On May 20, 2025, the Supreme Court in All India Judges Association v. Union of India barred graduates without three full years of verifiable legal practice from even writing the Civil Judge (Junior Division) exam.

While doing so, it noted,

“Neither knowledge derived from books nor pre-service training can be an adequate substitute for the first-hand experience of the working of the court-system…”

The instinct is hard to fault. Courtrooms are not classrooms, and India’s justice system has often rued the gulf between doctrinal brilliance and procedural common sense. Yet a rule that looks neutral on paper can, in practice, deepen the gap between well-connected insiders and first-generation lawyers struggling to stay in the profession.

India’s Bar may still carry the stamp of legacy advantage, yet the early-career squeeze is almost universal. A 2020 Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy survey found that 80 per cent of advocates at the Delhi High Court believe lawyers in their first two years earn between ₹5,000 and ₹20,000 a month, and 46 per cent of advocates at the Allahabad, Bombay, Kerala, Madras and Patna High Courts say those same early-career lawyers earn under ₹5,000. A 2015 Bar & Bench survey echoed the picture across the pedigree divide that 78 per cent of first-generation advocates and 85 per cent of second-generation advocates with less than five years’ experience earn under ₹5 lakh a year. The difference is that legacy lawyers can fall back on inherited chambers, client lists and city housing; first-generation entrants cannot. Every one of those missing cushions ultimately translates into time and money, and the Court’s new rule adds another thirty-six months of both.

Choosing between rent and the robe, many first-generation advocates exit long before the Bench comes into view. The new ‘experience’ surcharge, thus, works as an entrance fee that the already-advantaged can swallow and the very voices India’s courtrooms most need are forced to forfeit.

The judgment, however, tries to soften the blow. Paragraph 89 allows time spent as a judge’s law clerk to count towards the three-year tally, and fixes the clock from the date of provisional enrolment and not from passing the All-India Bar Examination. These are sensible concessions, but clerkships are few, usually urban, and almost always underpaid.

The verdict also widens the internal pipeline by earmarking 25 per cent of district judge vacancies for the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (LDCE), and sets aside another 10 per cent for high-performing junior civil judges. Yet the Court’s own figures show that under the old five-year threshold, a civil judge in many States reached the district Bench by seniority in about the same time it took merely to qualify for the LDCE. Even with eligibility now cut to three years (and seven cumulatively), the promised accelerated path will remain largely theoretical unless States expand real, dignified and paid practice opportunities that let more juniors sustain their practice for three years, clear the exam and claim those seats.

Otherwise, talent without capital will keep slipping through the cracks. Paying junior advocates a living stipend for full-time work in legal-aid or public-prosecutor's offices while counting that service towards the three-year Bar experience would simultaneously strengthen access-to-justice schemes and widen the practice pipeline. Structured clerkship programmes must move beyond High Courts to district centres, with honoraria funded by the state judiciary budget. Court complexes must also deliver the long-promised childcare facilities so that early-career advocates with caregiving duties can stay in the profession. Lastly, certification bottlenecks can be eased by letting bar associations, not just ten-year seniors, attest genuine appearances, subject to random audit.

India needs judges who have felt the pulse of litigation before wielding its power. But it also needs a judiciary that speaks in accents, of gender, caste and region, that resonate with every litigant who walks into court. Paragraph 89 gives the High Courts three months to re-draft their service rules, with State governments granted another three to sign off on them. The window closes in November 2025. If those amendments merely copy-paste the Court’s minimum text, the reform will harden old hierarchies behind the fig-leaf of quality. If, instead, governments pair the experience rule with targeted intervention that lowers the barriers for early-career advocates, the three-year road could turn from a detour into a fast lane toward a genuinely representative Bench.

Jehosh Paul is a lawyer and research consultant.