Daksha Fellowship is India’s first residential fellowship program for young and mid-career lawyers, public policy professionals and other graduates with a background in law. The fellowship operates at the intersection of law, technology, policy and business, and benefits from a contemporary curriculum formulated by internationally renowned faculty in collaboration with leading legal practitioners and industry experts.
An LL.M. program follows a conventional curriculum design and often fails to capture more recent advancements in the world around us. Similarly, it does not prepare students to sufficiently navigate their career paths. A Fellowship program, on the other hand, emphasizes on contemporary learning methodologies, collaboration through active participation, skill sets required for career advancement and above all, building up a community with shared values. In the Daksha context, we aim to do this through a three-pillared pedagogic approach, wherein the knowledge pillar offers core and foundational learning on public law, private law, public policy, and finance and accounting; the expertise pillar offers two different pathways outlined below; and, the skills pillar enhances hands-on learning through labs, bootcamps, internships and other experiential learning methods.
Yes. Daksha Fellowship will allow every student to specialize in one of the two fellowship pathways, namely: Technology Law and Policy; or Disputes and Regulatory Practice.
Pre-term courses are designed to provide foundational knowledge to students in many areas that will serve as precursors to their academic journey during the fellowship. This could include a background in using MS Excel or Powerpoint, hone up their understanding of legal research methods or an elementary understanding of data and statistics. Pre-term courses are conducted remotely through live lectures and sharing of online learning content. They will be completed before the Fellowship in residence in Chennai.
Daksha Fellowship follows a trimester model, where the first term (or trimester) covers foundational courses and is hence common to students, irrespective of their chosen pathway.
All fellows are required to undertake a mandatory six to eight-week internship with a law firm, consulting firm, corporate or technology business firm, or research or policy think tanks, in alignment with their career goals. The internship will supplement the specialized skills and knowledge provided in the fellowship program. The internship will also enable students to understand practical challenges, issues and problems in the real world.
The faculty for Daksha Fellowship comprises of career academics, researchers, core industry practitioners and consultants. You can find the list of faculty profiles here
Daksha Fellowship focuses on active learning methodologies that involve ideation, discussion and engagement. Online learning and reliance on other interactive technologies catalyses our pedagogic vision.
Daksha Fellows can work in a variety of organizations after completing the program:
No. Students must choose a pathway to ensure intended outcomes from the fellowship are met by the end of the program. However, students can audit courses from other pathways to help in their overall learning.
You can audit such courses. This involves sitting in for the lectures but without the possibility of taking part in the evaluations or receiving any credits for such audited courses.
Yes. In fact, Daksha Fellowship encourages holistic learning, so courses across tracks shall remain open for students outside of the track to audit and attend, without any credit linkages.
Yes, the program does support campus placements for Daksha Fellows. The program is also designed to ensure adequate exposure to relevant organizations and eminent individuals for students to feel confident about their job prospects. Please note that we consider this aspect to be a part of long-term career development versus finding the next job.
Daksha Fellowship has been instituted by a group of prominent educationists and philanthropists. Upon successful completion, students will receive a certificate issued by a not-for-profit trust. To know more, watch the fellowship founder and prominent telecom software entrepreneur, Mr KV Ramani speak to our inaugural cohort.
There are three aspects of a career in academia or research that Daksha Fellowship can equip you with.
The first is a comprehensive specialization, i.e. either of our distinct pathways, which is extremely useful when pursuing an academic career. The second is a set of skills - research methods, mathematical thinking, presentation and communication, critical thinking - that can help position you as a cut above the rest when pursuing the world of ideas. The third is an extremely rigorous orientation to public policy and non-legal domains, which helps provide more clarity and direction on the appropriate discipline in which higher education may be pursued.
Bootcamps are intensive learning modules designed to encourage practical and hands-on training in legal, policy and skill-based areas. They are hosted by eminent industry practitioners and think tanks. With targeted and quality learning outcomes as their objective, these bootcamps usually happen over a period of three to five days. Some bootcamps will be relevant to certain pathways more than others, and attendance will be mandated accordingly. All bootcamps involve some element of group activity. The inaugural cohort of Daksha have bootcamps in finance, accounting, mindfulness, speech and expression, technology and the law, real estate and other important themes planned for the year.
The 2021-22 cohort of Daksha Fellowship is expected to have an upper limit of 120 students across the two pathways.
No. The Daksha Fellowship is a full-time residential program. The rigour of the program and the subsequent learning outcomes demand complete attention from our fellows.
The first term is tentatively slated to begin on September 6, 2021. The pre-term will commence by the third week of August with our online (pre-term) material.
There is no restriction on the number of Daksha Fellows pursuing a particular fellowship pathway, and is only a function of the number of students opting for the pathway.
