What is Lawsikho Master Access, and why has it been created?

We often have learners who take multiple courses. People taking two or three courses back to back is quite common. However, we were shocked by a new phenomenon recently. Some of our learners had taken 5 or 6 courses at a time.

Who are these people? What could be their motive?

In March, I began to call these users to understand what is going on. It was a game-changer for LawSikho. We were generating a certain kind of value for some lawyers, but we were not even aware of what that was.

What makes a lawyer buy 5 or 6 LawSikho courses at once? They are probably not going to attend all the classes and solve dozens of exercises every week. What is the purpose behind spending over a lakh and buying these courses all at once?

As I started my quest for answers, I discovered something quite amazing. I had no idea!

Truly the customers are the best teachers, in every business. We must listen to our users very keenly.

It turns out that some lawyers use our courses as ready-made databases of reference material and templates. They are not studying these courses regularly. They do not bother to attend most of the classes but only attend the few ones absolutely of interest to them.

They are taking advantage of the hundreds of high-quality templates for serving their clients. Also, when faced with complicated questions of law and procedural issues, they are turning to the course material for quick practical insights, just as one would turn to a library of reference books.

The realization led us to an amazing possibility and new direction.

To be honest, the entire collection of our courses is nothing less than a massive library of practical material that can assist a lawyer in day-to-day practice. You not only get answers to common questions, get to ask your own questions and have them answered by experts, request the addition of new material to course from time to time, but also get hundreds of templates of high-quality contracts, plaints, written statements, court applications, notices, due diligence reports, and even specific prayers for specific matters.

Let’s say you never did any insolvency matter before. But you get a client who is willing to hire you. Where would you turn to for a quick primer of all the practical issues? An overnight study of our database will teach you a lot more than pouring over fat, dense, difficult to grasp books or even googling the subject.

One good option is to call up a friend who has experience in that area and ask some sharp questions. However, how much time can they spare for you? Does this always work?

Smart lawyers spend a lot of money on books already. Spending on a database of unique insights on practical legal issues, readymade templates and formats, direct answers to client problems and thousands of pages of specifical, situational and useful guidance makes tremendous sense for them.

It reduces research time, increases the accuracy of advice, helps to expand the area of practice and on top of that, you can learn an unlimited number of skills whenever you like.

They can solve any assignment for practical knowledge and get personal feedback from our experts. They can ask any number of complicated questions related to the course and have that answered within hours (usually, though we can take up to one working day in some cases, especially in the holiday season.) They can even learn how to expand their practice through our practice development and networking courses.

Isn’t that awesome?

So that’s what our smartest users have already been doing. What new opportunity does this realization open up for us?

It is a library of legal insights, strategies, lessons-on-demand, and resources at the fingertip of smart, technology-friendly lawyers- gamechanger?

What I learned from them made me realize that the LawSikho.com’s database has the potential of acting as a new kind of LexisNexis or Manupatra database, but instead of a database of case laws, this will be a database of legal insights, proven war strategies, how-to guides, templates, process documents, formats, and whatnot. On top of that, a database that teaches you the law you quickly need to learn, coupled with live classes, exercises, and training whenever you need them. The most powerful legal database in the world, which will be a gamechanger for the lawyers who will have access to them!

From some databases, you can get case law. And they are so useful, absolutely essential. Can you imagine the power of a database that gives you the information, resources, and training you need to practice law with the highest level of efficiency and performance? What if you could get practical insights in a similar kind of database?

We knew Master Access will be a game-changer in the legal industry. Success for young lawyers will never be the same again, and even older lawyers will seamlessly move into newer and more lucrative areas of practice without a hitch. And they will deliver amazing results.

This was our vision when we launched it for the first time in May 2019.

And, we knew the disruptive power of a library like this. We would enable the lawyers who would have this library to grow very fast, get work done quicker, and deliver better results to clients.

This compelled me to come up with an idea. Why don’t we encourage and embrace this trend? If these lawyers are finding value in buying multiple paid courses, why don’t we encourage more lawyers to do the same by offering an attractive package?

