Introduction:
Law students and Internships tend to go hand in hand. In a legal profession, one cannot grow and learn without having experience of how actually law works. Because outside the classroom learning, how actually that law is implemented can only be learned through internships. Law students gain experience in working in an organization while studying at university.
Internships can be paid or unpaid and they can be for months or twelve-month internships also. It depends on the area you’re working in and in which firm or judges you’re interning. And as per the BCI, it is mandatory for law students to do an internship, and National Education Policy in 2020 published that it is required and mandatory to gain experience in professional areas like Law[1].
Internships play a very significant role in the survival of the legal sphere for a law student. Having a good understanding of academics does not mean a good understanding of inexperience. As a matter of fact, a law student gains experience, learns, and develops work ethics by interning either under a lawyer, judge, corporate firm, research organization, or any other legal-oriented area.
Reasons why internships are necessary for law students:
BCI rules regulating internships:
Most people are unaware of the fact that Rule 25 of the BCI – Bar Council of India prescribes that “Internships are mandatory for every law student on record. They must complete at least 12 weeks of internship for a three-year course and 20 weeks of internship for a five-year course[2].”
Students who want to start internship programs must also meet the BCI’s requirements. Internships can begin with a non-governmental organization, then progress to district and high courts, followed by an internship in a law firm at the end of the program. As a result, students can begin in the first year of their studies in order to gain maximum exposure and experience during the graduation process. And it is mandated to follow by every law student otherwise law school cannot approve your degree.
Exposure:
For students, exposure is important, apart from learning in the classroom and writing it in hypothetical situations just to score good marks is not necessary for a law school. Internships will provide you with a platform where you’ll meet people from different states or countries (international internships), and having different viewpoints on the same topic, and learn how they think, according to them what can be the real solution and your opinions can be different after discussions. Exposure can make a student more effective and a better observer.
Networking:
Internships can be a distraction from your daily day-to-day work. In internships, you can learn practically with real experiences. Internships can take you to new places, new learning environments, people, and situations. Internships allow you to interact and introduce yourself to the people of your age or really successful people from the law field only, who have enough experience and you can learn something from them.
And if you’re really good at your work, your mentors will adore you and maybe offer you a job. Likewise, a healthy relationship with the mentor is very beneficial.
Continuously experimenting and finding out what is best for you:
The internship is the best way to find out and explore many career opportunities. Likewise, after doing various types of internships, one can have a clear idea that in which field of law they want to go into. Because internship helps a lot of students to better understand with the practical experiences which area of law they’ve their best interest.
An internship can build your CV:
What do you think, on what basis do companies hire law students? After seeing the academic score?. No, companies hire or offer you a job seeing the potential and how much practical knowledge you have. Academic curriculum books will not just fetch you a good job with that you’ve to learn how to practically apply it also. And you can only do this by doing as many internships in your graduation.
Right internship at the right time:
Choosing an internship at the right time means that it should be one that will put what you have learned in law school to use. An intern working in a Tier-1 corporate law firm during the first semester of a law student’s course, for example, will not benefit from this experience, because a first-semester law student is not provided with the necessary exposure to the laws and the work ethics that are required while working in such a firm.
Unlike a law student in their first semester, a law student in their seventh semester can reap unparalleled benefits in the same internship.
Conclusion
An internship is of utmost importance to a law student for the reasons mentioned above. An internship does not simply provide one with skills, but also with invaluable experience. Furthermore, a law student will benefit from this experience both in terms of growing dynamically and gaining an understanding of possible volatility.
References:
[1] National Education Policy 2020
[2] Rule 25 of the Bar Council of India
