74 days around LawSikho

Hi,

I just wanted to share something one of our Master Access students, Ankit Vaid, wrote when I asked him to write a review of his experience with us so far. Ankit is a practicing lawyer in Jammu. 

He visited our office in person before buying any course from us, and was very cautious throughout. He finished his bootcamp course a while back and left for Jammu. Recently, he visited us again for a brief while. Seizing the opportunity, I asked him to write about his experience with LawSikho, especially because I saw him making tremendous progress while he was with us. 

The write up is very forthright and blunt in its approach, but it brought tears to my eyes by the time I finished. It is much more than what I could have asked for.

It is a wonderful tribute and gave me a new perspective about our Dream Job Bootcamp. 

If you are a part of the LawSikho community in any way, or if you are contemplating taking any course from LawSikho, I request you to read this. It may help you to sort of understand what LawSikho is all about and what drives us to excel at our work every day.

Over to Ankit.

74 days around Law sikho

By Ankit Vaid, Advocate, Jammu

Who am I?

A person who takes admission into 3 years of law only because he finds a very attractive girl doing the same. Well, that girl didn't pursue it eventually and left in the first semester only. 

The person who took the decision to study law based only on the possibility of hanging out with the girl is me, the author of this article. I was asked by Ramanuj to write a review of my experience of LawSikho so far, as a subscriber of the Master Access program as well as a student who recently finished the Dream Job Bootcamp. This is a great opportunity for me to write about my story as well.

My 3 year Law Course Journey

I was so depressed by the vacuum left by the girl that I flunked in all 6 subjects of my first semester including viva and practicals (marksheet can be provided on request). In the second semester also I carry forward the legacy of my flunking in all the subjects and flunked in all the subjects except in viva and practicals. I have a glorious record of not clearing even 1 of the 6 semesters in one go and has cleared all my six semesters in supplementary exams only. 

The only reason I used to go to the law department was our smoking squad. We used to have a smoking squad in the parking lot of the law campus and I was a prime member of the squad. 

In short, I completed my 3-year law in 3.5 years, with no moot participation, no publication or article or internship to my name. 

P.S. Just forgot to tell you that despite having such tendencies I was an avid reader and used to read on all subjects and was a firm believer from a very young age that ‘I don't know anything’ which made me seek out knowledge in every form.

The day after tomorrow

Since we have seen how meticulously I was involved in legal learning in the law campus, you would wonder about what I did after graduation. I joined a senior with a flourishing practice in High Court. But within a few months of finding myself as a junior in his chamber, I somehow realised that this ‘’pavitra rishta’’ is getting nowhere because I was always lost finding the correct law. My teammates felt that I was behaving arrogantly and that I didn’t want to work with them. 

The Conspiracy part

I was wandering online, when one fine day, while searching for some legal career tips that I hit upon the ipleaders blog. This is where for the first time I read about ‘How Non-NLU students can do 10X better than NLU students’ written by Ramanuj Mukherjee. 

The author spoke of all the areas and skills I was bereft of in law. Example: despite having an LLB degree in hand I will not make it to the recruitment of a law firm, I didn't have the exposure, confidence and competitive spirit which the NLU students are flooded with, and I had no clue about how to proceed from there. One can rightly imagine the kind of exposure one would get in the government Law department, where students politics is the only extracurricular activity one can opt for in order to showcase his or her talent.

After reading the book and subscribing to LawSikho and iPleaders I started on their daily dose of mails and other material. I started following Abhyuday Sir and Ramanuj Sir online. Since most of the articles were written by Ramanuj Sir, I used to wonder what he was smoking in order to write and think such kind of vivid articles (Sorry Ramanuj Sir, if you are reading this). Some of the articles of Ramanuj Sir had given me violent nightmares (yes, nightmares because It made me realise, what I am doing with myself). Let me list out a few of them below:

How to find the purpose of your life so you never have to look back

What are the Things that Hold you back?

What are the Tools that You Spend the Most On

Will your story make you the king?

Does a road side chaiwala earn more than you?

Surely the list is endless, but I seriously got to know that I have discovered something great. But at that point in time, I was still not the kind of person who will eventually pay a lakh to subscribe to Master Access. How that happened is an interesting story.

LawSikho: Love at first sight

So I was in Delhi to join the British Council for their intermediate level course on speaking English. I decided to pay a casual and informal visit to LawSikho’ Saket Office to see whether they actually exist or not. What is they were just another bunch of online conmen? 

