Job openings at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy

For those of you interesting in legal policy, I’m glad to inform you that my friends at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (VCLP) (Better Laws, Better Governance) formerly known as Pre-Legislative Briefing Service (PLBS), are looking to hire research fellows and interns. The applications can be accessed over here. It pays well and the work is exciting. 

We had blogged about the earlier avatar i.e. PLBS, over here, which I had co-founded along with the current head of VCLP – Arghya Sengupta, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. The original idea was to provide specialized legal input to Parliamentary Standing Committees examining pending legislation. We got off to quite the flying start, deposing before the Parliamentary Standing Committee examining the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill, 2010 and receiving some rather flattering press coverage and feedback from the Parliamentarians on the committee. After that testimony, we had deposed before the Parliamentary Standing Committees examining the Judicial Accountability Bill, 2010 and the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010. We did submit several other briefs but an appearance before the Standing Committee is hardly guaranteed and in one occasion we had an invitation which was cancelled for no apparent reason. I had the opportunity to appear before all three committees and it was an incredible insight into the functioning of the State. It can be frustrating at times since there is almost never enough time to give the committee the entire story but in certain occasions like the Prevention of Torture Report, the committee accepted several of our recommendations. Frontline had written an entire article on how the committee had picked up several of our recommendations. 

Over the last 2 years Arghya and I also advised the Ministry of Finance on the drafting of the Public Procurement Bill, 2012 and were also co-opted members of Justice A.P. Shah’s Committee on Privacy Laws, constituted by the Planning Commission. 

At the time, we were working for almost close to nothing and in fact had to haggle with the Parliament Secretariat for having our travel expenses reimbursed. 

In any case, thanks to Arghya’s hyper-energetic fund-raising efforts, VCLP is in a position to pay new fellows rather well, even by law firm standards. I’m no longer a part of this venture, as I’ve decided to return to private practice in India, after graduating for Stanford Law School and interning in a few places in the U.S. However I strongly recommend the position for those of you interested in having a direct impact on the law making process. 

The only better route to influence the process of law making in India is to get elected to Parliament!