Day Zero recruitments of the 2018-graduating batches by the law firms paying the highest starting salaries, have revealed that Day Zero demand has increased, with 9 firms hiring 202 students, mostly from top national law schools, to start working with them in 2018 (in 2016 and 2015, the total number had held steady at 191 and 190 respectively).
Correction: The originally published story had mistakenly reported incorrect figures of Shardul Amarchand’s Day Zero figures for 2018 as 38, not 26. This has now been corrected and the table has been updated.
While NLSIU Bangalore, Nalsar Hyderabad, NLU Delhi and GNLU Gandhinagar have disclosed their Day Zero recruitments this year, NUJS Kolkata’s recruitment committee declined to do so, and NLIU Bhopal would only do so later this month after several more offers were confirmed.
We have therefore reached out to firms again directly this year to get a full picture of firms’ demands and recruitment progress for next year.
Biggest recruiters
Out of the firms surveyed - selected according to those traditionally most often invited to recruit directly from campuses by top law schools on Day Zero because they pay the highest starting salaries - Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas remained the largest recruiter this year.
Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas hired 65 students to start in 2018. This is four more than the firm had hired by Day Zero in 2016, and 19 more than in 2015 as at the same time.
Trilegal emerged as the second largest recruiter for 2018, making 39 offers (which is 9 more than last year, and 13 more than the year before that).
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas hired 26 (compared to 32 and 19 in the last two years as at Day Zero respectively), and Khaitan & Co 34 (compared to 29 in 2016 Days Zero, and 44 in 2015).
Luthra & Luthra hired 21 for 2018, AZB picked up 11 and smaller firms S&R Associates and Talwar Thakore Associates hired 4 and 2 respectively.
J Sagar Associates (JSA), however, for the first time since begininng campus recruitments in 2009, as we had reported in 2010 when the firm rejigged its internship programmes, has opted not to visit campuses this year, and has returned to its system of picking intakes from amongst its interns.
Is the campus recruitment circus losing its lustre?
"The campus recruitment process has turned into quite a circus these days,” commented JSA co-managing partner Dina Wadia.
“We took a call that we would recruit primarily through our internship program as that allows us to assess the students, their abilities and how they fit into our culture in a far more effective way,” she added. The complaint that campus recruitments - especially on Day Zero - are a circus, is not necessarily new. While some equilibrium has been achieved in bargaining positions between firms and students, there has often been jostling for position of order of interviews by top firms keen to snap up the toppers of each batch.
And several years ago ‘exploding’ offers, wihch automatically expired within hours of getting made, began making the rounds in a bid to prevent top interviewees from getting offers from more than one firm.
While JSA is the only firm that has opted to recruit exclusively from interns this year, it is not alone in the trend.
From firms that have provided breakdowns, it seems that pre-placement offers made to interns are beginning to gain in popularity again with some, while others continue to rely primarily on Day Zero to fill their 2018 intakes.
Khaitan & Co, for instance, has instituted a new policy of 80/20 for its student hires, allocating around 80 per cent of its requirements via PPOs, and only 20 per cent via direct campus interview hires, explained HR director Amar Sinhji.
This is borne out by the numbers this year: 28 were hired via PPO, and only 6 via campus (which indeed equals to 18% of totals).
Others, however, still rely heavily on campus interviews. Cyril Amarchand hired 52 via campus and only 13 via PPO so far (the reverse of Khaitan, with PPOs only making up 20% of totals so far).
AZB Mumbai too, so far, had hired 9 via campus and only 2 via PPOs.
At Trilegal, the numbers were nearly balanced - 16 PPO recruitments versus 23 campus hires.
All that said, however, PPO figures can reasonably be expected to continue increasing at most of these firms up until 2018, as good interns are identified and snapped up.
Recruitments by college
While Day Zero recruitments are by no means the end-all-and-be-all of a recruitment season, and offers from firms will continue flowing in until 2018 (though fewer from these top 9 firms), Days Zero are a good indication of the preference top law firms have to recruit students from certain colleges.
While no decisions from aspirants should be based on Day Zero figures alone, a high percentage of a batch’s placement by Day Zero suggests that it is easier getting a top law firm job from that law school.
With that proviso, NUJS Kolkata emerged with the largest total number of early offers at more than 41 (or 33% of a batch size of around 125, which is a comparatively larger batch size than most other national law schools other than GNLU).
