Two years ago, on a senior’s advice, the co-author wrote to Mr. Sudhir Mishra, Managing Partner of Trust Legal, asking for guidance and an internship. He responded, arranged a Zoom call, and offered her a place at his firm. At the end of that call, she asked what seemed to her a perfectly reasonable question: “Will there be a stipend?” He smiled because he could see exactly where she is coming from, and said, “No. But we don’t charge you either.” She didn’t fully understand that answer then, but she does now. This piece is written by both of them, because that small exchange turned out to be the opening line of a much longer story about what the law asks of those who wish to practice it, and what it means to finally be ready.

A law graduate enters a courtroom believing they are trained, and within minutes, that belief begins to dissolve. The law is familiar, but nothing else is. The pace is sharper, the language more precise, the responsibility is heavier than expected. The degree remains, but its usefulness feels suddenly negotiable. This is not an exception. It is the quiet norm.

And yet, the system continues as if this moment is acceptable.

The Indian legal profession has not stood still. It has expanded, diversified, and adapted to a changing economy. Globalization has reshaped legal work, where corporate practice has grown, and new roles have emerged like in-house counsel, compliance experts, policy advisors, arbitration specialists. The modern lawyer is expected to move across courtrooms, boardrooms, and regulatory spaces with equal ease.

The profession has evolved, but the preparation has not.

Legal education continues to operate on a model that assumes uniformity in a profession that is no longer uniform. Students are graduated having studied law across subjects, yet without being equipped for even one clearly defined role. The problem is no longer that graduates are unprepared for certain paths. It is that they are unprepared for all of them.

The gap is no longer subtle, rather it is structural.

India produces around 60,000 – 70,000 of law graduates every year into a system already layered and unequal. According to the Bar Council of India, there are nearly 1,800 law colleges across the country and approximately 20,13,081 registered advocates in practice. Where a small segment of the profession operates in structured environments with access to resources, mentorship, and high value work. The majority functions within unstructured settings, where learning is immediate, informal, and often unforgiving. Opportunity has concentrated.

Training follows the same pattern.

Courts, burdened with over 55 million pending cases as of early 2026 a number that has grown from four crore less than a decade ago, are built for resolution, not instructions. Law firms, though increasing in number, are predominantly small or individually run practices with limited capacity to train at scale. What the system produces in volume, the profession cannot refine uniformly.

And so, without announcement, the burden shifts.

The profession does not receive graduates. It absorbs unfinished work. Entering into practice is not a transition, but an initiation. The early lessons are corrective, How to draft without confusion, How to read without missing relevance, How to think within time and then precision replaces the confidence.

The irony here is, after years of studying law, one begins by learning how to use it and that is exactly where the friction becomes personal.

The early years are marked not by recognition, but by restraint. Compensation is modest, sometimes negligible, and often misunderstood. In October 2024, the Bar Council of India issued guidelines recommending a minimum monthly stipend of ₹20,000 for junior advocates in urban areas and ₹15,000 in rural areas, figures that remain non-binding and widely unmet in practice. For the entrant, it feels like undervaluation.

Value follows contribution, and contribution requires training.

There comes a point where the absence of reward begins to feel like absence of worth. But the profession does not measure intent, it measures output. The ability to carry responsibility without supervision. To produce clarity where there was confusion. To move work forward without correction. Until that happens, the balance remains uneven. The concern is not new; even in Bar Council of India v. Bonnie Foi Law College(2023) 7 SCC 756, the Supreme Court stressed that “legal education must align with the demands of the profession.”

Until that happens, the balance remains uneven.

It is, in many ways, the system completing what education did not, which brings us to the question that cannot be avoided,

Why does this begin after graduation?

The profession has already changed. It is faster, more competitive, more specialized, and more demanding than before. It requires lawyers who can think commercially, act precisely, and adapt quickly.

The mismatch is no longer theoretical. It is lived.

The profession offers multiple paths. Each demands a different skill, a different temperament, a different way of thinking. And yet, graduates enter not partially prepared, but directionless. They are not choosing between paths, rather they are trying to understand them for the first time.

The system does not fail at producing lawyers, It fails at producing ready ones, and the cost of that failure is time.

Time spent relearning what should have been learned earlier. Time spent correcting what should not have been left unformed. Time spent waiting to become useful, but this is not an irreversible system.

If even a fraction of this training is moved into the years of education, the entire trajectory changes.

A student who has drafted with discipline does not falter at first instruction. One who has carried a file through its course understands movement before pressure arrives. One who has been trusted with responsibility early does not shrink from it later. And so, when they finally step into a courtroom after graduating, it is not a moment of collapse, but a continuation.

The co-author of this piece knows this not as theory, but as experience. Two years after that first Zoom call, she found herself at an event where Mr. Sudhir Mishra, was on stage. She watched, and something in the moment felt like it had been arranged. When it ended, she approached him, but he did not remember her. He patiently listened, and offered her an assessment internship at Trust Legal, but this time she didn’t ask for a stipend remembering the conversation they had two years back. Before she left, he offered with a stipend, enough to cover partial expenses. It was not a gesture of generosity. It was a recognition of readiness. The stipend existed because, in the two years, she had done the work: the research had found its pace; the judgment that no classroom offers had grown through practice. She did not arrive here because she was exceptional. She arrived because she did not stop.

She believes now, and this is not optimism but evidence, that everything in this profession is achievable. Not quickly, and not without cost, but achievable. The law does not reward those who expect it to meet them halfway. It rewards those who keep moving when it doesn’t. It is what turns an unpaid beginning into something permanent.

Preparation, once advanced, changes everything that follows.

*Mr. Sudhir Mishra, Managing Partner, Trust Legal

**Ms. Sanjana parihar, Assessment Intern, Trust Legal