
If the world is changing after the advent of AI and the 20 countries' Cricket World Cup (yayyy!!! we won after 13 years, so 13 is not an unlucky number after all), our law fraternity needs to catch up as well and we will try our best to make this a diverse experience for them.
3. LFR got new mentors!
The success of Law Firm Ready wouldn't be possible without our dedicated mentors. Our mentor squad just got bigger and better. We have awesome new additions not just from
Top law firms (including Trilegal, CAM, Khaitan, SAM)
In-house Counsel (Reliance Industries Limited and YES Securities (India) Limited).
ADR organizations, with our mentors being the founder of MediateGuru (Param) and lawyers from SAMA.
Additionally, we are entering into an even more interesting place with our mentors being, such as Child Rights lawyer (Ankita from Iprobono) and also our first Policy and Climate Change Lawyer (Sushruti, HSF london return Indian who maybe would have liked us to highlight the heat wave everywhere even more. You can also see her book).
With over 70 mentors now on board, we have a flock of legal rockstars who are not only kind humans but also ready to support you in this journey.
We want to thank all of you for being a backbone to this project!
4. Positive Feedback and some of your stories
We're incredibly grateful for the positive feedback from Batch 12 mentees. Over 74% felt the program helped them achieve their goals, and a staggering 90% found the sessions valuable. We've included some glowing testimonials in this issue, so be sure to check them out!
Batch XII was a big-hit for us! With around 40-50 eager mentees, the turnout was so impressive we nearly ran out of chairs.
We were also elated to read so many testimonials appreciating our wonderful mentors, so we put them together for you!
5. Our Mentors are Growing and killing it!
Huge congratulations to our mentors Farhan Umar (Talwar Thakore & Associates), Iti Mishra (Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas), and Amrita Ghosh (Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas) on their well-deserved promotions to Senior Associate positions! All three of them are amongst our initial pool of mentors and have supported us since day 1.
Your dedication and support are invaluable to Law Firm Ready and Our most heartfelt congratulations to all of you!
6. New members in the team!
Bhabesh Satapathy is a fourth year law student at the National Law University, Odisha. Bhabesh, a talented law student, state level athlete and avid mooter. He is also the mastermind who has designed this beautiful newsletter (self praise is good sometimes :P)
Ammar Bhoira is a fourth year law student at Pravin Gandhi College of Law, Mumbai. He is also one of the members of the Legal Aid Committee in his college working actively to advocate for consumer rights. Ammar is your regular Gujju from Mumbai who will claim that their food is better than yours.
Like Gujarat and Odisha, which helped the new government be stronger, these two will help LFR get very strong.
7. Emerging Partnership with IDIA
We end our first Newsletter with a very exciting collaboration with Increasing Diversity by Increasing Access to Legal Education (IDIA) wherein we will be mentoring five mentees of IDIA.
IDIA was founded by our Beloved Late Professor Shamnad Basheer (you folks should read about him)
Stay Tuned!
This time we received applications from some mentees who were first generation from their families to study, daughter/son of Anganwadi Karyakartas as well who taught us that despite adversity, people are trying their best and we hope to support you in this journey. We have nothing but respect and love for all of you. This newsletter is being launched with the new criminal laws (comparison sheet of IPC and BNS here). We will ensure that because of the increased burden given to all of us by criminal laws, we make this newsletter crisp and on point for you.
In future newsletters, keep an eye out for internship and fellowship opportunities, insights on our mentors’ work, and valuable resources curated for your success. We will also include some suggestions on inspiring interviews, YouTube channels, and podcasts to add to your learning arsenal.
We're here to support you in your legal journey. So, stay connected and reach out if you have any questions.
We will end this newsletter with Shamnad’s poem on Teachers:
“The best teachers are not those that teach.
But them that trigger a brazen breach!
Not those that force you to learn
But them that spark a serious unlearn!”
With love and support
Team LFR