NUJS is likely to have placed a greater number than that from recruiters outside the 9 law firms surveyed, such as corporates and other law firms, but the NUJS recruitment committee refused to confirm or deny our figures that we put to them.
By Day Zero of this year, excluding foreign law firms and recruiters other than the 9 surveyed:
- Nalsar Hyderabad had already placed 28 (or 39% of a total batch of around 72).
- GNLU Gandhinagar had placed 30 (or around 20% of a batch of around 150 - if someone could confirm the exact batch size, we’ll be happy to update this).
- NLSIU Bangalore 33 (around 36% out of 90 total students, or 69% of the 45 students who participated in the official recruitments, according to the RCC).
- NLU Jodhpur had placed around 19 (18% out of a batch of 103, or 35% of the 54 participating students; alternatively, including other firms. Update: Alternatively, according to RCC figures, 26 total job offers as at 27 April).
- NLU Delhi placed 20 by Day Zero (or 47% out of a batch of 42).
- NLIU Bhopal placed 17 (out of a much smaller batch size than the other NLUs).
- GLC Mumbai already placed 5.
- JGLS Sonepat 4.
NUJS votes against Day Zero transparency again
NLSIU Bangalore, Nalsar Hyderabad, NLU Delhi and GNLU Gandhinagar released their Day Zero figures this year. Update: NLU Jodhpur has also released its figures today.
NLIU Bhopal said it would do so shortly, but was awaiting the responses of several recruiters. We have not reached out to NLU Jodhpur, where the administration has generally issued a ban on disclosing Day Zero figures.
As last year, NUJS refused to release Day Zero recruitments, and declined to confirm, deny or correct the recruitment figures we put to them.
Instead, after several weeks of talks between us and the recruitment committee, the committee released an unprecedented and rather cryptic statement on its website, noting the following:
We are proud to announce that we had a stellar Day Zero this year. The firms have said that they are pleased with the quality of our candidates in comparison to other law schools. Firms have also expressed appreciation on the impressive depth prevalent in the NUJS Batch of 2018.
As a matter of policy, we are mandated to disclose recruitment figures only at the time of graduation. We would urge all readers to treat any report of such figures as unofficial and not endorsed by the university. Any other publication of figures paints an incomplete picture regarding recruitment at University.
Furthermore, recruitment carries on throughout the fifth year and at no point do we feel that Day Zero in itself constitutes the end of the recruitment process - rather it represents much more the beginning of it.
We repeatedly asked the recruitment committee for an actual reason for the policy, but did not receive a response, so the only thing we have to go on is the reason we reported last year based on our campus sources: that NUJS students are worried that recruiters would not visit the college after learning of very strong Day Zero figures.
With all due respect, Legally India’s official position to such secrecy is, to use a technical term, poppycock.
If the committee’s aim is that no “incomplete picture” is painted, then that would be best served by releasing or at least confirming figures that we have obtained from law firms.
And every other top law school has released figures, including GNLU this year, which has had a terrible track record in recruitment transparency and a larger batch size than NUJS but released Day Zero figures exclusively to Bar & Bench this year.
Of course, each college is free to make its own decision regarding recruitments and transparency, but we at Legally India feel that very little is served by the NUJS policy, which will only encourage other, younger colleges to be more opaque in their recruitments and other information.
Nuff said.
Here’s wishing all 2018 and other batches a very successful recruitment season.
