Three categories absorb almost every law internship in India. Court attachments train litigation reflexes. Law firms and corporate placements build commercial fluency. Government institution internships, the third category, are smaller in volume and harder to access, and they teach something the other two cannot: how the legal infrastructure governing the country is actually examined, debated, and reformed.
Eashaan Parmar’s one-month internship at the Law Commission of India sits in this third category. He is currently in his 4th year of the integrated BA LLB programme at Parul University, from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, with civil services as his stated long-term direction. The commission internship matters to his story not because it filled a credit requirement but because of what it taught him about the work he intends to do for the rest of his career. The integrated BA LLB programme structure and career pathways at Parul University are treated in the companion article. This article examines what the experience itself involved.
Who Eashaan Parmar is, and the orientation that shaped his choice
The Law Commission internship was not a default outcome. Most BA LLB students approaching internship season pursue court attachments or firm placements because those pathways are the more visible ones. Eashaan oriented differently because his career direction had already crystallised: public administration through the Civil Services examination, with IAS or IFS as the long-term target. Court and firm internships sit at the periphery of that direction. Government institution work sits at the centre.
Growing up in Mandsaur shaped this orientation early. The question of how government institutions actually function, and how laws and policies translate into outcomes for ordinary citizens, is more visible from small Indian towns than from larger cities where institutional machinery operates in the background. Constitutional Law and International Law emerged as his preference areas not as academic abstractions but as the disciplines most directly relevant to where he was headed.
This is what makes his Law Commission internship worth examining as a case rather than only a credential. He pursued it deliberately, applied through Parul University’s Training and Placement Cell, competed against law students from multiple universities for the limited positions, and arrived at the Commission with specific intent rather than passive availability.
What the Law Commission of India actually does, and what interns contribute
Understanding the internship requires understanding the institution first. The Law Commission of India is an executive body established by the Government of India that examines existing laws, identifies areas requiring reform, studies legal issues referred by the government, considers proposals received from citizens and civic organisations, and produces reports recommending specific legal changes. Its output is advisory rather than enforceable, but its recommendations shape the legal reform agenda the government takes forward.
Intern work at the Commission is calibrated to this output. The first weeks are typically spent reading previous Commission reports, which functions as both methodology training and quality calibration. Anyone joining a research institution at intern level needs to understand the analytical standards and structural conventions the organisation has established before contributing original work, and the Commission’s published reports are the most concrete expression of those standards.
From this foundation, the substantive research work follows. Court judgments that have been referred to the Commission for review require careful study, identification of the legal issues at stake, and concise summarisation that supports senior-officer discussion. Citizen and organisation suggestions regarding proposed changes to existing laws need to be reviewed and evaluated against the broader legal framework. Both streams produce material that informs the Commission’s eventual recommendations.
Eashaan’s specific work spanned these streams. The judgment analysis demanded patience because hurried summarisation produces inaccurate work, and inaccurate intern work creates more downstream effort than it saves. He has been candid that some matters absorbed hours of his attention before he was willing to submit observations on them, and that this discipline was itself part of what the internship taught.
The shift from execution to contribution: Presenting original policy work
The most consequential moment of any substantive internship is the point at which the intern stops executing assignments and begins contributing original ideas. The shift is small organisationally but large developmentally. It marks the difference between an apprentice and a junior collaborator.
Toward the end of the internship programme, interns at the Commission were given the latitude to present their own policy proposals. The format was structured but the content was open: each intern could propose work on whatever issue they had been thinking about and could substantively defend.
Eashaan’s proposal concerned the protection of forests, wildlife, and environmental resources. The choice reflected a position he had been developing across his academic years rather than a topic selected to fit the assignment. Development and environmental protection are commonly framed as competing priorities in Indian policy discourse; his framing argued for treating them as parallel objectives, with practical implementation mechanisms that could advance both. The preparation methodology was deliberate. He spent time organising his arguments, studying the substantive policy literature, and considering the viewpoints he would need to address from skeptical angles. The proposal was followed by a discussion with the Chairperson of the Law Commission, a Retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India, and was well received by the senior authorities.
What this moment reveals about his trajectory is more important than the proposal content itself. The capability to identify a substantive policy issue, develop an original position on it, defend that position before experienced practitioners, and absorb their critical response without defensiveness is the working capability that policy careers actually require. The internship surfaced this capability rather than creating it; the capability had been developing across his academic years and needed the right context to become visible.
The capabilities and the experience built beyond classroom trainings
Universities can teach the content of law, but they may lack practical experiences to teach the discipline of professional legal research, the conventions of senior-officer interaction, the methodology of policy work, and the capability to think clearly under sustained scrutiny.
