NLIU Bhopal has started its Day Zero recruitment efforts today with a visit from Amarchand Mangaldas and Clifford Chance’s captive legal offshore unit OSC Export Services, months after six other national law schools and JGLS Sonepat closed their Day Zero recruitments, risking a very low recruiter turn-out.

NLIU's Placement Coordination Committee's (PCC) faculty coordinator Dr Raka Arya confirmed that 15 students out of the batch of 80 graduating in 2014 are today appearing for their first set of Day Zero interviews, having already entered the final year of law school. OSC Legal has shortlisted seven students for interview, while Amarchand has shortlisted eight out of whom two are expected walk away with offers.

Arya said that Amarchand and Khaitan & Co have also previously made two pre-placement offers (PPO) to students of the batch, as reported by Legally India.

Other than Amarchand and OSC, public sector undertaking (PSU) Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) is the only other recruiter that has so far agreed to visit campus for interviews, but has not yet confirmed a date, she further confirmed.

The student coordinator of the PCC for 2014, Aditya Shekhar, confirmed to Legally India that placement interviews were scheduled to be conducted today, but declined to comment further at the time of going to press.

Arya said: “I was to take charge [of the PCC] from July only. This time I have come to know [that the reason] why we have not been receiving replies from many organisations is because the market is very low. Last year they already over-recruited. That is why there is this particular disinterest and the organisations we are getting in touch with are not in a position to recruit this year.”

“We should try [holding Day Zero] during our regular month next,” she added. “We used to have it earlier, and see how many organisations turn up.”

Last year NLIU held its Day Zero on 16 April, netting nine offers on the first day of fourth year recruitment, including 5 PPOs.

One NLIU student, who did not want to be named, told Legally India that while some members of the PCC had called for Day Zero to begin in April or May at the law school, they were outvoted by others who felt that the batch needed to secure more internships before appearing in recruitment interviews. However, now recruiters were declining offers to visit the campus, because they had already conducted a majority of their interviews and recruitments.

India’s largest six law firms – Amarchand, AZB & Partners, Khaitan, Luthra & Luthra, Trilegal and JSA – had already hired more than 100 fourth year students from eleven Indian law schools by mid-May this year, as first reported by Legally India.

“[Because of lack of long term planning, we have messed up all the things for the 2014 batch. Candidates like me are left only with what we can do outside of college. I don’t think we are going to have any great placements this year,” commented the NLIU student.

Out of a batch of 80, 30 students have subscribed to the campus recruitment process. Meanwhile, the law school still awaits the appointment of its new director and registrar after outgoing director Prof SS Singh’s term ended on 31 May and former registrar SC Pande was transferred in May.