Many Partners do that, they do not want girls taking maternity leave if they end up staying at the firm long term. This is the bitter truth. Highly sexist and discriminatory, but yes, this is the truth.
Not sexist. They want hardworking sincere focussed men, but men these days are are lacking that ability due to the immense pressures of modern industrial society. So they hire women and make them behave like men.
No, they want robots who will make them rich, whatever gender, pressures, behaviour, in the end they want you to draft and push papers and bill the clients 10x
its the same for ALL tier 1 firms, in fact all. And not just law firms, im seeing this trend in other professions as well, girls getting in through "referrals". girls in 3rd and 4rth yr of my college are exclusively given internships at so many places, even if I have a better rank, more experience. Ofcourse, they never got good feedback. Some did but [-]
Yes, there is definitely a bias. Dont forget that most HR Managers are women, that too radicalised liberal arts graduates. Ive had female peers with not even half the credentials as me get internships that I was rejected for.
Female : Male Ratio at your college is 5:1 not because firms prefer women to men. There are no gender preferences for women It's because girls have far more GPA, gender preference for girls is only there in some rare exceptions like Samvad/Khimani. Among the big ones, possibly Trilegal.
GPA is used as a preliminary cut off for campus placements. Girls work hard, mug up and get good grades while boys slack off in law school. In some NLU's in Top 10 batch ranks - there are less than 2 to 3 boys. So when GPA is used as a Preliminary screening it's impossible to hire guys. There are no men to hire when GPA is used as a criterion. Replacing GPA as a criteria is hard. A girl getting a GPA of 9 = a Boy getting 8. But this cannot be done as it's discrimination.
This hiring difference doesn't make much difference in the long run because mugging up and getting marks doesn't mean girls hired will last forever in the law firm setting. While men who slacked may end up in Tier 1 firms as they jump (lateral) from Litigation Chambers or T2/T3 law firms to Tier 1 firms, and may even become partners. Men can afford to waste years lateral'ing' as they don't face social pressures. While women quit in more numbers over the years because of the same pressures.
The GPA criteria is the worst way of hiring candidates. According to me, everything except the GPA i.e. publications > moot courts > allied extracurriculars and positions of responsibility; should be given a huge weightage so that well rounded individuals make the cut instead of nerds who have just mugged up law school crap - atleast as far as tier 1 Indian law firms are concerned in the first place. Secondly, I believe lateral hires from T2s/T3s should be given a huge preference over freshers man, deals at the bigger stakes need experience which freshers (barring the top 10 law schools) lack in my opinion. Lastly, this is directed to all the law students - think and/or try to specialize in a certain area of law by the end of your 4th year for heavens sake; CVs are usually dircted to the concerned team members before final acceptance by HR and seeing specialized CVs make things easier for us and you guys at the end of it. Thanks and good luck!
GPA is used as a preliminary cut off for campus placements. Girls work hard, mug up and get good grades while boys slack off in law school. In some NLU's in Top 10 batch ranks - there are less than 2 to 3 boys. So when GPA is used as a Preliminary screening it's impossible to hire guys. There are no men to hire when GPA is used as a criterion. Replacing GPA as a criteria is hard. A girl getting a GPA of 9 = a Boy getting 8. But this cannot be done as it's discrimination.
This hiring difference doesn't make much difference in the long run because mugging up and getting marks doesn't mean girls hired will last forever in the law firm setting. While men who slacked may end up in Tier 1 firms as they jump (lateral) from Litigation Chambers or T2/T3 law firms to Tier 1 firms, and may even become partners. Men can afford to waste years lateral'ing' as they don't face social pressures. While women quit in more numbers over the years because of the same pressures.