LegallyIndia.com

NLSIU Bangalore's student recruitment committee has placed 96 per cent of its students after a law firm recruitment flurry took 28 students last week and eight students joined UK firms for training contracts.

Recruitment committee member Samiksha Godiyal said that they had now placed 48 out of 50 students who elected to take part in the organised recruitment at the law school. Around 28 students were placed only last week.

Godiyal, who has accepted an offer to join Luhtra & Luthra in Delhi, said: "We contacted a lot more firms and companies this year - we were a little apprehensive about the number they would pick."

Godiyal explained that two students each had accepted job offers from UK firms Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith and Linklaters.

She added that 11 students had now accepted offers from Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai, seven students from Luthra & Luthra, five from Crawford Bayley as junior associates and three from S&R Associates.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) Mumbai also recruited three students and Linklaters best friend Talwar Thakore Associates recruited two, while Nishith Desai Associates (NDA) in Bangalore took on one student.

"Law firms took in larger numbers than expected," said Godiyal. "I think because last year law firms didn’t pick too many [students] they were in need this year."

Additionally, companies turned out in force again this year to bulk up their legal departments, with two students each accepting job offers from Airtel, IFMR Capital and IFMR Trust and Kotak Mahindra and one going to Hero Honda, according to Godiyal.

Consulting firm McKinsey & Co also hired two students.

ICICI recruited four students from NLSIU Bangalore, after having recruited six from Nalsar Hyderabad, National University of Advanced Legal Studies Kochi (NUALS) and one from National Law University (NLU) Jodhpur last year.

NLSIU's recruitment committee consists of seven final year students, who contact law firms and recruiting companies to interview students. Out of 77 final year students, 27 elected not to take part in the recruitment committee's organised process.

The committee normally draws up a list of recruiters and groups them in bands, according to previous recruitment records. The firms are then invited to campus in approximately that order.

"We had rolling recruitment this year so some firms came in June 2009, two more came in September 2009 and in January now the rest were placed," explained Godiyal.

Legally India first reported in June and September 2009 respectively that Amarchand Mangaldas and Luthra & Luthra had hired the first NLSIU Bangalore students of the year.

It is understood that several recruiters are still interviewing this week.

Law firms have been competing heavily for first access to students at law schools, with Trilegal having interviewed on the NUJS Kolkata campus earlier than ever last year in July.

UPDATE 29 January 2010: Legally India spoke to last year's NLS Bangalore recruitment committee member Kota Chandan. 

He explained that last year the in-house corporate and overseas law firm recruitment was much lower than this year. 

Although the committee still achieved 100% placement out of 45 students who took part, Chandan said that a few people consciously took up litigation, studied masters degrees abroad [...], whereas they might otherwise have gone for a law firm job. 

Some law firms did recruit less last year - for example, Amarchand only took on four students from campus, of which one was a pre-placement offer.


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