The Internship Bank founder and former Senior Associate with Dorsey and Whitney (and also ex-Allen & Overy), Debolina Saha Narayanan has been teaching a one-month online weekend course on International Debt Capital Markets in her personal capacity, as an experienced debt capital markets lawyer.
The eight-course program with each class lasting 90 minutes, was started by Debolina in November 2020.
The course saw enrollments from several students and professionals including, students from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, NALSAR University of Law, Symbiosis Law School Pune, Symbiosis Law School Hyderabad, National University of Singapore (NUS), Jindal Global Law School (JGLS), Lloyd Law College, Campus Law Centre, New Delhi, and Associates from Linklaters Singapore, Latham & Watkins, S&R Associates, UKCA and Partners, and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.
The reviews of the course have been nothing short of stunning and refreshing.
Speaking about the satisfaction she derives from teaching, Debolina admits, "I've always enjoyed the challenge of having to explain complicated concepts to even first-year students."
The small class size allows her to be interactive and give each student personal attention to understand the broad, practical and basic concepts that every capital markets lawyer needs to know.
Having realized the void in the curriculum of most Indian law schools that either do not teach this topic or only touch the surface, and with books that often assume certain basic knowledge that most young students have no idea about, Ms. Debolina set out to change just that.
She weaves her own professional experience from over a decade from some of the best law firms in India, Hong Kong and London into each class. The classes are so easy to follow that all students (including first year law students without any background of corporate law) are able to easily take the knowledge they receive and apply it in their careers.
The course is designed to equip students participants with crystal clarity on basic concepts to provide the foundation that students (and lawyers!) need to practice capital markets law whether in India, Singapore, London or the United States
The classes also teach attendees how to conduct oral and documentary due-diligence and read company balance-sheets.
Debolina also provides tips on how to quickly review various agreements and discusses important clauses of legal opinions, the mechanics of a comfort letter, and how MTN Programmes work.
Additionally, students become familiar with important chapters of an Offering Circular (including Risk Factors, Business and others) and gain a solid foundation for stepping into the professional world as a junior capital markets lawyer.
Speaking about the course, Debolina stated, "Any law school students, alongwith professionals at any stage of their career, are welcome to apply for the course. However, senior professionals engaged in the area of capital markets may find the course only a helpful refresher."
The course is conducted on a rolling basis and each new monthly session starts on the first Saturday of a given month.
The non-recorded, live online-classes are only conducted on Saturdays and Sundays at around 7:00 pm IST. With payment of a nominal fee, students are welcome to apply a month in advance for the class they wish to join by simply sending an email to debolina@internshipbank.org and stating the month in which they would like to attend the course.