Interning for Free, Protecting Justice: The Unspoken Struggle of Law Students

By Kaustav

Introduction

We all surf through news, social media posts about unpaid legal internships and, this recently has become an aggravating issue, since the judgement of the Honourable Supreme Court of India, mandating 3 year practice to appear in the state judicial exams, delivered by three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, and Justices AG Masih and K Vinod Chandran.

This problem is further magnified by the new mandatory guideline by the Bar Council of India (BCI) in the new internship Rule 25, where a minimum Period of Internship is 12 weeks for Three Year Course stream and 20 weeks in case of Five Year Course stream during the entire period of legal studies under NGO, Trial and Appellate Advocates, Judiciary, Legal Regulatory authorities, Legislatures and Parliament, Other Legal Functionaries, Market Institutions, Law Firms, Companies, Local Self Government and other such bodies.

Now, since a law student registered under the BCI is mandated to adhere to the guidelines, an internship for a law student in any college or university is a necessity. The problem in this case is not the internship itself, but rather that it is unpaid. The student coming from middle class, lower middle class and working class deal with a serious problem especially the first generation ones as the interning has been mandatory but the same has failed to provide some kind of remuneration to compensate for firstly, the daily expenses from computation, food, accommodation or formal clothing to secondly, the work itself.

Comparison of the Legal Field with the Medical Field

The problem tends to be more glaring when internships in the field of law are compared to those in the medical or business fields. For instance, every medical student shall be required to undergo a compulsory rotating medical internship (CRMI) for a minimum period of twelve months, which is mandatory by Medical Council of India (MCI), that is not only structured but also paid, the stipends ranging between ₹15,000 to ₹25,000, depending on the state or institution and their other benefits such as maternity leaves, paternity leaves and a declared provision for leaves.

The stark inequality arises from the difference in conducting organization, as in the case of medical students, it is the government-run hospitals where the infrastructure is publicly funded, and compensation is considered a non-negotiable part of the training, compared to legal internships, which are usually informal, unregulated, and driven by personal networks. Individual lawyers, even those practicing in High Courts, are not legally obligated—nor often financially capable—of paying interns.

How the System Pushes Out the Students Who Need It the Most

This structural disparity has dire consequences for legal education and access to professional life. While only those coming from privileged backgrounds can intern under senior advocates, in high courts, or at top-tier law firms, for them it may simply be a matter of preference. But for a first-generation law student from a rural or economically disadvantaged background, such an internship is a luxury.

When BCI mandates internship requirements without mandating remuneration, it silently endorses a system that rewards those born with a golden spoon. Students are expected to relocate to unfamiliar cities, bear the cost of daily travel, food, accommodation, and formal attire, all while working long hours in clerical or research-oriented tasks, without receiving a single rupee; this, for many, is an unaffordable form of labour.

In a New York Times opinion piece in 2012, Charles Murray excellently portrayed how unpaid internships pose a significant challenge to students from lower-middle-class backgrounds, especially in cases where they need to relocate. He writes about unpaid internships,

His observation rings even louder in India today, where caste, class, and economic differences further compound this privilege gap. In the legal field, this creates a dangerous illusion where all students are offered the same opportunities at the forefront, but only a few can afford them.

The Law That Administers Justice Failed the Same People Who Protect It at the Entry Level

This is deeply ironic that the legal field, which stands for rights and equality, tolerates structural injustice within its training process. Through decades, the courts have emphasized “equal opportunity” and subject to provisions of Article 15 of the Indian Constitution which provides “Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth,” yet legal education and practice have sustained a model which failed to deal with the problem in its own path of learning for its students.

This contradiction not only weakens the moral authority of the profession but also undermines public trust and social order.

Conclusion: A Need for Social Reform

This model of unpaid internship in India is an educational loophole—a systematic failure that reflects deeper inequalities in the profession. The legal field, which seeks to uphold the values it preaches—equality, fairness, and justice—has to address this model of inequality at its very own foundation and with its very own minds.

The following structural reforms, with comparison with the Medical Council of India (MCI), could be implemented by the Bar Council of India (BCI):

• The Bar Council of India (BCI) must mandate stipends for internships or create an internship reimbursement subsidy fund.

• Guidelines should be issued by the Bar Council of India (BCI) to Law Schools and Universities to take responsibility for arranging paid internships through formal collaborations.

• The Union of India should recognize legal internships as public interest work and introduce schemes to mitigate the problem.

• The judiciary and legal institutions should introspect to uphold fair practices in their working lines.

• The implementation of the system could be carried out by the universities through building an active alumni network, providing such opportunities to their students.

This is the need of the hour—the legal field has been growing better than ever before—issues when addressed would attract the best of the young minds, more of them, often favour the hard and long working hours of a doctor or the unpredictable circumstances of an engineer to that the honour of someone upholding the values of the most important and powerful instrument of the state—“Law.”