Nalsar Hyderabad’s 2020 graduating batch has kicked of its first day of recruitments (also popularly known as Day Zero), on 6 April, with students having already sewn up 23 pre-placement offers (PPOs) and a total of 8 prestigious vacation schemes and/or training contracts with foreign law firms.
Out of the 34 candidates taking part in Day Zero activities, 16 accepted job offers from top Indian firms.
This result manages to top last year’s total of 34 jobs by Day Zero (though the batch size since then has also increased from 77 students to 113 this year), and is historically the largest number of all times at a Nalsar Day Zero.
Just over half the Nalsar 2020 batch - 69 students - are participating in the Recruitment Coordination Committee (RCC) activities, out of whom 47 are now accounted for.
The number of highly-paid vacation schemes and training contracts is huge at such an early stage, perhaps reflecting foreign firms keen to pip Indian law firms to Day Zero.
UK magic circle firm Linklaters doled out 2 training contracts and one vacation scheme (VC) internship (vac schemes often have a good chance of converting into full training contract job offers after completion). Training contracts at Linklaters initially pay £47,000 (around Rs 42 lakh per year), increasing to £52,500 after one year and £83,000 (Rs 75 lakh) after two years of working on qualification (however, training contracts are preceded by at least one year of the obligatory conversion course, which large UK firms normally cover tuition fees and pay some stipends).
Fellow magic circle firm Allen & Overy (A&O) also offered one training contract job. Rounding off the foreign firms, Herbert Smith Freehills offered two VCs and US firm Skadden Arps offered one VC, and Pinsent Masons Hong Kong has offered a winter vacation scheme.
AZB, L&L, CAM, SAM dominated Day 0 hauls
Day Zero itself saw 16 students accept offers from law firms led by AZB & Partners, which picked up 7, in addition to 2 students it had offered PPOs to. Clearly AZB is liking Nalsar, having hired 7 on Day Zero last year plus 3 PPOs.
The next-biggest recruiter was L&L Partners (formerly known as Luthra), which hired 3 students on Day Zero in addition to 5 PPOs made to students after internships with the firm (last year, Luthra had hired 5 via PPO, but 0 via Day Zero).
Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas hired a total of 6 (with 2 via Day Zero, similar to last year’s total of 7), closely followed by Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas with 4 (half of which came on Day Zero - last year SAM hired 3 from Nalsar).
Khaitan & Co and Trilegal hired a total of 3 students.
Talwar Thakore & Associates also attended Day Zero and hired one student.
Finally, four others - Fox Mandal & Associates, ICICI Bank, Majmudar & Co and S&R Associates - hired a total of 5 students via PPOs.
The Nalsar Recruitment Coordination Committee (RCC) 2020 members, pictured above are: (front row l-r) Deep Shah, Shaktibhushan Shukla, Somya Jena, Karan Sangani; (second row) Aditya Sarkar, N Sivaraman, Srija Kumar, Anirudh Singh, Arun V Nair.
NLSIU Bangalore, NUJS Kolkata and NLU Delhi have also had their Day Zero already and we’ll be publishing their figures soon.
Full Nalsar Day Zero 2020 recruitments
| Name of Recruiter | PPOs | Day Zero Acceptances | Vac Schemes / Tcs | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allen & Overy LLP | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Herbert Smith Freehills | - | - | 2 | 2 |
| Linklaters LLP | - | - | 3 | 3 |
| Skadden | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| Pinsent Masons | - | - | 1 | 1 |
| AZB & Partners | 2 | 7 | - | 9 |
| Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas | 4 | 2 | - | 6 |
| L & L Partners Law Offices | 5 | 3 | - | 8 |
| Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas | 2 | 2 | - | 4 |
| Khaitan & Co | 2 | 1 | - | 3 |
| Trilegal | 3 | - | - | 3 |
| Talwar Thakore & Associates | - | 1 | - | 1 |
| Fox Mandal & Associates | 1 | - | - | 1 |
| ICICI Bank | 1 | - | - | 1 |
| Majmudar & Co | 2 | - | - | 2 |
| S & R Associates | 1 | - | - | 1 |
| TOTALS | 23 | 16 | 8 | 47 |
Comments
Did someone accept Fox Mandal's offer before day zero? : P
Desperate times I guess.
Moreover NLIU before NLUJ!!??
Secondly, NLUJ day zero also happened early this month (or so my whispering birds tell me).
