Nalsar Hyderabad has placed 66 out of 80 students graduating from the law school this year after its recruitment coordination committee (RCC) secured 69 job offers for its members to date, while eight will go on to take LLM degrees abroad.

The lion’s share of offers came from 13 domestic law firms that offered a total of 31 jobs, but foreign law firms set a recent Nalsar record with eight job offers – last year Allen & Overy and Linklaters hired three in total, in 2011 four offers came in from abroad, matching the total offers in 2010 and 2009.

This year Linklaters made three offers, Herbert Smith two, and Allen & Overy and White & Case one each between a total of seven students. Three of those students also received offers by one domestic firm each, while one also received an offer from Ashurst that was not accepted.

RCC subscribers also won five public sector jobs in their cities of choice, while litigating seniors recruited through the college placement process for the first time.

Early bird catches

The number of student subscribers this year was “the largest ever”, according to the RCC, which consisted of Student Bar Council (SBC) president Mirza Saaib Beg, Rhea Mathew, Varun Vaish, Swati Singh, Rigzen Yangdol, Sourav Roy, Kunal Singh, Megha Katheria and Prianca Ravichander.

“Nalsar’s 100 per cent record on recruitment is guaranteed to continue,” said the RCC in an email. “More significantly, the strategic evolution that has brought us success in a tough period has left the university with a considerably enlarged recruitment base that will stand it in good stead for years to come for all subsequent RCCs.”

The recruitment for the currently graduating batch began on 7 April 2012 – ahead of any other national law school last year – kicking off with 15 offers on day zero. By the end of their fourth year, a total of 29 job offers were in hand.

However, when the RCC was formed in March of 2012, the “recruiting environment in the market ranged from conservative to gloomy”, said the RCC. Their response was to diversify and increase the pool of recruiters, doubling the total number and also contacting senior counsel directly to hire through the RCC.

There are another two weeks to go before the RCC will wrap up this year’s placement process and it has already trumped the batch of 2012 which secured total 43 job offers for its 43 subscribers out of a class of 72.

Keener law firms

Domestic law firms continued to take the biggest slice of Nalsar talent, with 38 job offers from a longer recruiter list than in 2012 as the regulars reduced their intakes.

Last year’s largest Nalsar recruiter Luthra & Luthra that made nine offers was missing from the scene, but Amarchand picked up the slack with nine offers made.

AZB & Partners made six offers (one fewer than last year), Khaitan & Co two, with one offer letter coming from each of J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Trilegal.

The numbers got a fillip with the presence of Nishith Desai Associates (2), Pathak & Associates (2), Talwar Thakore & Associates (1), S&R Associates (1), Samvad (erstwhile Narasappa Doraswamy & Raja) (1), Poovayya & Co (1), Dave & Girish & Co (1), HSB Partners (1), and Crestlaw Partners (1) this year.

On the house

Companies made 17 job offers, with 10 coming from the private sector and six from PSUs. One offer was made by publisher Lexis Nexis.

ICICI Bank and the ITC hospitality group each made three offers, Wipro selected two students, and both Hero Motor Corp and Hinduja extended one offer.

Among the PSUs, the Power Grip Corporation took two students, and one offer each was made by Hindustan Zinc, MECON, the AP Metro Water Board, and the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited.

The RCC said that “for the first time” they followed a “bottom up instead of a top down” approach for PSUs by asking subscribers for their city preferences, accommodating one student’s request for a Ranchi-based position, for example, which they were eventually able to satisfy with “one of the most reputed PSUs” in the city leveraging the RCC’s personal contacts.

In the process they rejected offers from up to five PSUs where eventually job profiles were far out of the way and remuneration too little for students.

Institutionalising non-institutions

Breaking tradition, six students secured offers from senior advocates through the RCC this time instead of independently. Two others joined litigation boutique firms.

Credence Law Associates and CKR Associates each made an offer.

Two students joined seniors in the Supreme Court and one each in the Delhi and Mumbai high courts, in Hyderabad and in Chennai.

“We explained to senior advocates that national law universities were set up to produce better lawyers and improve the quality of advocates joining the bar and while we have committees formed to streamline recruitment into corporate houses, no such institutionalized support and streamlined process was available for joining the bar,” the RCC said via email.

One RCC member said that they would have preferred for senior advocates to conduct interviews based on the subscribers’ resumes, but seniors were not yet entirely convinced to hire outside the intern crowd they had personally known. He said that the RCC planned on visiting various bar associations in future to convince advocates otherwise.

Judicial clerkship

Two clerkship positions were secured with Supreme Court Justice Murlidhar while five other interviews were also lined up.

LLM

Eight students, including Rhodes scholar Arushi Garg, may be headed to Oxford University (3), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (2), Cambridge University (2), and the London School of Economics (LSE) (1).

Seven out of the nine RCC core members were made job offers, and one crossed the LLM admission hurdle at UCLA.

Offers made to Nalsar 2013 graduating batch

Source: Nalsar RCC