2018 early recruitment figures as of 14-20 April 2017, via firms
Total firms by college | College | CAM Total | Trilegal Total | SAM Total | Khaitan Total | Luthra Total | AZB Total | S&R Total | TTA | JSA* | Others (via campus sources / RCC) | Foreign firms |
40 | NUJS Kolkata | 16 (3 PPOs) | 4 (1 PPOs) | 5 | 8 (8 PPOs) | 3 | 4 (1 PPOs) | |||||
28 | Nalsar Hyderabad | 8 (1 PPOs) | 4 (2 PPOs) | 3 | 5 (3 PPOs) | 6 | 2 (0 PPOs) | 1 vac scheme, 1 TC | ||||
30 | GNLU Gandhinagar | 17 (5 PPOs) | 4 (1 PPOs) | 2 | 5 (5 PPOs) | 1 | 1 PPO | |||||
33 | NLSIU Bangalore | 4 (2 PPOs) | 7 (4 PPOs) | 9 | 4 (2 PPOs) | 4 | 4 (0 PPOs) | 1 PPO | Hindustan Unilever: 1 | 3 vac schemes | ||
19 | NLU Jodhpur | 6 (1 PPOs) | 2 (2 PPOs) | 3 | 3 (3 PPOs) | 7 | ICICI: 1; Majmudar: 1; NDA: 1; SAM: +2; Luthra: +2 | |||||
20 | NLU Delhi | 5 (0 PPOs) | 5 (1 PPOs) | 2 | 2 (1 PPOs) | 2 | 2 PPOs | 2 | 3 vac schemes | |||
17 | NLIU Bhopal | 6 (1 PPOs) | 6 (2 PPOs) | 5 (4 PPOs) | ICICI: 2 | |||||||
5 | GLC Mumbai | 4 (0 PPOs) | 1 (1 PPOs) | |||||||||
4 | JGLS Sonepat | 3 (0 PPOs) | 1 (1 PPOs) | |||||||||
0 | HNLU Raipur | - | ||||||||||
1 | Symbiosis Noida | 1 (1 PPOs) | - | |||||||||
1 | Campus Law Centre, Delhi University | 1 (1 PPOs) | ||||||||||
2 | ILS Pune | 1 | 1 (1 PPOs) | |||||||||
1 | Nirma University | 1 | ||||||||||
1 | NLU Odisha | 1 (1 PPOs) | ||||||||||
1 | RGNUL Patiala | 1 | ||||||||||
1 | RMLNLU Lucknow | 1 | ||||||||||
1 | Symbiosis Pune | 1 | ||||||||||
202 | Total | 65 | 39 | 26 | 34 | 21 | 11 | 4 | 2 | N/A |
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www.legallyindia.com/home/nlu-jodhpur-day-zero-26-accepted-jobs-led-by-luthra-2-foreign-vac-schemes-20170428-8480
Have updated the above story to include those provisos, though in interest of comparing like-with-like, having stuck to the firm-provided figures for the table, as otherwise it would become quite messy with PPOs continuing to come in.
While you might think of yourself as the doyens of 'transparency', most people in the legal circuit have come to know of Legally India as a gossip-y, popularity seeking website.
NUS had the BEST placements last year. The figures bested that of NLSIU or NALSAR. NALSAR got 39 jobs, NLSIU got 33 and NUJS got FORTY ONE! Read that? It's on your site!
NUJS has had the most proactive student bodies which exposed corruption and ousted its registrar.
Hats off to noojies!
Point out to their lack of disclosing recruitment figures only points to your desperation
in getting data. Chill. It will be given to you at the end of the year and yet again NUJS will come out tops.
What I don't understand is what exactly you want. On the one hand, you seem to want everyone to know that NUJS has great placements, which no one is really disputing.
On the other, you want to play coy, and 'chill' and don't want anyone to actually know actual and accurate snapshot figures as at Day Zero, and are upset that we are 'desperately' trying to confirm the data from the horses' mouths, after having confirmed it from law firms anyway.
In short, please decide: either have your cake, or eat it, but both is just confusing and doesn't make much sense.
Can you please, if the vac schemes given at NLS, NLUD and NALSAR were offered to different individuals?
Also, Do you have any idea of the no. Of vac schemes at NUJS.
I have heard they already have 2 TC in addition to few vac schemes.