Plus there are a lot of learners who tell us from time to time that they want to buy a lot of courses, and they expect a discount for buying in bulk. We are dead against discounts as an organization. We feel that it is cheating on all those who paid the full price!

Everyone should have access to the same price. No bargaining, no season discounts, no secret vouchers. It’s just not fair in our opinion to engage in differential pricing for different people!

Of course, we give scholarships at times, to people who are truly marginalized and deserve that support. Every month we give two IDIA scholars access to free courses.

However, if someone is buying a lot of courses at once, I don’t think they should have to pay the full individual prices for each course.

And then, I used to get emails like these that put my conscience into crisis-

I had a hard time convincing my team, but we finally did make it happen. They thought it was a crazy idea, and that I was giving away too much value for too little money.

If we simply add the price of all the 37 courses available on LawSikho.com, the price comes to a solid Rs. 7,00,000 at least.

What do you call it? A treasure chest of courses? A comprehensive database of templates? A free ticket to attend all the approx 20 classes a week that happen on LawSikho? A pass to learn an unlimited number of important legal skills?

We have a team of 30 full-time people and another half dozen people working part-time. A majority of these people work on course content. As a result, we have created a mountain of useful content in the last 7 years.

Also, we have the vision to make this the most comprehensive database of courses, so we are adding new content and new courses at a breakneck speed every month to this library.

How much should I charge for it? How long should it be available? What extra benefits and privileges should I provide along with such a grand package? I had been racking my brains for a couple of months since the beginning of 2019.

What was on the offer?

I have decided to call this Master Access by LawSikho. It will be the most VIP subscription that LawSikho has ever offered.

We decided back in April 2019 to offer the entire kitty of courses, only for the first 10 power users, for just 1 lakh per person.

For this price, they will get access to all our existing and future courses for the next 4 years. After 10 people enrol, we will temporarily close admission into this program until we make sure that these 10 people are properly served and totally delighted.

Once we can declare the package successful, we will then relaunch the program with new pricing and reconsidered terms and conditions.

Our May 2019 Batch for Master Access, which was the first time we put Master Access enrollments received a massively flattering response. So much so, that had candidates put on the waitlist since we had a 10 slots policy.

What is on offer now?

Normally when we sell a single course, we give access to it only for 3 years.

But Master Access users get access to all current and future courses of LawSikho.com for 4 whole years. We have fixed a one-time price of INR 1,50,000, inclusive of all taxes.

We will again close the admissions to Master Access to ensure that we delight these 10 power users. We will focus on making sure that they love it, and we may not open this program again anytime in the near future.

Why has Master access not been just a library: constant learning is also essential.

While a substantial number of students who enrolled in master access are using LawSikho as a database. Many have, on the contrary, enrolled themselves for their urge to learn the new laws in a simplified manner. They wanted to have access to these law courses and gain certifications for them, in the process as well apart from quick access to knowledge, templates, and insights.

BTW, even before I launched the program back in May, I had discussed the idea with a few old students of LawSikho. From those conversations when even our page detailing exactly what is included in the program was not yet up, we already had two in-house counsels who bought the program, so just 8 more seats were left in our first batch.

Also, we want to keep this program totally exclusive, and honestly, we do not want too many people taking it. I am sure you understand why! If fewer lawyers will have access to it, then we can charge more for this program later. Exclusivity and scarcity of a good thing lead to higher prices. If every Tom, Dick, and Harry had access to it, why will elite lawyers pay a premium for it?

Our normal courses are quite cheap compared to the value we provide. However, Master Access is a VIP program for a select few, and we intend to charge accordingly.

What would this VIP access to LawSikho.com, which we fondly named Master Access, include?