Sidharth Chauhan was cited in the Aadhar judgement. His paper had been published in the Seminar magazine (I accept it hasn't peer reviewed, but again the judgment isn't some lousy unknown one). Similarly, Srujana Bej was cited here for a joint publication she had in the EPW.
You'll find that none of these can be honestly called lousy.
Further, Sudhanshu Kumar has revised the most recent editions of SM Dugar's Competition Law and contributed chapters to CR Datta on Company Law.
Moreover, Prof Amita Dhanda has had the Ford Foundation grant for a while now. I know that she, and two others in that grant, have recently finished working on books on housing, education and... (the third subject of their investigation escapes me). These are now being published by OUP and I think one of them is out already (not sure).
Finally, Prof Mustafa and his team (Sidharth Chauhan, Jagteshwar Singh Sohi, Sudhanshu Kumar and Vaibhav Ganji wale) have done a report for Ministry of Law and Justice on the NLUs. It can easily found online.
In sum, I would say that these are some of the younger people at NALSAR who are easily accessible and hence I know of their work done over the last year or so. However, I am sure that there are others over here who are working away quietly and haven't been given there fair share of publicity (which often goes to the law firm world of others).
Overall, I would agree with the observation that NLU Delhi has done much better on this count over the past 6-7 years. They have consciously developed their research centres, both in terms of staff and funding. More importantly, the research-oriented faculty members have been given light teaching responsibilities (5-6 classes per week) that enable them to devote considerable time for independent writing. In comparison, faculty members at NALSAR usually engage 10-12 classes per week apart from attending to administrative responsibilities. The situation should improve over the next 2-3 years as we recruit more faculty members and ensure an equitable distribution of teaching commitments. The Governing Bodies have also approved a Research-Based Incentive Scheme for faculty members apart from provisions for seed money to initiate research projects. The rate of publication in refereed journals will also increase as many of the younger faculty members complete their own PhDs.
I have also heard that the present batch has 4-5 who could have secured jobs but chose upsc... In comparison, NLU-d seems to be the only college with comparable diversity in top notch jobs.
You would need around Rs. 422,703.24 (£4,678.44) in London to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with Rs. 99,000.00 in Delhi (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Cost of Living Plus Rent Index to compare cost of living. This assumes net earnings (after income tax).
Compare here: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=India&country2=United+Kingdom&city1=Delhi&city2=London&tracking=getDispatchComparison
Good 1 bro
It is one thing for LegallyIndia to find out information from its sources another and for the RCC to officially put out a statement/put its name behind the figures.
And no matter what criticism is directed at the NUJS RCC, they have displayed enough presence of mind to not go around trumpeting their placements and this is one of the important reasons why they have been one of the more successful RCCs historically.
We have pretty much published NUJS day zero figures most of the previous years, even without the RCC's help, and there is zero evidence that this has had negative impacts on recruitments.
Perhaps a superstition exists that recruitments have been great exactly because the NUJS RCC did not confirm figures? However, confirmation of figures by other NLUs' RCCs in previous years never seems to have negatively impacted their placements.
I also fail to see any logical reason why us publishing unconfirmed figures would somehow benefit students vis-a-vis unconfirmed figures. In either case, unless they have their head in the sand, recruiters will be aware that a large number of NUJS students have secured jobs on Day Zero. That is not rocket science.
And in any case, if the RCC did assist, recruiters would at least be aware that not every single person in the batch even sat for Day Zero interviews, so there are still lots of other candidates out there who would be interested in joining non-Day Zero recruiters.
I have been a member of an RCC in the past - and no, not of NUJS but one of the other two top law schools. And this seems to be one of first instances where the NALSAR RCC has gone ahead and confirmed immediately post day zero.
Having dealt with recruiters, I can't stress enough of about how much numbers matter to them. They don't even consider the college and the students once you tell them the number of students who have been placed. Case at point - the bank which recruits the most and the Kolkata based famous conglomerate which have demanded that they be accommodated with the firms on Day Zero.
I know what your stated position in this regard has been, Kian. But it assumes that firms/companies will consider CVs of students who remain. That is a misnomer. We don't operate in an ideal world. The RCC's job is to act in the best interest of its subscribers. And speaking from experience, it is not served by disxlosing figures upfront.
As for NUJS, I took the example merely to differentiate it from the NALSAR RCC which has gone ahead and disclosed the figures.
Lastly, there is indeed quite a bit of difference between what you put out from sources and what is endorsed by the RCC. The NALSAR RCC will realise the perils soon enough. Day Zero is the hardest to organize but the easiest recuritment day.
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