Litigation & Supreme Court practice
Last updated · Confirm dates, fees and eligibility on the official website before you apply.
build over 10 yrs
- Route in
- Typically BA LLB (Integrated), entered through All India Bar Examination. 1 course lead here
- Entrance
- All India Bar Examination
What the work involves
Day to day
Arguing cases in court and doing the research, drafting and client work behind them. Practice is built by joining a senior, learning procedure, and slowly acquiring your own matters over years.
Who this suits
Fit
People who want independence and can argue on their feet. The ceiling is very high, you are your own employer, and a reputation once built does not depend on any firm keeping you.
The honest reality
Read this one
Income in the first several years is very low and unpredictable, and most juniors survive on family support - this is the single biggest barrier and it filters by background rather than ability. Which senior takes you on shapes your career and is not a purely meritocratic process. Court adjournments and delays make the work slow and frustrating. Plan for a long runway before the practice sustains you.
The route in, step by step
6 steps from where you are now.
A law degree from a BCI-recognised college Required
Five-year integrated LLB or three-year LLB.
Enrol with a State Bar Council and clear AIBE Required
Required before you may appear in any court.
Join a senior counsel's chambers Required
This is the entry to litigation and there is no substitute. The pay in the early years is very poor and sometimes nominal, which is the honest and widely unspoken reality of building a litigation practice.
Understand the Advocate-on-Record requirement Required
Only an Advocate-on-Record may file a case in the Supreme Court. Becoming one requires four years of practice, then one year of training under an existing AOR, then a separate examination set by the Court. Most law students have never heard of it, and it is the actual gate to Supreme Court practice.
Clear the AOR examination Required
Practice and procedure, drafting, advocacy and professional ethics, plus leading cases. Pass rates are low and repeat attempts are ordinary.
Independent practice before the Court Required
Filing and arguing your own matters, or building a chamber. Reputation compounds slowly here and then decisively, and the first ten years are the hard ones.
Courses that lead here
1 mapped route into this career.
Exams on the way
What is required, and what is optional.
Exam rules and eligibility are revised regularly. Check the current official notification for your admission year before you act on anything here.
The roles this becomes
2 lanes out of the same starting point.
Common questions
The ones people actually ask about this work.
How do I start a litigation practice?
<p>By joining a senior advocate's chambers after enrolment and the All India Bar Examination. Litigation is learned beside someone who already does it — drafting, appearing, and watching how matters are actually handled. Which chamber you join shapes the next decade more than which college you attended.</p>
What do juniors actually earn?
<p>Very little for the first few years — a small stipend in most chambers, and in some, nothing. This is normal, it is known to everyone in the profession, and it is almost never said plainly to students. Litigation is built over a decade on reputation and referral, and the people who succeed at it were usually able to survive those early years financially. If that support is not available, plan around it rather than discovering it.</p>
Is Supreme Court practice different?
<p>Yes. It is appellate and constitutional work, concentrated in Delhi, with its own bar and its own way of operating. Most litigators build in trial and High Court practice first. Going straight to Delhi to practise in the Supreme Court without a base is difficult and expensive.</p>
What if I cannot afford the early years?
<p>Consider the judicial services examination seriously rather than as a fallback. It offers selection purely by examination, a defined salary from the first day, and progression by rule — and for a law graduate without backing in the profession it is frequently the strongest option available. Government pleader and public prosecutor work, and legal roles in banks and companies, are other routes that pay from the start.</p>
Test this against your own priorities
Pay, hours and entry route matter differently to different people. Compare this against the alternative you are actually weighing, rather than against the average.