A reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent us a missive yesterday about his / her reality of job hunting while at one of the younger national law schools. It rang true and was rather interesting, so I thought it was worth sharing (I see that more or less the same letter has also been published on Lawctopus independently).

Note - we haven’t confirmed the placement situation at CNLU Patna, but what is described does not seem far fetched, though it does need to be taken with a pinch of salt too - a lot of 2014 batch students, even at the ‘top’ NLUs, have anecdotally had a hard time trying to get jobs this year. Mostly, it seems to have been the economy and law firms cutting back considerably.

While Day Zeros for the 2015 batch look rather strong (stories here), I remember how tough it was trying to get Day Zero information out of the 2014 batches in 2013 (partly caused because everyone was panicking about the economy and scaring off recruiters by publishing their statistics).

Anyway, full placement figures for law schools’ 2014 batches will hopefully be out soon and we can confirm this.

But the moral of the story is the same as it has been for several years: There are a lot of new national law schools and private law schools popping up but not nearly enough jobs to go around in India. Here goes:

I am a 5th year student from Chanakya National Law University, and has been a regular follower of Legally India.

I recently saw your article on the recruitment figures of some of the top National Law Schools namely NLS, NALSAR and NUJS which showcased a splurge of job offers whereas on the contrary schools like RMNLU are doing their best to keep their feet just off the ground.

Thus in a fit of anger, frustration and disappointment, I am writing to you to let you know of the pitiable condition of these so called “National Law Universities” which are just surviving on the mirage glory of its “National” tag and every passing year screwing up (Pardon my language) the future of a plethora of students who are jobless not because they lack the merit or are anyway inferior to the other blue bloods but by the simple reason that their college administration are just interested in collecting their respective tuition fee and other administrative charges which includes installing lifts and air conditioners in the faculty chambers rather than providing qualitative faculty members or books for that matter in the library.

And this personal vendetta against students does not end right there, we have a 75% compulsory attendance in all 5 years including 10th semester, which basically rummages our chances to even secure a PPO since no firm would even get a a hang of who you are and what you are capable of doing in a 21 days internship.

That being said securing an internship in the first place is also a blind race for most of us, we make our own contacts (jugaads) and hope against hope that somebody in that firm/ organisation or institution notices us.

We the batch of 2009-2014 are graduating in June 2014, with only 2 people placed right now (if only you can call that so, because the terms of recruitment are subjected to a paid internship for 6 months with a promised stiphend of Rs. 15,000).

So much for studying 5 years in a National Law School. So much for taking an exam among 50,000 aspirants and making to a National Law School, So much for taking a student loan and promising your dad, that better days would come soon, so much for expecting that merit at the end of the day wins.

And Dear Law Firms, if you are listening, may be, just may be, we don’t belong to the top law schools, but it might surprise you that we might know just as much or may be more than those you recruited.

Maybe it’s time you come up with a recruitment policy that helps you pick up talents from all law schools, help us to help you to form a better legal fraternity.

Author’s follow-up note:

The entire reason for writing to Legally India was to make sure that it reaches the crowd. Every year the number of students taking CLAT are increasing, they are taking expensive crash courses to get into more expensive colleges with just one bare minimum dream- to make something for themselves.

At the end of 5 years, when they see all their batchmates getting through the not-so-great engineering colleges placed with job offers from TCS and WIPRO, and worse those few people who made it to the top 4 national law school holding job offers from foreign firms and contemplate their situation of having to pay off a lumpsome student loan without a decent job, or any job for that matter- it is the worst feeling possible, not to mention the fact that you feel incompetent and unnerved.

Though the damage that has been caused to our batch is irreparable, I hope this tiny attempt on my part, would probably secure few of my juniors a little upperhand in shaping their future.