These are the capabilities that internships at substantive institutions develop, and they are the capabilities Eashaan has identified as the most consequential outcomes of his Commission experience.
- Research discipline calibrated to institutional standards: Academic research operates against deadlines that are typically forgiving and standards that are typically internal. Professional research at a body like the Law Commission operates against standards that emerge from the institution’s published record across decades and against scrutiny from senior officers who have spent careers calibrating those standards. Bridging the gap between these two environments requires sustained effort rather than incremental adjustment.
- Mentorship navigation as transferable capability: The Commission’s senior officers were accessible rather than ceremonially remote. They encouraged questions, explained reasoning behind tasks rather than only assigning them, and treated intern observations as inputs worth engaging with. Learning to work productively in this type of culture of mentorship is a skill generalisable to any career that requires interaction with senior people.
- The discipline of communication through constant exposure: Learning good arguments does not help if you cannot communicate them well when you are in the policy proposal arena.
- Communication discipline through repeated exposure: The policy proposal experience reinforced that even strong reasoning becomes ineffective if not communicated clearly. Indian policy and administrative work runs on documents and presentations, and the capability to structure both is the operational currency of the career direction Eashaan is pursuing.
Why this experience matters for the civil services trajectory
Civil services preparation is often framed in terms of examination preparation alone. The framing understates the developmental work that the examination process is ultimately testing for. The General Studies and Optional papers test a strong knowledge of history, politics, economy, current affairs and optional specialisations; the Personality Interview examines judgment, articulation, and the ability to think under questioning. Both can be prepared for through coaching infrastructure, but the substantive capability they ultimately assess is harder to manufacture through coaching alone.
Government institution internships like the Law Commission contribute directly to the substantive capability the examination ultimately tests for. They expose students to the actual work of legal reform, the methodology of policy analysis, and the conventions of senior administrative discourse. None of this appears in the coaching syllabus because none of it can be reduced to memorisable content.
For Eashaan, this is the through-line between his BA LLB, the Law Commission internship, and the IAS or IFS journey which will shape the next phase. The internship did not change his path; it made the foundation even stronger on which the path was already being undertaken.
The broader BA LLB programme structure at Parul University supports this kind of trajectory through curriculum and internship infrastructure rather than through the more conventional litigation-oriented pathways that other programmes prioritise.
Also read: Article on how BA LLB Students Gain Access to Government Internships at Parul University
FAQs
Who is Eashaan Parmar?
Eashaan Parmar is a 4th year Integrated BA LLB Student at Parul University Batch 2022-27 from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh. His academic interests are in Constitutional Law and International Law, both were selected as the preference areas in the application of Internship at Law Commission of India. His broader career direction is toward public administration and governance, with civil services (IAS or IFS) as his long-term aspiration. He completed a one-month internship at the Law Commission of India where he worked on legal research, judgment analysis, and a policy proposal on environmental protection that was discussed with the Commission's Chairperson, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India.
How did Eashaan Parmar secure the Law Commission of India internship?
Eashaan secured the internship through Parul University's Training and Placement Cell, which coordinates structured internship engagement across academic programmes. The application required academic details, areas of interest, where he listed Constitutional Law and International Law, and supporting information. Selection was managed by the Law Commission's internship coordination rather than by Parul University, and the competitive process draws applications from law students across multiple universities. Eashaan was selected from this competitive pool for the one-month internship in Delhi. The Training and Placement Cell facilitated access; the substantive selection rested on the strength of his academic profile and stated interests.
What does an intern do at the Law Commission of India?
Intern work at the Law Commission of India is calibrated to the Commission's substantive output of legal reform recommendations. The early phase involves reading previous Commission reports as methodology training and quality calibration. The substantive research work that follows involves analysing court judgments referred to the Commission for review to identify relevant legal issues and to prepare concise summaries for senior-officer discussion and to review recommendations and proposals received from citizens and civic organisations concerning the modification of existing laws. At the end of the internship, the interns have the freedom to bring their own policy proposals, a sign that they are moving from the performance of tasks to contributing original ideas.
Which policy proposal was presented by Eashaan Parmar at the Law Commission of India?
Eashaan presented a policy proposal on the protection of forests, wildlife and the environment. The proposal argued that development and environmental protection should not be viewed as competing priorities but as parallel objectives which could be pursued using concrete implementation mechanisms. To prepare the proposal we had to organise our arguments, read the substantive policy literature and study sceptical arguments. The presentation resulted in a discussion with the Chairperson of the Law Commission, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India and this was welcomed by senior officials. The experience of preparing a proposal has strengthened my civil services route by showing that I can spot substantive policy matters and also come up with original arguments and then be able to defend them before experienced practitioners.
