Soham Devlekar was studying in a 3-year LLB course at Baba Saheb Apte Law College in Mumbai.
During the pandemic, his father lost his job, and his mother’s earnings were barely enough to make ends meet.
He wanted to contribute to the household.
He was still studying in his 3rd year of college.
He couldn’t wait to get a job until he graduated.
Moreover, his college did not offer any placement assistance services.
He was also a first-generation lawyer at the same time.
That is when he took our help.
Soham started to learn Indian and US intellectual property laws.
He started learning how to do the work and also published a few articles to build his initial track record.
He first secured a remote internship with a Philadelphia-based law firm which specialised in pharmaceutical laws.
Soham worked on contracts as a remote paralegal, published articles for the firm and also worked on its social media presence.
He worked there for a few months and earned a stipend of INR 15k per month.
Not a lot, but nevertheless a start.
He was still trying to pitch for independent assignments through Upwork while he was interning, but faced rejections – he faced 25 rejections on Upwork in those 6 months!
He also performed some unpaid assignments with WACEO, a blockchain organisation based in Brussels, Belgium during this period to further build his track record.
Finally, he was able to land a full time remote job at Cowlitz Law Group in the US, a law firm that works on real estate, personal injury, family law, etc., where he was initially earning 5 USD per hour as a paralegal.
He used to work for 5 days per week, alongside his college.
His pay was revised to earning USD 8/hr in 3 months.
At that time, he was able to earn approx. USD 1500 per month.
He was earning over a lakh per month before he had even graduated!
He was now able to contribute effectively to his family.
Soham continued to get paid through Upwork, and he had crossed USD 12,000 reported earnings at that point.
Since his interest lay in IP laws and he had learned many US IP law skills by then, he moved to Edison IP, a niche IP firm in Texas which specialises in IP enforcement.
The firm offered him a monthly arrangement initially, which was later revised into an annual contract of USD 20k per year once he graduated!
Soham’s day-to-day work centres around monitoring potential instances of IP infringement for his clients on the internet and ensuring that infringing content is taken down by issuing various kinds of notices as a remote paralegal.
Soham continued to work remotely from his home in Mumbai.
The earnings on his Upwork profile also hit a new high:
Although initially he was working through Upwork, but later the firm transitioned to paying him directly through banking channels into his bank account.
It has been almost 2 years since then.
Soham has received a promotion as well and is managing a couple of juniors in the firm, and earns over USD 25k/year!
Since he was always interested in travelling to Dubai, he went there for a trip and also invited his parents over.
Soham has not just opened doors to a legal career in the US, but will be welcomed with open arms by any top Indian law firm or MNC in India should he be interested in working in India.
Like Soham, would you like to build an international career in US IP laws as an Indian law grad?
Do you want to work with US law firms remotely from your hometown?
Do you want to get some international exposure so that you can get the top IP jobs in Indian law firms and MNCs?
Maybe you want to work with international clients on the side while you continue to build a practice in India as a litigator?
Do you want to know how you can do that?
Join us live in our free, 3-day online Bootcamp on “How to Kickstart Your International IP Career” happening on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of July 2024 (7 PM-10 PM) where we will show you the step-by-step roadmap that was followed by Soham and hundreds of other Indian lawyers to build their career in intellectual property laws.
We will also show you how to perform two key assignments that Soham does at his US law firm for free so that you can do it too!
Recordings will not be available, so make sure you mark your calendar!
See you there!
Regards,
Sonali Parashar
Content Team
LawSikho and SkillArbitrage