The NUJS Kolkata recruitment committee has almost doubled finalists' job offers this year with a new policy, having placed 84 per cent of students and enticing a Bollywood studio to recruit from campus.
Out of a batch of 93, a total of 83 final year students participated in the recruitment committee of whom 70 have now accepted job offers. The committee coordinator said it was confident hoping for another seven offers in the coming weeks, leaving only three without placements.
Last year only around 40 students were placed by the committee during term time, although the batch was also much smaller at around 75 students and it is understood that students found jobs after graduation as economic confidence of recruiters improved. [Correction: the originally stated figure of 20 students last year was incorrect, as it did not take into account recruitment right until the recruitment year end in June 2009. We regret the error.]
NUJS recruitment committee coordinator Shaswata Dutta said: "We are not expecting 100 per cent recruitment this year but compared to what we had last year it has been quite a fine run."
The committee this year introduced a "no hold on policy", said Dutta, which meant that students who were offered a job by any employer would have to withdraw from the recruitment process.
"It has worked for us this year," he noted, adding that employers had reacted positively to the change although it would depend on the support of next year's batch on whether the policy would continue.
He said that the biggest recruiter was Amarchand Mangaldas, which had recruited nine and three NUJS students in Mumbai and Delhi respectively (see table for full breakdown).
Recruiting firm | Accepted offers made to NUJS 2010 finalists |
Amarchand Mangaldas | 12 (9 Mumbai, 3 Delhi) |
Trilegal | 7 |
Luthra & Luthra | 5 (3 Mumbai, 2 Delhi) |
R Ginodia & Co | 2 |
J Sagar Associates (JSA) | 2 |
Phoenix Legal | 2 |
Wadia Ghandy | 2 (incl. 1 pre-associate internship) |
AZB & Partners | 1 |
Platinum Partners | 1 |
Clifford Chance | 1 |
Herbert Smith | 1 |
Norton Rose | 1 |
In-house / other | |
Steel Authority of India (SAIL) | 4 |
ICICI | 2 |
A Bollywood studio | 1 |
Pangea3 (LPO) | 2 |
Seven students accepted offers from Trilegal, while Luthra & Luthra hired three in Mumbai and two in Delhi. Two students each will join J Sagar Associates (JSA), which visisted NUJS campus for the first time, and Phoenix Legal.
International firms Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith and Norton Rose each offered one training contract to NUJS finalists.
Legal process outsourcing (LPO) company Pangea3 hired two students.
Alongside other in-house legal teams, a Bollywood studio visited the NUJS campus for the first time and made one job offer. [name removed at request of studio]
"[The studio] has never recruited ever from any law school ever," said Dutta. "We wanted to see how other media houses would need lawyers and that is how we contacted them."
Kolkata firm R Ginodia & Co hired two students, with one on standby, although Kolkata-founded Khaitan & Co did not visit the NUJS campus this year or make any offers to NUJS interns.
The average salary for placed NUJS students was around 8.5 lakh per year, said Dutta.
Dutta told Legally India that around 10 to 11 students were going to practice in the courts, including students ranked in the top 20. While no non-governmental organisations have yet recruited from NUJS this year, Dutta said that talks were ongoing due to student interest. Several students had also chosen to study LLM degrees abroad.
NLSIU Bangalore had found places for 96 per cent of its students by late January of this year.
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Hope this clarifies things - I can see it can look a little unclear.
Thanks,
Kian
Your respective family businesses used to recruit hordes of students from nls/nujs/nalsar but have slowed down recruitment because of the economic recession. If you cannot provide more jobs, please allow the foreign law firms to enter India, as they will. What's more, they are likely to pay twice as much as your family businesses pay.
Yours Sincerely,
Jobless lawyer
It increasingly appears that all junior lawyers want foreign law firms to come to India in the mistaken belief that the foreign firms will be offering jobs on the silver platter...to all and sundry. I am sure that their recruitment process would be tougher than the top indian firms and only the cream will be selected by them, reason being that as jobless lawyer has pointed out, double salary than the present family businesses. Jobless lawyers won't gain much from opening of legal sector. The top lawyers/graduates would continue to progress more and more with foreign firms coming in. So, status quo for all jobless lawyers.
Well thought of analysis. You def are star performer and have a job with Mr Amarchand or Mr. Manglasdas. If the cream as you say would get jobs with foreign firms then it would leave openings at Mr Amarchand's office for people like "Jobless Lawyers". Your analysis is like the perfectly synthesised opinion that misses the practical details. But who cares for practical details?
I so wish this option was available to me in 2001.... anyway all the best and hope you do well in the media segment. Indian media sector so needs a professional lawyer rather than part time litigators/ CA's who perform the role of a lawyer not knowing 0.001% of skills that a hollywood lawyer has. High time this big industry sector had some professional lawyer, albeit a junior.
BTW wait till all your friends beg you for passes to movie premier shows..
having said that, congratulations to the current batch. and mr dutta seems like a fine coordinator, indeed!!!
Running the CRC is not an easy job and one which requires a lot of dedication and trust placed in these young lads (Mr Dutta included, as also a few others who have worked till the end, despite getting very early placements themselves).
For any third person reading this article, perhaps some background would help. NUJS, like a few other law schools, has had 100% placements over the last many years. However, with the downturn last year, many students were left to make creative career decisions and had their offers deferred / had to wait longer for their desired law firms to absorb them.
94% in a batch of 83 students, given that the market has recently picked up, is extremely encouraging. Surely, the larger the batch, the more impressive such a percentage is.
NLS has had a good year with placements as well. 96% of 53 students would mean 51 students were placed by January. I think NUJS had a similar or more number of students placed around the same time.
Good to see good placements all around. No figures on NALSAR though?
[PS - Yes, ITC / IFMR / and quite a few others have not been mentioned.]
[PPS - Not a bragging competition here. For many of us, the year was riddled with uncertainties and it's good to see it end on an upside.]
And I don't think NALSAR has ever published a complete breakup of its recruitments ever...it just publishes figures related to average, highest salaries.
Here are some more details from the recruitment committee:
The total number of people with firms is 56 including places like Juris Corp, ITC, IFMR, Sanderson Morgans and Rohit Das Associates.
The rest are distributed between taking up research assistant positions at NUJS and joining law chambers of various High Court and Supreme Court lawyers. At the request of the students details of those were not published.
Several in-house companies are still visiting and the committee is still confident of reaching its target.
Always happy to hear readers' feedback, hope that makes sense.
Best regards,
Kian
ps: As headed in our table, the figures we listed were only a sample and nowhere near complete.
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