How's it like to do an LL.M. from Columbia University? Khagesh Gautam tells us.

Indian students are going all over the world for higher education. Indian lawyers very often go abroad to do an LL.M. Recently Khagesh Gautam, a current student of the prestigious law school at Columbia University shared his experiences and insights with A First Taste of law.

Khagesh Gautam at Columbia University

What was your motivation behind doing LL.M.? When and why did you decide that you need to do masters?

I decided to do LL.M. in early 2011. I made up my mind in April 2011 and then started looking for law schools that I should apply to.

The motivation was to pursue was strictly intellectual, a serious study of comparative law, particularly comparative constitutional law. I graduated from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University in 2008. The seeds of serious study of constitutional law were sown in the second year of law school itself. That passion continued with me throughout the four years that I practiced law. I was lucky to get an opportunity to work on some really complex constitutional matters when I was practicing. Somewhere in between I read some books on American history and political science and that got me interested in American Constitutional Law and comparative constitutional law. So I decided to do pursue a LL.M.

How did you choose Columbia University? Where else did you apply? How should one go about choosing a university?

I started my research by first making a list of law schools that I would like to study in. Then I went to their respective websites and looked at the courses they were offering. Any school that was not offering the subjects that wanted to study was crossed off my list. Then I looked at the professors teaching those subjects and did some online research to find out what was the professional standing of these professors. Following this method, I was able to zero in on a few law schools that were offering the courses that I wanted to study. Columbia Law School was on the top of my list because they had a special chair on Indian Constitutional Law (Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Chair). Last semester we had Professor Sudhir Krishnaswamy teaching Indian Constitutional Law. I took that course. He taught a great course. Previously this course was taught by Professor Akhil Reed Amar who is a highly respected name in American Constitutional Law.

I applied to Columbia, Virginia, U.Penn., and Harvard. I wanted to apply to Yale, Michigan and Cambridge but due to professional obligations I wasn’t able to complete the application formalities on time.

When going about how to select a university to apply to I consulted with my friends who had done LL.M. from foreign law schools. They advised me to first make up my mind as to what exactly I wanted to study and then look for law schools that offered those courses. I did that as I described above. The idea to research the professional standing of the professors teaching the course was my own. I also spent some time reading the published works of some of these professors.

What are you studying at Columbia University? Why did you decide to take this particular subject? Any interesting details about the course worth sharing?

As I said before, I wanted to study comparative constitutional law. So in my first semester at Columbia I took a course in American Constitutional Law and in Indian Constitutional Law. I took a seminar on Regulation of Capital Markets in which I wrote a paper on Credit Rating Agencies and the First Amendment commercial speech defence that they took post 2008 financial crisis. Even in a Capital Markets course I was doing constitutional law! I also took a course in International Investment Treaty Arbitration as well. In the second semester that is about to begin, I am concentrating completely on comparative constitutional law and some more international law. I also spent most of my free time reading about competition law (or anti-trust law as it is called in US).

How is your experience so far? Tell us about the faculty and facilities. Anything memorable that is stuck in your mind?

My experience has been a good one so far. The facilities in Columbia Law School are amazing. I have been able to put the resources in the law library to good use. The infrastructure is good. Let me put it simply – the only thing that could stop you from pursuing knowledge at Columbia Law School is yourself because every single thing you need to engage in a serious study of law in every way you can think of is available in the law school. There are several societies and groups that one can join in the law school. I joined the anti-trust group. There is always some big personality visiting for a guest lecture or a talk. I attended Justice Aahron Barak’s (former President of the Israeli Supreme Court) lecture on proportionality. There was a series of guest lectures of monetary system last semester. I managed to attend a few of them.

On the personal front, I enjoy photography and New York City is an amazing place for virtually every kind of photography one can think of. I have spent quite a bit of time walking around with my camera. Living in NYC itself is a unique experience. There is always something going on that you would be interested in, on or off campus.

How's the Indian fraternity over there? Are there many Indian students? 

Apart from the few American JD students of Indian origin that were classmates in the course on Indian Constitutional Law and other courses and the few family friends that I have here, I can’t really say anything about the Indian fraternity here. The students that I speak of seem to be very hardworking and focused on their studies. I am given to understand that the Indian professionals in USA, most of who are in the IT field, have done well for themselves.

There are about 12 or 13 Indian law students in the LL.M. program in the 2012-13 batch.

How is the recruitment/ placement situation for overseas students?

