My heart goes out to the batch of 2020, 2021 and 2022 who’ve mostly faced the worst of pandemic and have been on the brunt of all bad things.

I am from 2023 batch and ofc paranoia has gotten me because I’ll be entering 4th year and I haven’t seen a single corporate office in my law school life and procuring internships has somehow gotten more difficult. When pandemic started we were too young to intern in high end places and now it seems that we’re getting older and older for these internships. I had a couple of doubts:-

1) Would law firms be empathetic towards students and consider the fact that we couldn’t intern in our prime time due to the pandemic?

2) Economy seems to be going into a recession, what does that mean for the batch of 2023?

3) At this moment, corporate job might not be a priority, for a lot students any job would work. Are there some healthy paying jobs which have survived the pandemic?

Any other insight would also work

Also please take care of yourself guys, sending a lot of positivity

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Would law firms be empathetic towards students and consider the fact that we couldn’t intern in our prime time due to the pandemic?

No. They look at incoming associates purely as a resource. If they feel you're not good enough due to a lack of exposure or otherwise, you won't be hired. Don't expect compassion from them. Regarding recession, I think the legal profession will be insulated to a great degree.

I'm from the batch of 2022, and I've never seen a law firm in my life. I was in my third year when remote working started and I only started interning at these law firms virtually in 2020.
There's no learning, hardly any work delegated to interns and there have been times when I've had no work for 2 weeks straight.
It's bad out there and I hope law firms consider the same when they evaluate for placements or even internships for that matter (if they even consider for placements)!

Well, Corrigendum has not got his second point right. Biglaw (top 5) made massive amounts of money due to massive FDI inflow in India and also because the capital markets were totally disconnected from the real economy. Last year, the MSME and the unorganized sector took the hit. If this year, fdi inflow is hit and the markets tank, then non performing assets and partners will be shown the door and new hiring will be minimal. So, biglaw revenues very much depends on what is happening in the economy. If there is flight of capital, then big law deals start coming down. It all depends on how long foreign investors will keep betting on the India story.

Yours is a more nuanced take on this, and I agree that the overall market always influences how well a law firm does. That said, I stand by my original point. A recession means a distressed market, which means there's actually an uptick in mergers and distressed asset transactions, meaning more hourly diligence and transactional work. In my experience, even the most expense averse companies tend to spend liberally on legal expenses as a form of risk mitigation. The trend over the last year and a half has been for PE/VC vultures to swoop down and take up any and all assets they can for dirt cheap prices and this effect is felt across practice areas. It's been a stellar year (financially) for Banking teams as well. Capmarks has been hit of course, but they don't make much money to begin with. I'm told corporate litigation teams suffered a setback and never fully recovered, but that's an outlier.

Corrigendum is partly right. Weil Gotshal made record amounts of money during the Lehman bankruptcy but most big firms like Skadden fired people in 2008. This is in a developed market like the US. India is very different. Obviously, if the economy tanks then distressed M&A work will happen but that is only a short time fix. These firms like AZB and Amarchand have made it really big only in the last 15 odd years and a large part of the revenue comes from foreign investors. FDI is the main revenue driver for firms. If the general economy tanks, there will be a flight of capital. Many foreign investors have left developing markets like India after a few decades due to a variety of reasons. FDI numbers were at a record high in fiscal year 2021. If that takes a hit, law firm revenues will take a hit. Indian law firms are hugely dependent on foreign capital for revenues.We don't know if things will be as good for firms as they were last year. Let's wait and watch. But it is true that most of these American and Singaporean capitalists were very impressed with the budget presented in February but that was before the second wave. They were largely impressed by the stress on infra. The aftermath of the second wave remains unknown.

Also recalling that this is not a 2008 situation, no quick (1-2 year down and about turn) recession. This is a sustained recession period of severe mismatches already becoming apparent, i.e. supply chain choke ups, demand outstripping supply etc. If it gets worse, it gets better only very very slowly. More so, lots of people wrongly believe that spending will show steep rise the moment things seem to get back to normal. This works in the US now with the extended public spending maybe but not here, not now with people living through this period of economic stress.

Campus placements and PPOs aren't based on current workflow. They are rather based on expected future workflow, given that these resources would usually be joining a year/ year and a half hence.

When you have an uncertain climate, where a law firm can't predict the future workflow, they will naturally be more conservative when hiring. When the outlook is good they hire well beyond what the current workload justifies, like CAM and Khaitan did around 2017/ 2018.

All Tier 1 firms are hiring laterals in a big way right now for M&A dependent teams (including corp, competition, projects etc). In fact, there aren't many takers for these jobs and picking up good talent is really tough right now.

Because firms are consolidating. They have enough work for the associates currently on their retainer but can't exactly hire more without affecting their bottom line. Plus, due to the pandemic, many people are holding on to jobs they'd rather quit. This exacerbates your situation - people already there are not quitting due to the pandemic so fewer vacancies.

2021 is hardest hit by pandemic.
while 2020 batch sat for whole placement week, only their joining got delayed.
2021 is literally face hardship while securing internship in 4th year as Covid started and Final year again getting plagued due Covid and other disaster.

I am just an associate but my heart goes out to them, they would be judged so badly and they'll lose more than anyone. I know the struggles of finding a Job. I request all the recruited to have an open heart and accommodate these young kids who has already face a lot even before staring. even if you're willing to cut down a salary by few thousands they would still value it and put in effots.

2022 batch should not have any problem, expect covid situation to be much much better by then. don't worry.

This is totally erroneous. As someone from Batch 22, I can say this with utmost certainty that most of us haven't got any opportunity to intern at places which usually offer jobs (Read Tier 1/2/3 firms). A major part of our 3rd and the entire 4th year was wasted awaiting for internship opportunities. Firms like JSA, AZB, SAM and CAM have either frozen/figuring out whether to hire for the current financial year. On the contrary, Batch 21 was nearing the end of their 4th year when pandemic hit, and by that time, most of them had secured PPOs (can verify as my seniors are set to join KCo, AZB, SAM, CAM, Trilegal and JSA).

TBH, 2023 Batch could be amongst the luckiest batches around. The Pandemic is not here to stay beyond the first half of 2022 and normalcy will be resumed. Since the law firms wouldn't have had hired at their regular levels for two batches till then (Batch 2021 and 22), thereby meaning less A0s, they would definitely need a fresh batch of graduates in 2023.

This is not a blanket statement but just a forecast and my opinion.

2023 is the unluckiest batch .Why coz u guys built a base before the COVID hot and did a lot of internships or whatever.For us, there was no learning, no networking and least of all no internships or practical learning . Basically u guys would bounce back from this in an year or so but for ppl whom were intellectually scarred from the pandemic are reeling and would not recover ever due to the crucial time lost.

Maybe coz of college brand in internal contacts, that thing is unaffected by COVID or any slowdown. Oh ,then explain this, why are the junior batches doing substantially well, despite not working "too hard" and having a breeze at things, at the same time people from 2021/2022 batches too are struggling equally as us. You need to understand basic economic structure kid, step our of ur 300 acre campus to know how things work.

I think Batch 2020 and 21 have mostly escaped the impact of Pandemic. I say this because lockdown measures were imposed only in March 2020, at a time when placements had already been wrapped up for the 2020 batch. Even for the Batch of 2021, a majority of the students had secured PPOs from Tier-1/2 law firms by the end of December/January 2020 (a regular practice of students securing PPOs in their 4th year) and a few NLUs were also done with their respective Day Zero by Feb/1st week of March. Basis the above, it is the Batch 2022 which has actually faced/is facing the brunt of this pandemic.