Legal research and writing offers exciting career opportunities
A search for ‘legal research jobs’ on Google shows hundreds of results on Naukri and LinkedIn. Take a look at the screenshots below:
Here’s a quick overview at the types of opportunities available:
Legal journalism
When I graduated in 2011, LegallyIndia was the only big legal news site, and a few newspapers like Economic Times had a legal beat. The world is very different today. Livelaw, Bar & Bench, Money Control, The Print, The Ken, and several mainstream newspapers hire hundreds of lawyers for their legal beat.
Opportunities with research organizations, think tanks and universities
Research and writing skills are very important for research-based and advocacy organizations, such as Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, PRS Legislative Research, Internet Freedom Foundation, Centre for Civil Society, Centre for Policy Research, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Center on Death Penalty (NLUD), Centre for WTO studies, IIFT, Centre for Legislative Research & Advocacy, Human Rights Law and Network and the Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre (PILSARC), Centre for International Law Research and Policy (CILRAP) and Centre for Environmental Law (CEL). Similarly, High Courts and law schools also release positions for research assistants/ associates from time to time.
Working with publishers
Major law book publishers such as Eastern Book Company, Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, Manupatra, LexisNexis, Taxmann, Delhi Law House, Eastern Book Company, SCC Online, etc. require lawyers in editing positions for book publication, headnote preparation, writing legal updates, editing and selection of articles, etc.
Law firms, Big Four Accounting Firms and Management Consultancy Firms: for their knowledge management, business development, PR and strategy teams
All major Indian and global law firms have created dedicated teams to plan their long-term growth, business development and internal training of their lawyers.
10 years back, national-level firms would have one or two people in the knowledge management initiative.
Today, firms such as Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan, JSA, Trilegal, DSK Legal, HSA, BMR, Hariani & Co. etc., have full-blown knowledge management teams, which include junior and senior level lawyers.
Apart from that, international firms such as Dezan Shira & Associates are hiring lawyers to conduct legal research and write articles in connection with the legal and regulatory environment in several countries.
An example of such a job posting is below:
Knowledge management teams are no longer restricted to tier 1 firms alone - every innovative firm has a focus on this area.
Apart from knowledge management, lawyers are also required to be involved in other work such as business development, public relations, strategy, knowledge management, learning and development, etc.
Big Four Accounting Firms such as Deloitte and management consultancy firms such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) also hire lawyers skilled in research and writing for their knowledge management and research roles.
Legal, professional or other online education companies
Online education has grown significantly over the years. After the COVID-19 lockdown, there is a clear understanding that this is the future. Accordingly, online education companies in the professional space (whether for law, test prep, CA, CS or other disciplines) are creating more sophisticated content, and need writers and teachers to prepare engaging and original content. Examples of these companies are Upgrad, Unacademy, Lawsikho, Lawctopus and there are several others. These companies look out for lawyers who possess expertise in writing for such positions.
5 misconceptions about learning legal writing
Legal writing does not have enough career opportunities which are financially lucrative.
Search for ‘legal research jobs’ on Google, and you will find a lot of active positions in the market. In big law firms, there are director or general-manager level positions for knowledge management, content and strategy teams.
In fact, during the lockdown, legal writing internships have been easier to secure for law students as compared to regular internships.
Legal writing is a full-time career now, and jobs in research and writing are financially lucrative. You can be assured of a long-term career in legal research in various kinds of organizations. Lawyers find research and writing-oriented jobs to be more fulfilling, as they involve a lot of learning, and usually offer a better work-life balance, in comparison to transactional work or litigation.
Legal writing work also works as a gateway to secure traditional litigation or law firm jobs. For example, assisting senior lawyers or law firms with research and blog writing work is a great way to build fruitful professional relationships.
You can later ask seniors who find your work useful for help with referrals, paid internships, PPOs and jobs.
Recruiters prefer working with juniors who have performed research work with them earlier successfully, in comparison to giving opportunities to new applicants.
This reason is simple - in case of new applicants, there is always some level of risk involved with respect to their work quality. It is also difficult to understand whether the applicant has a long-term interest in working in the job or not.
These attributes are much easier to understand with respect to applicants who have already worked earlier with the recruiters.
I have already written projects or papers in law school - therefore, I don’t need to learn anything new about legal writing.
Legal writing work is very different from the project-writing work in law school projects. There is little guidance on improvement of your structure, writing style, identification of conclusions, etc. The focus is on an academic thesis which you must ‘defend’.
The purpose of each kind of legal writing varies - for example, a blog for a lawyer’s website, or a handbook on employment laws, or a newsletter, is very different from an academic research article.
If you learn how to produce different kinds of writing work, you can improve your eligibility for being hired for legal writing positions.
I can learn writing and research in a law firm or other internship - my seniors will teach me how to write.
When you intern with a law firm or a litigator, preparation of a research note for your senior is one of the most basic and frequently given assignments.
For most law interns, the struggle in a law firm is not knowing the practical aspects of the practice area, commercial intent of clients, and the way in which the legal services industry operates.
Seniors expect you to have developed legal writing skills in college. They recognize that law school may not teach you practical skills, and therefore, they identify whom to call back for subsequent internships or for an interview based on ‘who writes better’ (yes, unlike old times, writing well is a parameter for recruitment these days).
Now, writing is not a natural skill. Anyone can write better, through training and practice.
I know how to use Manupatra, or Lexis or Westlaw to find case laws and articles - I don’t need anything else to build a career in legal writing.
Knowing how to use a research tool is very different from effective legal writing. We come across thousands of law students who are excellent with research and can comprehend what they have researched, but they struggle with writing what they have understood. This is a major obstacle to securing the career opportunities that they want.
Apart from research, one needs to develop the skills to create a structure, identify a hypothesis, write original content, use research to corroborate/ differentiate your hypothesis, and to present your findings in a way that a stakeholder (who may not be a non-lawyer) can make sense of it.
Legal writing is relevant for law students in their first or second year of law school only, and not after that.
If you think that your legal writing journey is completed within the early years of law school, you are really missing out on a lot of opportunity in your life.
There is always scope for a lawyer to improve one’s legal writing skills. I graduated in 2011 from a top national law school and worked at one of India’s best corporate law firms, yet there are many areas on which I still continuously work on.
For example, writing an email to our readers, writing a chapter for a course, or the preparation of a free downloadable e-book, all require a diverse set of skills.
Do you know how you can recognize whether there is scope for improvement of your legal writing skills?
If you experience boredom and monotony in your legal career, that is an indicator. You are restricting yourself to a few types of writing only, which you have a grip over, but not exploring other objectives through your legal writing.
For example, you may have written a lot of research notes for seniors at your internship, or legal opinions for your clients, but you might struggle to prepare a handbook, or write a blog post, or in preparing an industry guide or writing an opinion piece for a newspaper or a magazine.
That is where you can improve your writing skills, which you can explore in this course.