• You get unlimited access to all LawSikho.com’s current and future online courses (to be launched during your access) for the next 4 years. Yes, even if we launch a new course, you will automatically be entitled to access it, no matter what the price may be.
• If you want us to add any downloadable templates, formats or lessons, we will add them on a priority basis over other course development suggestions from other learners.
• Please send up suggestions for adding new insights, templates, formats, etc., and we need more and more of them so we can grow super fast.
• You get access to our upcoming members-only paid Facebook group, where we will share amazing insider content on jobs, opportunities, the future of law, legal technology and whatnot. All for free.
• You get priority in getting questions answered and doubts cleared as a Master Access program member. You also get priority for personal coaching, direct calls with the LawSikho team, priority customer support and job and recruitment support.
• You will get free passes and invitations to all LawSikho events and networking meetups across India.
• If you want hard copy material for any of the courses, you can just pay the printing and courier cost, and we will send it to you! We will not make any profit on selling you hard copy material, ever. That’s a promise. However, the price does not include the price of any hard copies.
• You can get personal feedback on as many assignments as you want from any course you like. However, if you want a certificate for a course, you have to complete the passing requirements of that course within a period of 1 year. We will give you certificates of as many courses as you can finish in 4 years, there are no limitations. We will send you the certificate by courier to any address within India.
• You will get access to the LawSikho alumni network, of course!
• You will be able to access priority processing for any articles that you submit to iPleaders blog or interview recommendations on SuperLawyer.in. Just mention that you are a Master Access member when you mail us an article or other requests.
• We will also give you a privilege that we do not give to anyone else. If you refer a student to us for any course as a Master Access member, we will provide that person with a 10% discount on any course, only because we know you love our courses and anybody referred by you will also be a power user of LawSikho.com in times to come. This is out of our gratitude for your early support.
• No price increase will affect you. When we launched our course in June 2018, most courses were priced around INR 15,000. These courses are now priced at around INR 30,000 from 3rd May 2019. If you follow LawSikho, you know that we believe in creating premium courses and delivering immense value. We charge more because we believe in giving more value rather than charging too little and giving precisely little value. But if you buy Master Access now, you never get affected by any price hike.
• We are free to change the policies for future members, but for those 10 people who enrol for Master Access, these policies will never change.
• After 4 years, we will allow you to extend your membership at a very reasonable annual fee. Since you would be counted as an early adopter, we will have special pricing for you. You will pay substantially less than all the new members for the renewal of membership as you will be considered a privileged early adopter.

Remember, this is crazy pricing for a massive list of privileges and access to a huge library of over 40 courses. And the list will keep growing as we keep launching new courses almost every month.

This will not make sense for everyone, but only those who absolutely love LawSikho courses and want access to everything we have. We do not recommend it for first-time buyers of LawSikho courses.

But this opportunity may not come back ever. So act fast.

What is included in this Master Access by LawSikho?

You will also have access to any new course

You will also have access to any new course that is launched in that period of 4 years. But if you want certification for a course, you have to complete all course criteria for that course within a maximum period of 1 year.

Example 1: If you take our Executive Certificate course in IBC or arbitration and start such a course let’s say from 1st of November, you have to finish the course by 31st October of the following year.

Example 2: If you take our newly launched Executive certificate course on Asteroid Laws (for example, an imaginary subject as of now) after completion of 4 years 11 months after buying Master Access, you can continue to access that particular course for the next 1 year or until you finish it, whichever is earlier. Basically, we give you maximum possible leverage.

Example 3: If you take our Diploma in Contract Drafting course, and start such a course let’s say from 1st of January, you have to finish the course by 31st December in order to be eligible for the certificate. If you don’t care about the certificate, then you can access any class and any material at any time you like.

NOTE: University-certified courses and test prep courses are not included

What if I have already paid for 2 or more courses on LawSikho? Do I get any extra benefit?

We expect people who have taken at least one course and loved it to go for this Master Access package. However, if you have done 2 or more courses from LawSikho already, you can simply pay the difference between what you have already paid to us in total so far, and 1.2 lakh rupees instead of paying the entire Master Access fee. If you have already spent over 1.2 lakh or more on LawSikho, we will give you Master Access free of cost. If you bought less than two (2) courses from LawSikho so far, this benefit does not apply. This rule also does not apply if you have taken any course from NUJS in the past. We cannot refund any money if you have spent more than 1.2 lakh already on LawSikho. Please note that more than one person cannot combine to benefit from this provision. Corporate clients would not get this benefit.

