I was in a meeting with Karan Singh, the Managing Partner of Trilegal in Mumbai. He had a very swanky office in Elphinstone Road, Mumbai. This was in 2011.

It was one of the first matters that we were working on.

The merger control provisions of the Competition Act had recently been notified.

He told us: “always remember to check the applicability of competition law - it is a tendency to miss it sometimes, as the law is new.”

He was asking us to confirm whether a certain exemption from competition law was applicable for a particular transaction, based on the assets or turnover of the company being below the required threshold.

We’d sometimes visualize the entire transaction, and later it would strike us that we need to perform a check to claim competition law exemptions as well.

At that time in 2011-2012, Trilegal had one lawyer working as an of-counsel on competition law

In 2021, Trilegal’s competition team has 15-20 lawyers.

Today every tier-1 law firm in the country necessarily has an elite team of competition lawyers be it the competition teams of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, AZB & Partners, L&L Partners and JSA are huge.

Apart from that, Tier 2 and boutique firms such as Sarvada Legal, Talwar Thakore & Associates, Indus Law, Gaggar and Partners, Chandiok & Mahajan, Vaish Associates, S&R Associates, Touchstone Partners (Erstwhile Platinum Partners) have strong competition practices.

These law firms have a special requirement of recruiting freshers for their competition law practice.

The Competition Commission of India, Vidhi Centre for Legal Research, NITI Aayog, and other institutions also frequently hire competition lawyers as research associates.

Big tech companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google have created policy divisions exclusively dedicated to competition law in the light of the recent set of litigations that have been initiated against them.

Even technology law firms such as Spice Route Legal and Ikigai Law have started recruiting competition lawyers for their corporate advisories.

Competition law is not an emerging practice area anymore - suddenly, there is an explosion of new opportunities, and they are increasing by the day.

There is a certain early mover advantage lawyers have with competition law.

As compared to corporate laws, the market is far from becoming saturated - opportunities in litigation and mergers and acquisitions are increasing day by day.

Salaries of competition lawyers are comparable to that of other practice areas.

Further, opportunities to work as a competition lawyer are not restricted to Delhi - Mumbai and Bangalore offices of law firms also recruit competition lawyers.

Who is this for:

• Young lawyers who want to work in competition law firms or in the competition team of big law firms
• Lawyers aspiring to work with emerging startups or top technology companies in India or move abroad
• Independent practitioners who want to diversify into a new and highly profitable practice area
• Corporate or disputes lawyers who want to diversify into a new but commercially relevant practice area
• Lawyers who want to work as in-house counsels of large companies such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Reliance, DLF or other market leaders
• Lawyers who want to work in the policy sector or with various think tanks like Niti Ayog, Vidhi Centre for Legal Research, or with the Competition Commission of India itself
• Lawyers who want to pursue an MBA
• Law students who want to explore new areas of work with promising career opportunities
• Law students and graduates looking to pursue an LLM in the EU or the US.
• Professionals looking to work as economic analysts or in research teams of organizations such as Gartner, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, etc.

What will you learn:

• What kind of work does a competition lawyer perform?
• Why is competition law work increasing in India and globally?
• Which are the big competition law practices in India and how much do they pay?
• What does it take to get into the competition teams of Trilegal, AZB, SAM, CAM, L&L Partners, and Indus Law?
• What are the skills necessary to be a successful competition lawyer?
• How to get opportunities to work for Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google?
• How can I work with the Competition Commission of India? What are the long-term advantages for my career?
• I am a junior in-house counsel working for a small company. How can I move to a big company and improve my career prospects?
• I am interested in policy work - is specialization in competition law a good option? What are the key research institutions that hire competition lawyers for policy work?
• I am interested in teaching - should I learn competition law?
• How can I perform business development activity around competition law? Will competition compliance and other training programmes help me obtain more matters and build my clientele?
• I am a litigator in the trial courts or NCLT - will learning how to perform competition-related litigation and advisory work be rewarding for me?
• Why are technology law firms such as Ikigai and Spice Route Legal hiring competition lawyers?
• How can I get started in college if I want to build a career in competition laws?
• Do I need to wait till I am in my 4th or 5th year to obtain good competition law internships, or can I get them before?
• I am looking to move out of India. Is competition law a good practice area for me?
• Do I need to learn finance or economics to build a career in competition law