I was climbing the stairs of the office building, and right behind me was Ramanuj Sir, also coming to office. I simply didn't recognise him. When I told at the reception that I want to join some course and has come from a distant place, Ramanuj Sir appeared in person and the journey began. The moment he started telling me about LawSikho, I had a strong feeling that that my destiny is taking me to an interesting place. I felt contented that I made the first good decision of my life and that too independently. So I was there to join their Dream Job Boot Camp but later settled for Master Access, their most prestigious and premium learning program.

74 days around the LawSikho

In Master Access you get to access all the courses that LawSikho has in its kitty. Dream Job Boot Camp was also included in the master access program. Every course can be accessed online except for the Dream Job Boot Camp for which one has to be physically present in their Delhi office for a period of 3 months. This Bootcamp programme focuses on imparting the skills that enable one to secure jobs of your choice and succeed in a real-life environment. Interestingly, I never wanted a job. I want to be a successful litigator. I wanted to join this program to get hands on training from LawSikho in person, and get exposure to how big lawyers think, work and execute their work.

Though the Bootcamp programme is for 90 days I was there only for 74 days because I got to move on due to some prior commitments.

The initial 30 days of my training was really worst from my side because I was not used to sitting for 8 to 10 hours continuously in the same place. I usually dozed off after 3 hours of work and was not keeping up the pace required. Initially, I was put under the tutelage of Harsh Sir and he was the one who prepared the hell out of me which eventually help me transit to the tutelage of Abhyuday Sir. Abhyuday Sir would not take you directly if you are not up to his benchmark which is usually very high.

All this time, I got to help Abhyuday sir with research and writing as he was working on several LawSikho courses, to develop, update and upgrade them. I got an opportunity to see how one can delve deeper and learn new areas of law and create amazing practical lessons out of them, with the help of real practitioners.

A word for Harsh Sir

Simply described he’s like the karate master you will find in Karate Kid series and Drunken Master. You will not like him first for his annoying diktats and procedures, but believe me, such techniques are just hardwiring your brain and body which is not used to think and behave as it should do and prepare you rightly for the future possibilities. A Jain from religion, he is a perfect person to start your mentorship with.

After coming under the tutelage roof of Abhyuday Sir, I assisted him with Labour Litigation course. I shadowed him for several days and got a chance to go with him to meet a Labour Commissioner in Pushp Vihar, visited with him various Labour counsels office, attended hearings at the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal at Hotel Samrat, Intellectual Property Rights Office in Dwarka, etc.

If someone is creating courses and do not actually visit the field to learn what is going on, can you really trust them to teach you? 

Abhyday Sir, a mentor with long fingers

Everyone says no one can beat the typing speed of Abhyday Aggarwal, he is just so fast. But I think the credit should be given to his long fingers ( he does have comparative long fingers than the rest of us) which as a matter of fact, reach or hit keys on the laptop rather at a lightning speed. His knowledge of the law is vast like an ocean and if you will not keep pace with him you will drown miserably. A very calm and caring person who has a very sharp eye for details and a knack for finding mistakes by only quickly screening the document.

Where is Ramanuj Mukherjee?

Simply stated Abhyday Agarwal is the mind of the LawSikho and Ramamnuj Mukherjee is the soul. So Ramanuj Sir will not mentor one on strict one to one basis like a quack giving futile instructions and unwarranted counselling. He will notice silently, watch the moves, the body language, the tone of speaking and all the other soft skills required in the making of a great person. Then only he will guide you to sail through your dilemmas which you may not even be aware of.

Is it worth it?

Yes, to every penny (I paid one lakh rupees for Master Access). For me, Master Access is not an educational expense I made for my career development rather it is a pure investment for my life. The returns on this investment are the mentorship that I will get from Abhyuday Agarwal and Ramanuj Mukherjee in the shape of a dividend of wisdom and life long learning.

The Beginning

For me, Dream Job boot camp was for a period of 74 days. Those 74 days has been completed but the camp is just the beginning in itself and I think has been designed by them in such a way that will never come to an end. The bonfire lighted on this camp is constantly being fed by new courses, events, seminars and associations which I think will get multiplied on the lines of Moore's law and will remain prevalent and young at all time and as Ramanuj Sir, himself says:

                                                  It's in our DNA.