Access whatever knowledge you need, whenever you need it

The principal idea behind Master Access is that you should be able to access whatever you need and whenever you need it, keeping in mind the diverse requirements of professional and student life.

There may be situations where you need to study multiple subjects at once. At times, you suddenly may need to know and understand a new area of law with not much further notice. Apart from that, this is a huge opportunity to directly generate real value at work, even if you don’t need certificates in every course. After all, what use is a certificate if you do not possess relevant skill-sets to do real work! If you have Master Access, you will have an advantage over all your colleagues and peers who don’t have it. We expect that lawyers who are looking to expand their area of practice, or taking up more challenging roles within organizations, or just looking to take their knowledge and skills to a highly differentiated level, will want to use Master Access and will tremendously benefit.

Through this course, you can learn any of the varied law subjects we teach at any point you want. You will be carrying a huge library of practical knowledge practically in your pocket. You can access it whenever you want, you can post questions whenever you want, access recordings of any past classes that you want to access, and attend any live class that is happening in LawSikho that you would like to attend.

All these, for 4 whole years. How much can you grow in the next 4 years? How much can you learn? Where will your career go if you could just learn one skill every day for the next 4 years?

Our courses already provide multiple times with the value of their price. Our target is that if you buy a course worth Rs. 30,000, you should get the value of at least Rs. 3 lakhs. And those of you who know us may also know that we never give discounts, so this is really a very very sweet deal.

Bonus

BONUS

Exclusive access to courses under development for LawSikho

We have an exciting bonus for you. You will also have access to a library of study materials of around 12 currently under-development courses. We do not share these courses with anyone else, but you will have exclusive access as VIP users. This is exclusively being provided to all of you to have an inside look at some of our work-in-progress materials. These courses do not have classroom access.

Even in the future, we will keep sharing with your access to various work-in-progress courses that we begin working on.

List of courses under development that you will get access to

As a VIP member of the Master Access by LawSikho, we will start sharing with you a number of courses that are under development or review and are not available to the rest of our users to buy. We will only give access to Master Access members to these courses so that we can get your feedback in the development and review process. While these courses may be yet useful, we advise you not to place full reliance on courses that are either under development or review.

Here is the list of courses under development and review:

Training Methodology

Online 24/7 access

Access to basic study material through online learning management system, Android and iOS app

Practical Exercises

2 practical exercises every week, followed by written feedback

Live Online Classes

Based on the exercises, there will be a live video based online class. You can ask questions, share your screen, get personal feedback in this class.

Convenient Class timings

Classes are held after regular work hours. Typically classes are kept on Sunday afternoon or 8-9 pm on other days.

Live Doubt Clearing

You can ask questions, get your doubt cleared live as well as through online forums

Who should opt for the master access?

• This program is very suitable for in-house counsels. The access to the entire library of material and access to classes of different classes will help them to have an across-the-board grasp of litigation, contracts, tax and other legal issues impacting their company and manage outcomes with law firms and local lawyers effectively.
• Litigators who want to build a law firm, or expand the range of litigation-related work they perform will find this program attractive.
• Partners at law firms who want to expand into multiple practice areas or have a ready resource of practical insights so that they can offer better advice to their high profile clients who may need a wide variety of advice from time to time.
• Young first-generation practitioners who want access to a database of practical knowledge, templates, actionable insights and new skills to learn, in order to rapidly build a powerful law practice of their own.
• CFOs, managers, consultants, company secretaries and strategic advisors who want to access domain-specific knowledge for advising founders and directors on the go. The library of courses is an amazing resource for them that will dramatically cut time costs, legal expenses, response time and risk.
• Businessmen, industrialists, and entrepreneurs of early to medium-scale business who need to be hands-on regarding the strategic aspects of their businesses, ranging from funding, hiring, scaling, executing deals and handling disputes. Master Access will give them access to a trove of knowledge, advice, and insights that would provide them a massive competitive advantage.
• Freelancers, who want to increase their skill sets and take up different kinds of independent consultancy work for clients but find it difficult to solve new types of client problems.
• Law students who want to systematically prepare for a legal great career, access live classes and unlimited new skills in any course they like, perform better during internships and interviews, and fully use the power of LawSikho.com courses over the years for extraordinary results in their career.

