ICICI Bank has recruited six law students from three campuses to start in its in-house team next year and it is set to hire from at least another five law schools soon.
The bank recruited four final year students from NALSAR Hyderabad, one student from National University of Advanced Legal Studies Kochi (NUALS) and one from National Law University (NLU) Jodhpur.
ICICI Bank has an in-house transactional legal capacity of around 150 lawyers and around the same number of legal staff employed in its subsidiaries.
ICICI Bank general counsel Pramod Rao said that he would still look to recruit from ILS Pune, Symbiosis Pune, National University of Juridicial Sciences Kolkata (NUJS), NLS Bhopal and the Army Institute of Law Mohali.
“We have a wide intake for two reasons,” he explained. “One, the requirement is quite high - we’ve recruited as many as 18 people for this year [2009] and last year between 20 and 22.
“This is too many to go to just one school.”
The second reason, said Rao, was that any student who had done a focussed five-year course in residence at a law school would have picked up good training and rigour.
“Before [other law firms] discovered Bhopal, we were there already and the same with NUALS Kochi and the Army Institute Mohali,” he added.
New joiners at ICICI Bank’s in-house team can expect a starting salary of up to Rs 8.34 lakhs per year. [see explanation in the comments below - Ed]
The bank is also set to take a total of 180 interns this year, from which the majority of its future recruits are usually selected.
NALSAR student bar council (SBC) president Aditya Wadhwa said that the recruitment season this year had gone well, unlike during last year’s slow-down.
“The ICICI recruitment has made us really confident that we’ll make 100 per recruitment,” he told Legally India adding that the recruitment season would only start fully in January and February 2010.
Out of around 50 students that had already been interviewed by firms and the bank, roughly 20 to 25 had already received job offers, he said.
Domestically, Amarchand Mangaldas, Luthra & Luthra and ICICI bank had already recruited from NALSAR, he explained, with international firms Allen & Overy and Simmons & Simmons also having hired students this year.
[Apologies for the unintentional error. The starting salary was erroneously cited as Rs 8.9 lakhs per annum in the original published version. -Ed]
Comments
First of all, due to a misunderstanding on our part, the annual salary is actually *up to* Rs 8.34 lakhs, depending on the campus students are recruited from and the grade at which they join. This is not the same as management trainees necessarily. Apologies for the unintentional error.
Second, in response to comments 2 and 4 above, Rao explains: "As with all companies, the package includes certain benefits that are not monetised in the hand of the employee, such as provident fund contributions, which of course one would not get the benefit of as a retainer in a law firm!
"To some that may give the appearance of a reduced compensation. Also, as you have mentioned, tax does get deducted at source at the tax slab an individual comes within, and the individuals are expected to take their own tax saving measures as well.
"We indeed also provide to our new joinees an option (post completion of an year) to move to retainer model (with an one-time opt-back option as well), whereby the entire package is monetised with no further 'employee' related benefits being given (such as ESOPs that are available at higher management grades)."
Please don't compare five years national law school students (such as NALSAR/NLS/NUJS) with MBA students (which the article shouldn't have compared too) because please note the fact that students passing out from national law schools are getting bachelors degree and students from B-schools are getting Masters. This clearly shows that B-school grads would get more than B.A.LLB. (Hons.) students.
Furthermore, without a speck of doubt students from B-school such as the IIMS, XLRI, et al get hefty packages, however calling them counterpart of NALSAR/NLS/NUJS et al would definitely be unwise.
Appearances and ppts are often deceptive. So please ask your recruiter about the take home pay.
And of course the C2C. An amazing concept. Training costs, recruitment costs, cost of the office, the desk/chair and maybe even the coffee you drink anything and everything gets added to this figure. I know of many cases where people are hired at crazy salaries and they get the shock of their life when they get there first pay cheque. This famous example of a Delhi-based company recruiting in Pune. 2 guys flew down and stayed for a day, ended up hiring one person. Needless to say the poor chaps 'C2C that was offered' got a big bump. This might be an extreme case but dont ever go by that weird concept ask what the guy will get.
Cheers
Perhpas it will throw up interesting comparisons and serve a useful benchmark.
1. Firstly, if there is an elephant in the room with respect to salaries, lets address it. It would be extremely helpful for students, as well as recruitment partners of various firms, if Legally India could put out a feature listing the top 15 firms/non-firm recruiters and the salaries they have offered to freshers over the past 2 seasons as well as this season (for those who are done this year). Please ensure after due cross checking that the 'pay package' and 'salary/ minimum retainership' is mentioned seperately, so that prospective applicants can get an idea of how much they can take home every month, how much they can get back later/through other means and how much they'll never get (tax).
2. It would also help is Legally India could do a comparison between i-bankers, finance-in-bschool experts and law grads and trace out the similarities and differences in job-profile and pay.
Good work btw guys, Happy Diwali and keep it up!
-Vinay
( everyone of us has skills , we just need to sharpen it, and definetly we can make it )
At 2tier B Schools it can be as low as 20K p/m take home(I am getting)
However when you do mba you get a clear perspective of the business enviaronment and it helps in the long run