Re NUJS TCs, since NUJS RCC is not saying anything, I honestly have no idea right now :) But it's very well possible, seeing as Nalsar had also picked up one training contract already from abroad and NUJS is a larger batch. If some Noojies want to break the omerta and confirm, please feel free :)
While I habitually read LI stories because they happen to provide a good insight into the workings of the legal industry, especially law firm deals, this is the first time I'm actually posting a comment. I have no intention of making ad hominem statements, but in this piece, frankly speaking, you are coming off as somewhat petulant. I believe the official reason or raison d^etre of your ire against NUJS is that law schools should be transparent with regard to recruitment figures. Which is a fair expectation, although the only and I repeat, only, people whose interests are served by that are prospective law students (a minuscule minority of whom actually have any idea that LI exists, a statment I'm making with no intention to disparage the work you've been doing). However, transparency is still a fair aspiration, I'd say. Having said that, transparency does not imply that information will be provided to you when you ask for it or when any other law school chooses to provide similar information to you. Let me give you an instance of the level of transparency that NUJS provides. It is apparently their policy that when the recruitment of a batch is over for good, the figures are released. For example, you are in possession of the figures for the 2016 batch. When 2017 batch is officially done with its recruitment, doubtless you will get the figures for that too. If a prospective student is trying to figure out whether or not to come to NUJS based on its recruitment figures, I daresay such figures are of more than ample help to him. He does not need to know how the university has figured in the latest recruitment drive on Day Zero a month ago. Those figures will also be revealed when the recruitment for the 2018 batch is over. I have nothing against the universities who are releasing their Day Zero figures. That's their prerogative. Just like it is ours, not to. To respond to your comment made to another person above, I do not believe NUJS needs to shout out its Day Zero figures from the rooftop at the earliest opportunity in a bid to measure itself against other NLUs. Respectfully, we are well past that need and are sufficiently strong and confident in our institutional ability and you know that very well. The only person I am seeing whose interest is getting affected because of the non-disclosure is yourself, which is understandable, since your professional performance depends on getting scoops earliest possible. I do not blame you for trying to find out the news, but couching that in a guise of "Nation wants to know" for transparency's sake is not at all accurate. NUJS does not really owe anything to either LI or its readers, only to its students. And I believe the recruitment figures when they are revealed, will show that it has been (or rather its students have been) living up to that responsibility well enough.
My apologies for the long mail, I assure you it wasn't meant to attack you personally, but simply as a reasoned rebuttal, which being educated individuals, we should be able to engage in.
@NUJS Alumnus kudos on a well thought out response that has shut KG up.
@KG Enough Gandmasti.
I don't fundamentally disagree with your sentiments, other than on the following:
1. Disclosure of year-end recruitment figures has, fortunately, over the years become more or less standard market practice (in part due to our pestering of RCCs also). I'm therefore not sure that NUJS RCC deserves particular credit for transparency for that, seeing as every other top law school usually does the same. However, this transparency certainly doesn't extend to most younger law schools that don't have good placements, which they'd want to shout from the rooftops. The only way to persuade the younger law schools to release such information, which would undoubtedly be valuable to many, is for older law schools to lead by example, which increase the pressure on others to also disclose.
2. Sure, it's each RCC's prerogative, but I have literally not heard any official counter-argument to Day Zero transparency from NUJS, other than "it's our policy and we don't feel like it". When we reported last year that the reason was that they thought it would negatively impact jobs, we faced much outrage directed at us about this, but have not actually ever had a convincing rebuttal that this wasn't a reason.
If that is indeed the reason, then rather than vague hand-waving referrals to 'policy', I'd love to have the opportunity to rebut that or dispute the data, if any, this relies on, because I personally don't think it's actually a significant factor (and neither do other RCCs). In fact, if there is any negative impact, it is probably outweighed by the positive PR of seeing that other top law firms have found good candidates at a college.
3. If we are going to publish the figures anyway, whether NUJS confirms or not, how does it hurt NUJS' interest to at least be able to have an input to make sure that the figures out there are accurate?
Also, for GNLU, SAM gave 2 PPOs and 1 day zero offer (which was not accepted).
So, total jobs at GNLU (CAM, SAM, Khaitan, Trilegal, Luthra, S&R, IndusLaw) are 35, for the class of 2018.
You may also want to highlight that the day zero placements are much better than that of NLUD, NLIU and NLUJ, and also NLSIU.
WIth the excellent performance in Moots (GNLU is rank 1 in MPL as of April 2017), as well as placements, GNLU has cemented its position as Rank 4 in NLUs, just behind NLS, NALSAR and NUJS.
Indus Law has made 5 offers
Argus has made 1 offer
Agram Legal has made one offer
Wait for a couple of years. MNLU Nagpur under VK Sir's leadership is going to dominate the MUNS, mooting space, publications as well as placements!
1) NALSAR
2) NLSIU
3) GNLU
4) NUJS
5) NLUJ
6) NLUD
7) NLIU
8 Jindal
9) NLUO
10) HNLU
I urge Legally India to interview the VC on this.
Kian – if nothing else, you should have applied the guidelines that you have for comments on your website – be nice to other readers and humans who likely have feelings, and use full English words.
As I write this, the NUJS students seem to have displayed great maturity and restraint in not reacting to this, but I think you have crossed a line this time.
If a law firm had not confirmed its Day Zero hires, we would have also called it out if most others confirm these figures and there's no reason not to disclose such figures...
