Virtual Internship Experience at SVS Attorneys, Jabalpur – Mr. Siddharth R. Gupta

STUDENT’S NAME, COLLEGE & YEAR OF STUDY

Ritika Rajawat, Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur, 4th Year

ABOUT SVS ATTORNEYS & ITS PARTNERS

The details can be obtained via the official website of the Firm at www.svsattorneys.com.

MODE OF INTERNSHIP

Online

DURATION

7th January 2021 to 26th February 2021. (45 Days)

The Internship at SVS Attorneys is for a minimum period of 45 days preceded by the Mentorship Period of around 6-7 days. If in this Mentorship & Training Period, you are unable to meet up the expectations of the Chambers, then you would be informed to apply at a later stage when you have gained some more experience of work. I saw some of the interns being asked to apply later when they failed to meet up the work standards during their pre internship mentorship Period of 7 days.

HOW DO I APPLY

I read the reviews of internships in ‘SVS Attorneys’ online posted by its previous interns & paralegals. Then I applied for the internship by sending my CV along with the Cover Letter at office[at]svsattorneys.com, srg[at]svsattorneys.com. After that, I got a document (of its own kind) titled as “Riders & Disclaimers about the Internship” through email, which contained basic conditions & work environment pertaining to the online internship at SVS Attorneys. It’s like a toolkit for what the internship is all about and fun in doing it.

FIRST DAY FORMALITIES AND INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

The internship at SVS Attorneys was an online internship, so I interacted for the first time with Siddharth Sir & his colleague Mr. Harshdeep S Bedi on a phone call. The office is very supportive & always ready to provide any assistance required for tasks provided. The best part about the internship is that Sir will personally monitor the work assigned by him & will point out the mistakes so that one can learn then and there & avoid repeating the mistakes in future. But if it is repeated, then Sir will although unwillingly have to reprimand you. Sir is extra particular about deadlines, precision & error free content drafting. If you repeat mistakes after being told politely about your mistakes, then you are shown the door at the end of the initial 7 days trial period itself, and won’t be confirmed for internship at all.

MAIN TASKS AT SVS ATTORNEYS

• Drafting of various Applications, Writ Petitions, Written Submissions, Rejoinders, legal pleadings etc.
• Preparing List of Dates; Synopsis, Case Briefs of cases listed in coming days.
• Extensive Research Work & Article writing work. If Sir is impressed with your research you are also offered to be Co- Author with him for the article.
• Legal translations & proofreading of Edited Documents.
• Typing of emails; correspondences to clients, Law Firms, other personalities in the legal field.
• Office works in an extremely streamlined manner. You keep getting audio clips throughout the day about the work you are supposed to be doing. Then you have to complete the assigned work in the deadline mentioned in the audio clip as per oral instructions contained therein.
• The Office is highly technology driven and you get to learn a lot of hands on skills after working here, that will be your lifetime companions. Sir himself is a tech-savvy guy and prefers technology over any kind of manual /labor intensive work.

GOOD THINGS

• There is a deadline for every assigned work, I think it is quintessential to maintain discipline while you are working from your home and not physically present at the office. The workload in an online internship whilst working with SVS was identical to that one would have had whilst working in an offline internship.
• At SVS Attorneys, drafting work would be assigned to interns and also, Siddharth Sir will personally interact and guide their interns on the assigned tasks, which is not usually done in other internships.
• Sir does not believe in taking the help & services of their interns for charity. So, he will provide mandatory stipend to their interns in lieu of the help & services provided by the interns to him. This is however subject to one’s performance clearly. I know of some interns who weren’t even given any penny, perhaps they annoyed the office much more than they worked for it. They were also asked to leave midway before they could complete their internship formally.
• I believe we learn something new from every person with whom we worked, so you not only learn from Sir, but also from your fellow interns from various law schools across the country, especially NLUs. whilst working with my Co-interns Arihant Samdaria from RMLNLU, Lucknow & Barbee Bhattacharya from HNLU, Raipur I picked some really good practices & pieces of wisdom for myself. One can learn the skills of teamwork as we have to coordinate & work with our fellow interns here. This will help in strengthening your leadership skills also.
• I learnt so much in this internship at SVS Attorneys which I might have done so in all my previous internships (all combined).
• I learnt from this internship that life has to be led like a disciplined soldier, else it’s a waste. We are here for some purpose and goal and we must always strive to achieve it, come what may.

BAD THINGS

• There are no leaves & no holidays unlike all firms of the country that offer their interns. You have to work continuously from Monday to Monday (Sunday is missing) for even 10 hours a day if it’s one of those demanding days. So, there is no concept of weekend or a week day off in this internship which sometimes becomes very stressful as everyone needs a Sunday in their life after continuously working for a week. However, if you have any urgency or prior commitments, then you will be allowed to have a leave as an exceptional case, subject to prior intimation to be compensated later.
• The workload entrusted to you as an intern will be too much, at times breaking your mettle to handle it. But still you are required to handle & discharge it else you will not be assigned any work on your failure to complete the assignment.
• Expectations from you in the internship are to possess the level of understanding as a professional does, which gets difficult at times for any UG intern to develop.
• There’s no mercy or accommodation when urgent assignments are handed over to you. If there’s urgent work handed over to you, it has to be completed by late midnight at the cost of your sleep which becomes quite unbearable at times, especially with your online classes and college commitments.
• People who are touchy, impulsive and sensitive must not apply at all as the office is not conducive for their temperament. If you fail to perform, then you perish that too with reprimands from the senior ups. So better not to apply at all for such people.

STIPEND

I was awarded a stipend of 10, 000 INR at the end of my internship at SVS Attorneys.

OTHER INFORMATION

• Let me clear one thing, this internship is not for those who join the internship just for the sake of adding a Certificate to their CV; this is only for those who really wish to learn about the field of litigation. I must say that these 45 days are really challenging for every intern who joins and works with Siddharth Sir. Further, this is my 9th internship, and what I have learnt here I haven’t learnt it in any of my previous internships. You can’t expect the type of work which will be assigned to you in this internship in any of the virtual internships. If you are keen to learn the skills of Litigation and ready to work hard, then you won’t get an opportunity better than this.
• Also don’t apply to this office if you don’t have good grades (75-80% minimum or equivalent) as the CGPA. You must have good publications, articles to your credit if you intend joining here. Students from NLU’s are definitely given preference above others subject to academics and publications.
• Applications below 3rd year are not even seen; so don’t waste your energy applying here. You would get a reply to your email application only if it’s worth being considered by the firm on above parameters, else the office doesn’t even respond to the flush of internship applications flowing daily in its inbox. But the selection criteria is very objective & you are automatically picked up if you have built a good and exceptional CV for yourself.

This internship experience has been written by Ritika Rajawat (4th year student at Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur). Author’s views are personal and do not necessarily reflect Kanooniyat’s opinion on the subject.