Internships in Law School- Free Labour or Actually Worth It?

The law is mostly seen as a binary between boardrooms and courtrooms, the students are seen as
nothing more than free labour. The tragedy, however, is that even with the cognizance of the same, it’s
often diluted down to the level of passing humor in random conversations that discuss how the
internship is going.

You’re most likely introduced to these internships in the first year of law school, with an easier job such
as that in an NGO, but even here, you’re mostly not taught these things too well. Often, you lack
guidance with regard to what your work is or how to go about it, as a result of which you’re often
treated as a volunteer for the NGO rather than a part of the administration. However, you do get some
work delegated to you, even if it is often an extension of this volunteering only, in the form of handling
social media for the NGO . This is primarily done for two reasons- first to get exposure to work that is
being done and secondly to inculcate empathy towards the ones you’re working for. The work ethic that
you get from these smaller starting steps goes ahead and culminates into various other sectors as well.

Starting with the corporate sector, we’ve always seen them as money- hungry sharks with the best
brains and a silver tongue to get the best things done. At least that is what Harvey Specter has us
believe.

But the catch is- no one probably talks about the Temp at his firm. The guy who is delegated to
mundane work like making innumerable copies of documents made to do work that he’s not even
educated for like getting coffee and driving people around and at best, being delegated to heaps of
regular work that is mostly just dismissed off as unintuitive and error- prone in a yell from Harvey
himself, maybe. This is the reality of interns everywhere in the corporate sector- which demands that
you have the best of credentials to even dream of a job in the saturation that exists.

But even worse is the non-acknowledgment of the work done- let alone reimbursement, for the most
part, an intern is someone who can be relegated to the most demeaning of works and more than a
learning experience, it becomes a downpour of frustrations because of how expendable you are. Let
alone being valued, often your mere existence is trapped between the never-ending hours of work and a
transition to the moniker “corporate slave”.

But it’s not just the corporate sector that engages in these practices- the litigation sector is perhaps even
worse. Moreover, the drafting of contracts which may be mundane and error- prone , sure, perhaps
carrying an umbrella and just arranging files for your advocate to carry the same in Court the next day
are even worse. Not to mention, the constant rush you must do things for the one person in charge-
from tracking appointments to making dinner even- most of the same that comes under the guise of
learning is nothing more than a glorification of caregiving.

But not all is lost. While it may seem from the things written that these experiences are to be avoided,
often they result in some benefits. Firstly, in terms of the corporate sector, you get to know the life
you’re probably going to lead right away- meaning you can have realistic expectations for yourself in the
personal sphere. Possibly the very reason that individuals end up shirking their interpersonal
relationships in Favor of short-term ones, giving rise to Situation ships.

But even more than that, you can impress and express yourself at your work- because corporate is
probably the only sector that more than anything else values your ability to network. Perhaps you’re a
temp now, but with a steady stream of impressive work or even conversations with those above you,
maybe someday you could be a Mike too. Finally, let’s talk some tangible stuff- in terms of a job and pay
scale, you’re more likely to be better off than someone who doesn’t have a ton of these internships in
the first place, so the chances are that you are having a steady flow of income after continuous
devaluation is much higher than someone who didn’t face the same.

Even in the advocacy sector, you do gain some benefits of the same. Firstly, you get direct engagement
with someone who is more experienced and can guide you in the matters of what you wish to do
further. You also get a first-hand experience of how tough practice is in general- because it’s not a Moot
in an air-conditioned room anymore but actual work in a Courtroom- where you don’t have luxuries.
Where things are gritty and rough and not sanitized the way people around you assume them to be.
Finally, you get some work done as well- maybe not as meaningful as making a million copies of some
document- but researching cases and error corrections even to understand the arguments that would
perhaps be made, giving you a broader purview of the scope of the field as well as the etiquette within
it.

Finally, while it is true that most internships in India result in disillusionment and dejection for students
who have been pushed around as free labour and ridiculed to a great extent, especially if they come
from a lower- tier college, it is also the most authentic representation of law as a field you’re ever going
to get. It’s not about reading books in a comfortable chair- it’s about applying the things you’ve learned
and doing them properly. It’s about engaging with others and etiquette. And all those things are only
learned with experience, something that only these internships provide you with.