Internship Experience @ Chambers of Advocate Hemant Kumar, New Delhi: District courts are indeed the best places to learn about law

Name. College. Year of Study

Jyotsna Arora, University School of Law and Legal Studies, Third Year.

Name of the organization. City

Chambers of Advocate Hemant Kumar, New Delhi

Duration of the internship

Four weeks. 1st June, 2016- 30^th June, 2016

How big was the office? Team strength?

The office is of decent size and is located in the prime location of Connaught Place. The office has different space for interns and Hemant Sir. Generally, there are 1-2 associates with Hemant Sir to handle the continously expanding work.

Application procedure. Internship contact details

Internship can be applied for by mailing one’s CV at contact@chambershk.in

He generally replies within one or two days and depending on the vacancy available and one’s CV, the internship shall be provided.

Vacancies are less for June and July so it is advisable to apply at least one month before the internship period.

Duration in weeks. No. of days/week. Timings

Four weeks, usually six days a week.

In case we had to report to court directly, we had to reach by at least 10am. If we didn’t have a case allotted to us that day, then had to report to the office at around 12.

The day ended at around 7-8 pm, depending on the quantity of work for the next couple of days.

First impression. First day, formalities etc.

Sir asked a few questions in order to understand the depth of our knowledge, told us about the court basics and explained a little about the filing structure and court structure to give us an idea about how things work. He also told us that we would be free to ask him any law-related questions.

Main tasks

Main tasks were to attend the cases that were allotted to every intern, file applications in courts, other miscellaneous stuff and a bit of drafting here and there.

There was loads of research work the interns were expected to do every day. Sir provided us with things he wanted us to research about every day and we were expected to research well and report the work to him according to the time allotted.

Best things

The work environment was pretty chilled out since the age gap between Sir/associates and the interns is not substantial. Thus, sir understood the interns in a way that few lawyers do. Moreover, in case we can’t finish the task properly the first time around, Sir explains it all again without any fuss.

Sir was also kind enough to answer at length any doubt or question we had and apart from practical stuff, also taught us theoretical stuff about important sections.

The best part was that Sir always made sure that we were busy and regularly assigned us work so that we could get the most value out of the internship.

Bad things

There was no bad thing as such. The only thing worth mentioning is that internship got hectic and even though the work made it worth it, people living far from office or not used to hectic schedule may find it difficult.

Stipend/ month

Depends on the quality of work done.

Biggest lessons

During the course of our internship, we learnt that district courts are indeed the best places to learn about law and how things really work. Even when work got hectic at times, it was worth it because of the sheer quantity of things we learnt.

Apart from law-related things, Sir also taught us about professional ethics which can be as important as one’s knowledge.