Name
Anonymous
Name of the Organisation
Dandapani Associates, Kochi, Ernakulam, Kerala – 682035.
Duration of Internship
June 1, 2026 – June 30, 2026
How did you apply?
I have been searching for an internship in the High Court of Kerala for weeks and have been drifting between many options, feeling confused and overwhelmed with the many options available.
That’s when one of my seniors suggested this firm to me. Thus, he gave me the email ID, and I applied through it, followed up with several calls, and finally got confirmation after weeks to join on the 1st of June at 9:30 am.
First-Day Formalities, Infrastructure, and First Impression
The first day was quite awkward, a lesson I would always remember for what patience actually looks like. I couldn’t even find the office building on the first day, because it was tucked away inside the lane, far away from their name board, as I was walking around trying to find the office.
I even had to call Sir to get the directions. And as I entered, I found 2 other interns; they were junior to me, a bit awkward at first, but we made it on our first day.
We couldn’t meet Sir or ma’am in the morning and had to wait till night to get a proper introduction, which was at 9:30 PM.
The office is actually very interesting and always incredibly busy, half of it is the office, and the other half is their home. The office accommodates nearly 15 staff members and has 3 floors. The long wait gave us plenty of time to settle and to observe the firm’s culture.
Main Tasks
My time at the firm has been intellectually demanding and highly rewarding. The major tasks the advocate wants us to be engaged in are researching precedents, laws, and relevant information.
Even though the firm has criminal matters, the senior counsel of the firm is a standing counsel for various sectors like the railway department, SBI, KITCO, etc. So the matters we revolved around were mostly these. The senior counsel always engages us in her RBI matter; we even helped her prepare a full RBI case.
As she sat with us, we read her cases and all the matters in the particular case, and she prepared for presenting it at the court the very next day. Sir usually gives us small criminal cases to research and even gives us some technical requirements that require knowledge in using the court sites and apps.
One of the highlight tasks so far is definitely working directly with the senior council on a complex RBI matter.
Work Environment
Working at the firm is an endurance exercise. It is an honest, tiring, and relentless environment, but I suppose it is the same way in most of the law firms around the world. The work timings start from morning 9 to night 10 on paper, but in reality, this is a 24/7 constantly working place.
One question I had in mind was how the advocate finds work-life balance. The firm is run by senior counsel of the Kerala High Court, Sumadhi Dandapani, and her son, Millu Dandapani.
It is fascinating to watch the contrast between them, Sumadhi Dandapani, whose years of experience have brought a level of smoothness to her practice, and then Millu sir, who’s always on 24/7. But then I also find him managing time for everything he wants to do; he goes for a morning workout, runs on Saturday, trips with family, etc., one of the most balanced lives I have witnessed there.
Even though on the other side, I have seen the junior advocates struggle with their life and work balance. That’s exactly one question I asked, sir. The response that I got was “that balance is something you grow into over years of practice and that it must come from within”.
This has left me confused; maybe I’ll only find the meaning once I start working. Summing it up, the work environment is quite tough.
Good Things about the Internship
The greatest takeaway thing about this internship is definitely the improvement in my skills. Researching was the main area the advocates pushed us on; every day, we have a new topic to research.
Research is something that I found tedious, but what I realised about myself after this internship is that I enjoy research when it is a topic that I enjoy, and a trick that I found too, is to make every topic interesting by specifically asking for the case file on the topic we are researching.
Reading the actual issue and facts makes me question the law, find the mistake, and then I have no peace till I find the answer to that question. Then the best part was definitely engaging with the junior advocates when ma’am and sir had no time; they were very eager to have us on work and to help us with even the small doubts.
Bad Things about the Internship
One major crack that I felt was definitely the timing and days of work that we do without any stipend. The firm might argue that we are doing this for our own learning experience, but the time and energy committed to this were very exhausting.
My daily routine quickly became repetitive. Reaching back to PG at almost 9:30 at night, no proper dinner, nor proper time to even relax. All we did was get up in the morning, get dressed, take food, go to the office, work till night, return to PG at night, sleep, and then the same literal cycle followed every day.
While the learning experience has been invaluable, it highlights a broader need for the legal industry to address the balance between internships and the basic quality of life for its interns.
Monthly Stipend
It was an unpaid internship
Details about the accommodation, commuting to the office
I used to stay at a PG that was 10 minutes walk from office. The rent for a month was 7500 Rs., along with food, and if I had stayed for a day more, it would have incurred an extra cost of 500 Rs. I walked to and from work every day, whihc honestly helped me shed some pounds there.
The 10 PM curfew at the PG was a little difficult. If I’m just a little late, I’m going to have to call the matron and make arrangements for the same too. These times were tedious to deal with; there was not even enough time to get the required rest.
Anything else you want to share?
Perhaps the most unexpected highlight of the internship was the group of people I shared it with. We started as 3 at first, then 2 fresh graduates waiting for enrollment joined, and later 2 new interns joined us too. The 7 of us were crammed into our small interns’ room, but I would never trade this experience for anything.
We are usually paired up for research, and it made everything better; we enjoyed discussing and letting out our thoughts on the work we were doing. Between this, we found time to chat, play, and we even explore food spots together.
In just one month, we went from interns to genuine friends; this truly made the internship most memorable. This internship made me realise that even the most grueling work environments become manageable through collaboration.
I learned to look past the written law to find the human story behind the law, and that balance is something cultivated as we grow into the work.
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