The Work and Well-being Lab (WoWeL) is a unique personality-oriented lab that focuses on equipping students to handle their own selves in the external world. WoWeL, with its specially designed modules, will help students align their professional careers with personal well-being, enabling them to successfully manage, thrive and belong in the competitive legal, business and policy profession.
The Communications Lab is a speech, writing and presentation skills laboratory that intends to train students to convey their ideas clearly in legal, business and policy settings. The lab will be run by a team of experts from academia, journalism and legal practice.
Every Daksha fellow will pursue all the core courses outlined below:
Choice to pursue either of the two pathways
Choice to pursue one of three different clusters, for fellows who opt for the Disputes and Regulatory Practice Pathway
The 2021-22 cohort is tentatively scheduled to graduate by August 15, 2022.
Applications for Daksha Fellowship have been open since January, 2021. The deadlines for our five rounds of admission are given below. All admission rounds are on rolling basis.
Round 1 - Last date to apply is 31 January, 2021
Round 2 - Last date to apply is 31 March, 2021
Round 3 - Last date to apply is 31 May, 2021
Round 4 - Last date to apply is 30 June, 2021
Round 5 - Last date to apply is 15 August, 2021
There is no age limit to apply for the fellowship.
There is no fee to begin or submit your application.
Yes, there is. Graduation in law from a Centre for Legal Education recognised by the Bar Council of India, or successful completion of an equivalent foreign law degree, is mandatory in order to apply for the fellowship.
The form has the following sections:
All sections must be complete for the application to be processed.
Yes, if the degree is equivalent to an Indian LL.B. program (integrated or non-integrated). The Fellowship Admissions Committee will decide finally on all matters relating to eligibility.
Process Flow of Admissions
Step 1: Application Submission and Evaluation
Step 2: Interview with the Dean of the fellowship or a Faculty Member
The final decision will be communicated to applicants at the end of Stage 2, approximately 10-14 days from the date of the interview.
We primarily give differing weightages to three selection parameters based on our internal policies:
1. Grades / Percentage in the Law UG Program or performance in the LSAT India admissions test, depending on the applicant’s choice;
2. Overall application quality, including co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, internship record and work experience (if any);
3.Interview with the Dean of the fellowship or a Faculty Member
There is no mandatory admissions test for selection purposes. However, in the event of an applicant performing well on selection criteria 2 and 3 mentioned above, but failing to meet the overall score needed to make it to the fellowship on account of under-performance in selection criteria 1 (UG Law grades / percentage), a conditional offer may be extended to the applicant subject to performance in a special test administered to the applicant. This test will take place online and more details about the same will be shared in advance with the applicant. In such cases, we may also insist on providing us with the names and contact details of two referees, academic or professional.
In lieu of performance in UG Law, we also accept LSAT India scores though taking this test is not mandatory and is left to the free will of the applicant. Being an institutional partner with LSAC, the body that administers this test, we do keep a few seats open for those who perform exceptionally well in the test.
Please write to the Admissions Committee at admissions@dakshafellowship.org for assistance. Remember to quote your application number in all such communication.
The fee structure for Daksha Fellowship 2021 is in the program brochure
A Scholarship Program is one of the most common ways to avail financial assistance for students from financially weaker sections with proven merit and potential to excel in academic and professional life.
Daksha Fellowship maintains that the cohort should be inclusive and provide opportunities to such students. Merit cum Means Scholarship applications are invited from students that will be reviewed internally by the scholarship committee. Rules and regulations are drafted/amended every year as required. Both merit (CGPA) and means (personal and family income) will be taken into account.
Other factors such as participation in moot courts, debates, sports, cultural activities, societies’ events etc., contribution to academics and research, and any visible examples of leadership also play an important role in the consideration for financial assistance. The Daksha scholarship program is designed to ensure that the maximum number of students benefit from it.
Every applicant who has successfully completed the application and undergone a first round of screening will be invited for a panel interview. The interview could be a face-to-face interview at the City Campus in Chennai, or in one of the metro cities, or via a video call. Applicants will receive prior notice.
Deferral is available only in exceptional situations, will be granted on a case-to-case basis, and is subject to the admission policies of the fellowship.
Please write to us at admissions@dakshafellowship.org quoting your application number and attach the relevant documents.
The essential questions needed for the next round of the application process are marked as mandatory.
Yes, it is a residential program.
Every student will be provided with a furnished air-conditioned room on a twin-sharing basis. Food will be arranged on a meal plan basis which students can sign up for. The residential campus is wifi-enabled and has other amenities like gymnasium, pool etc. on a chargeable basis.
Chennai has clear blue skies throughout the year except during the monsoon months of October and November when the city receives the north-east monsoon rains. The hottest part of the year is late May to early June, with maximum temperatures in the 35–40 °C (95–104 °F) range. The coolest part of the year is January, with minimum temperatures in the range of 19–25 °C. Temperatures generally remain in the same range throughout the year.