Anyway, I think that most NUJS students are ok with all this - we had long backchannel discussions with the RCC before this and I think we kind of agree to disagree. They had their say in their statement, we published it, and we formally registered our protest at a policy which in our opinion is quite pointless, all things considered.
No harm done, I reckon...
And I would be very surprised if you use words like poppycock in a report on the policy of any law firm. I don't think a confirmation on Day Zero hires by a law firm is the right analogy. Lateral moves or salaries may be more like it, which firms routinely do not comment on or confirm, even when these are public knowledge.
You did more than just 'call out' NUJS for their stand on this issue. My objection is to the way you have expressed your disagreement, not on the fact that there is disagreement.
I disagree with you that 'poppycock' (aka, literally nonsense) is caustic, but I regret if any offence was caused. I also maintain that the position of the NUJS student body on this is ultimately pointless, particularly in light of the RCC not giving any reasons for its position (perhaps its hands are tied by admin or student body there, but we wouldn't know since they are not commenting).
Not sure what you mean re NLU Jodhpur - they have disclosed their Day Zero figures.
Re law firms, I think Day Zero confirmation is most appropriate by analogy, and this year we nearly didn't get confirmations from 2 firms. Which we would have happily called out also. The others are less good examples, I think. Lateral moves are bizarrely often emotionally sensitive issue to managing partners, so reticence to comment is somewhat understandable and it is also quite common, though still not wisest from a PR perspective. Starting salaries most big law firms if not all have confirmed in recent years, I think.
You have expressed regret, so I guess that is enough said.
1) They increased the intake and admitted too many bad students, who harmed the reputation of the college and hurt the job prospects of the serious students. As it is, there is a Haryana quota where a lot of weak students make it, so this makes things worse. For every good student, there are now 5 times as many weak students.
2) There is too much emphasis on human rights, international law and such subjects. The VC's area is human rights, and he has taken too many faculty members who focus on these areas. These subjects do not generate many jobs. Also, let's face it, it is much easier to pass subjects on gender and sexuality than subjects like tax, insurance, arbitration, trade, IP, maritime law etc. Thus, many people's ranks and grades are artificially high. It is really strange how a law school set up by a corporate group gives so much emphasis to human rights.
With 400 students graduating every year, the situation is now very grim. Legally India should ask some tough questions to the VC, and not just publish their advertisements.
1. NLSIU no matter what. Nothing compares.
2. NALSAR
3 NUJS or NLUD (at par)
4. NLUJ or NLIU or GNLU (at par)
5. MNLU or RGNUL or RLNLU or NLUO or NUALS (all at par)
6. JGLS
7. Symbiosis or IP university
8. GLC
9. DSNLU or TN NLU or NLU Nagpur
10.Amity or Christ
11 First tier traditional universities: Pune or Madras or Mysore or Mumbai or Bangalore or Osmania or Calcutta or Punjab or Jamia or Aligarh (all at par)
12 CNLU or NLU Assam or NLU Shimla or NUSRL or TNDALU
13. Second tier traditional universities: Rajasthan or Allahabad or Lucknow or Pondicherry
14. Third tier traditional universities: Meerut, Patna etc
And LI has never published a holistic ranking. At best, we have ranked colleges' performance according to very narrow metrics (like mooting, or one year of recruitments, etc)
But if coaching centres or others use these for rankings, there's unfortunately nothing we can really do about that no?
I'm pretty sure some other colleges also have additional offers now, so if we update GNLU, we'll have to start trying to get updates from every college on the list...
Final recruitment rankings should be out soon, I hope - please ask your recruitment faculty coordinator to get in touch and share these with us.
BUT kindly, don't make a joke by stating that NLU's like "CNLU or NLU Assam or NLU Shimla or NUSRL or TNDALU" stands behind, they are way ahead than other private or traditional universities.
Any comparison of these budding NLU's with any non-NLU's will be shame.
Infact, NLUD has so much more to work on before it even surpass NLUJ.
NLSIU, DU (3 year), NALSAR, GNLU, Symbi, Aligarh, Christ, ILS, Bharatiya Vidyapeeth, IP.
On the other hand here is the ranking by Careers 360:
NLSIU, IIT law school (3 year), NLUJ, NALSAR, NLUD, JGLS, DU (3 year), NUJS, NLIU, GNLU.
Which is accurate? Please advise.
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