There is a placement office here which is very active and helpful. I have several friends and colleagues, Indian and from other countries in the LL.M. program who will soon be sitting for interviews. I think every major British and American law firm is represented in the placement interviews. Most of the jobs seem to be in the transactional corporate practice areas.

As to how many international LL.M.s will be able to get employment remains to be seen. It also depends on what kind of person the law firms are looking for. For example if a firm is looking for a Spanish or Mexican speaking lawyer then the potential group of applicants becomes smaller. A few firms seem to be looking for people versed in public international law for investor-state arbitration and such disputes but even in these jobs there seems to be a language qualification in some cases.

How is the academic schedule? Is there a lot of academic work?

The academic schedule is busy and demanding. The standard objection is that the readings prescribed for a course are more than the credits for the course justify. Though I concede that in some cases this objection is correct, on the whole I am satisfied with the quality and load of readings for the courses that I took. I have interacted with students taking courses in corporate laws. It looks to me as if they have been prescribed too much stuff to read. The casebooks prescribed are usually expensive but one can manage to rent them or buy used copies online for much less price.

The academic work depends on what kind of courses you take. For example if you take a seminar course and have to write a paper then things are different. Though the readings for the course might not be too much you have to additional research for your paper and then you have to actually write the paper, which is not a particularly easy thing to do, if you are trying to develop or propose a new idea. If you are taking an exam course then things are different because now you may not have to write anything new but you still have to do all the readings. Even if it is an open book exam, which most of the exams that I know of are, you still have to do your readings thoroughly.

What about accommodation?

Columbia Law School LL.M. students are not allotted accommodation in campus dorms. Most of the LL.M.s live in Lenfest Hall (in either studios or apartment shares), Lionsgate (studios or apartment shares) or other Columbia University Apartment Housing. I was able to secure housing through Columbia University Off-Campus housing facilities. Housing in New York can be expensive so one needs to be thorough in one’s efforts to find housing close to campus which is affordable and comfortable.

One of the first things I did after coming to New York was to start a photoblog. This is the link to the photoblog - http://www.photoblog.com/kgautam. I have shared on this blog some of my New York photography. These are pictures taken at Columbia campus, outside my apartment building. Some of them are citiscapes and nightscapes of New York. I will continue to post on this blog for the duration of my stay in New York.

Tell us about your classmates - was there a pre-dominantly international crowd? What is the general age group of students? 

In the LL.M. course the crowd is truly international with almost all countries in the world represented. The general age group seems to me to be 27 to 29. Though I have not been able to interact with all LL.M.s, every single one that I know of has either some kind of work experience before or is pursuing a Ph.D. in his or her home country. An overwhelming majority of all LL.M.s have an ambition to clear the New York Bar Exam and get admitted to practice in New York.

Do you get time for any extra-curricular activities?

I joined the Legal Outreach program here as a Constitutional Law Debate Coach. In this program they pair high school students with law school students who then coach these high school students for the constitutional law debates. I was assigned a high school sophomore student to coach last semester. The problem was based on economic rights. My student won that debate. I met her parents after the prize-distribution function. It was a great experience. They were very kind, humble people. This semester I was assigned another high school student. The problem is on constitutional validity of the Defence of Marriage Act which is a big issue in America right now. The issue is about constitutionality of same-sex marriages. I am having a great time coaching these high school students. This is the only extra-curricular activity I am engaged in.

How does one go about scholarships? Does the institute offer any scholarship?

Every law school has a list of scholarships available on their website. That is usually the starting point. There are other scholarships like Rhodes and Fulbright etc. which are also available to Indian students. Columbia Law School offers scholarships and fee-waivers. There is a fee-waiver form that one must fill and submit. They consider every application for waiver and decide accordingly i.e. whether or not to waive and if yes, then how much to waive. All this information is easily accessible on the internet.

What are your future plans? Going forward, how do you expect this experience to influence your career?

The future is always uncertain. My long term plan is to become an academic in constitutional theory. The immediate plan is to find a job that pays me enough money to pay off my student loan as quickly as I can. The way I see it now, I might have to return to practice of law, the primary motivation being financial. But I have no ambition of practicing law in New York. So if I return to practice it would be India.

There are two ways I see this experience influencing my career. First, is an intellectual influence. I have had access to a wealth of resources and knowledge that I never had in my life before. I came across some really cutting edge legal research – intellectual and empirical. The intellectual influence has been immense. Second, is a professional influence. I have met with like minded people from all over the world with whom I share common interests. I was lucky to make friends with some very intelligent people during my stay here.