Both sides of the now divided Amarchand Mangaldas family have considerably increased their recruitments for 2017 from top law schools, as have many top firms, with some already filling up their quota of recruits from law schools.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas has already hired a record 61 students to begin working as lawyers in 2017. Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas has hired 32 students. Trilegal has hired 30 and Khaitan & Co. has finished its 2017 law school recruitments with a tally of 29 as of 7 April.

The recruitment calendar has also accelerated even further this year compared to last year, as published in Mint on 7 April 2015, with several major law firms – such as Khaitan & Co and AZB & Partners - having substantially finished their recruitments for 2017 already, according to each firm.

So much so that despite some large firms such as J Sagar Associates (JSA) yet to begin hiring aggressively this year, intending to draw most of its 2017 entrants from future internships at the firm, younger national law schools that have not held their Day Zero face the prospect of the largest recruiters giving their campuses a miss.

That would pretty much put paid to graduates’ hopes of high-paying jobs.

It also gives a good indication of law firm strategies, as on 18 April 2015 (one week later than this year’s figures) nearly every firm's figures were very different.

Most notably, the two sides of the erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas legal empire, which was India's largest law firm until they it broke in two nearly a year ago, both separately considerably ramped up recruitments, significantly exceeding previous aggregate totals from 65 to 93 students…

To find out what Amarchands are doing and why Khaitan has reduced its recruitments this year, read today’s Legally India feature on Livemint now.

2017 batch Day Zero recruitments across top firms

(2015’s Day Zero figures are from here and here.)

Update: Since first gathering the data, Luthra has recruited another student from NLU Jodhpur via Day Zero interviews