Caveat: Group purchases are not allowed. We have software that tracks use from unauthorized devices even if you log in from the same id. If we find misuse of Master Access, we retain the right to immediately disqualify you from further access without any warning. Your money will not be refunded and you will be prosecuted for infringement of intellectual property rights.

How will you benefit?

• You will have access to a treasure trove of knowledge on a vast number of legal subjects. Even buying books on so many subjects will cost you much more than the cost of the program.
• You will be able to access this massive library of courses on the go. If you face a question that you quickly need to research during a meeting, you can take out the phone and get to the point straight. This library will massively cut your research time.
• You will get practical insights and advice that you will not get anywhere else at all.
• You can learn new skills by solving hundreds of assignments and get personal feedback on them. You can also get certified on any number of courses you like.
• You can attend live classes that are important to you.
• You can ask your questions during live sessions, or WhatsApp groups or even inside the learning management system while reading any material.
• As you continuously learn new knowledge and skills over the next 4 years, you will stand out in a room full of lawyers, no matter where you are.

Will I receive recruitment and internship support? are there any placement guarantees?

We are the only organization in India that teaches these kinds of comprehensive and practical courses. Many employers, law firms and companies are happy to recruit our high performing students. If you do well in your exercises and classes, we can help you to get jobs, internships and assessment internships in good law firms, with renowned lawyers as well as in various companies. However, we recommend only those who we believe are ready to do the job they are applying for and provide no guarantee of placement or recruitment of any kind. You have to put in efforts from your side as well to make it work for you!

What is the pass criteria?

You have to submit at least 50% exercises and 3/6 writing assignments (as the case may be) in executive certificate courses and 50% of the exercises and 10 writing assignments in diploma courses.

You can start any course of your choice and you can choose as many courses as you want to start at a time. Before starting the course, you have to inform us regarding the same by writing an email to [email protected] and you will be formally added to the next batch available for attending classes. Once you have started a course, you have to complete it within the duration given for the course to be eligible to get the certificate.

You can sit in any online class of any course in any week throughout the period of your access to the course. You can also attempt the exercise and get feedback on the same throughout the duration of your access. Access to the course material and mentors and experts will also be available during the period of 4 years of access. But, once you have initiated a course and have not completed it within the given time, you will not be considered for the certificate.

If you start the course without informing us and submit exercises randomly, we will provide feedback to you but such submissions will not be considered for the purpose of the certificate.

Who will issue the certificate? What is the value of the certificate?

This program or any of our courses have no recognition, no affiliation and no certification from any university, government or third party. These courses are certified by LawSikho.com, run by a private limited company based out of India. We follow our own processes and standards which are clearly and transparently laid down on this website. We do not easily issue certificates to everyone who takes our course, but strictly enforce certification criteria. This ensures that graduates of our courses are of very high quality, and far exceeds the expectations of the legal industry. This is why our certificates are widely respected. Leading companies in India and abroad use our courses for their employees or sponsor their employees to pursue our courses. Our corporate clients include leaders in their domain like Microsoft, Samsung, ICICI Bank, ITC, Mahindra & Mahindra, Gates Foundation etc.

What can I do if I do not understand something?

• You can read FAQs of the relevant course, or call the number provided on lawsikho.com if it is an administrative matter
• You can write your queries on the discussion board of the LMS
• You can ask your queries in the Whatsapp group in which you will be added after enrolling in the course
• You can discuss the same in the class with faculty
• You can ask our support team to help you out

waitlist

Due to popular demand, we have started a waitlist for Master Access program. This program is very exclusive and so far we have given access to this program to only about 2 dozen lawyers, most of them loyal users of LawSikho who already had bought multiple courses in the past. We periodically open the memberships to our email lists and subscribers, usually a couple of times a year.

If you are interested in LawSikho Master Access program, you can join the wait list here. Here are the benefits:

• Get notified before any price increase of Master Access Program
• If any membership slot gets freed up, we would let you know
• When we begin to accept new members, you will get notified
• We would send our premium newsletters to you (unsubscribe anytime)