The internship thus far

It’s nothing short of fascinatingly discombobulating being in New Delhi. In all my travels, I’ve never been in place quite like this before. Just the sheer number of people; the constant crowds; the smells of food, incense, and exhaust all in the air at once; it’s been both thrilling and daunting at the same time. By the end of last week, I was feeling frustrated by a nagging sense of discomfort. In part I knew it was because Ihadn’t yet taken the time to properly explore, get acclimated, learn to navigate the rickshaws, taxis, and metro. I was finally able to do all that over the weekend, but first, it was necessary to focus on the real reason I’m here in Delhi – the internship.

As I mentioned last week, I’m interning at Koura & Company for the first three weeks along with one other student. Last Monday was our first day at the firm. It was somewhat surprising to walk into the office and not see a single attorney at 11:00 am. Since it’s summer, vacation season, and hot as an oven in Delhi, the work pace is somewhat slower (or so I’ve been told; though the traffic is still pretty intense). Since the courts also shut down for the month of June, the slower pace seems to have been particularly true in the legal profession.

Shortly after arriving at the firm, we were drinking coffee and tea with Angeli Dayal, one of the attorneys and our supervisor, discussing how our time in Delhi has been so far and getting an introduction to the Firm and its various practice areas. Angeli explained that the majority of her work is in real estate and property law. Both her husband and her father are partners at Koura & Co. and many of their major clients are in the oil and gas industry. Other attorneys in the office specialize in franchises, government contracts, foreign investment, labor services, and banking and finance. In total there are 9 lawyers and 3 partners. With a combination of government and business legal work, I’m very excited to be interning here this summer.Not long after the introduction, we received our first assignment. I was really looking forward to diving right into the internship and putting the first year of legal education into practice, so it was great that she already had project in mind. One of Angeli’s corporate clients has set aside a large trust for the purposes of establishing universities and making higher education more accessible, particularly to students in the rural areas of the State of Uttar Pradesh. In order to build these universities, the organization must first gain the State’s approval, attained by a legislative act endorsing the proposal. The act outlines certain requirements that must be met for final approval, including the submission of the proposed university’s statutes andordinances. Angeli has already completed this requirement on behalf of her client, and they are now pending final approval from the State. The only piece left to complete for her client is a draft of the internal regulations for the university. These do not have to be reviewed or approved by the State. They are strictly for the proposed university’s internal use, but the objective is to provide the university with all the guidelines it needs to start operating right away. My assignment is to work on drafting these regulations for the university.

So far we’ve reviewed all the background information, the statutes and ordinances, (which are still pending final approval), and finally started a bit of drafting as of the end of last week. I have to admit that the assignment is more challenging than I originally anticipated. I’ve had experience drafting internal policies and procedures for a company before, and while that background is undoubtedly useful for this assignment, I initially assumed my previous work experiences would have prepared me to start writing a draft much earlier. It was an oversight of the blatantly obvious – I’ve never drafted the governing rules for a university,and clearly have no knowledge of the laws and norms for universities in Uttar Pradesh. Despite the challenge, it’s exciting work. I find it rewarding that at least in a very small way I’m helping generate education and employment opportunities for future students in this country.

Early this week, Angeli told us that we likely start a second assignment concerning a copyright infringement case that just came up. It sounds like we’ll be exposed to a rather diverse spectrum of work at Koura. I’m looking forward to this next project and observing some of the different approaches to copyrights in India vis-à-vis the United States.

List of companies also in the building. Koura & Co. listed on the third floor.

View of the outside of the office building