Nalsar Hyderabad has placed 95 per cent of 47 final year students who opted to sit for the recruitment committee, with Amarchand Mangaldas and Luthra & Luthra leading the pack of recruiters, enlisting a total of 18 final year students, although the in-house sectors’ draw has doubled this year.

A total of 35 per cent of the graduating batch went for domestic and international law firms, while 11 per cent opted for litigation, 13 per cent for company in-house jobs, 11 per cent for public sector undertakings (PSUs). Around 12 per cent of students will be undertaking Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams and other higher education.

UK-based international law firms Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Linklaters and SJ Berwin offered one training contract each, which maintained last year’s trend.

Indian firm Amarchand Mangaldas, however, was the largest single recruiter hiring 11 students as early as July of last year, followed by Luthra & Luthra, which hired seven.

AZB & Partners, Nishith Desai & Associates and S&R Associates made one pre-placement offer each.

In-house departments also showed up in force, with ICICI hiring four, and Go Sports, Hero Honda and ITC each hiring two. IFMR Trust recruited one student.

Out of the 79-strong batch, nine have opted for litigation, five for higher studies and five for the civil service.

There are also eight foreign nationals in this batch, who Nalsar as a policy does not place through the recruitment committee due to restrictions in the 1961 Advocates Act.

Two students remain undecided about their career path and three are without job offers, but may be placed by the end of this month, according to the recruitment committee.

PSUs also made an impressive showing on Nalsar’s campus this year with SAIL, IOC and Neyveli Lignite Corp recruiting nine students between them.

The total number of Nalsar students who joined companies or PSUs as counsels doubled from previous year’s figure to 19 students this year.

Nalsar recruitment committee member Aditya Swarup, who was the recipient of a Rhodes scholarship last year, said: “We saw a significant increase in the number of corporate firms recruiting this year, which bodes well for future recruitment.”

“But on the flip side,” he added, “there has also been a first-time surge in those opting for litigation. In fact many of the students had decided a year ago about pursuing advocacy in the courts and fixed positions with senior counsels at the time.”

Nalsar vice chancellor professor Veer Singh, however, had a different take on only 11 per cent of students opting for advocacy at the bar.

“It is mostly sons and daughters of lawyers and judges that can choose litigation as a career,” he noted. “The unmitigated risk and uncertainty for first generation lawyers is an obvious and understandable factor in the number of students preferring corporate work.”

Veer Singh added that for next year’s recruitment 16 law firms had already been lined up and predicted that Nalsar would have no problem in achieving a 100 per cent recruitment figure in 2011.

NLS Bangalore had procured offers for 96 per cent of recruitment committee students by January of this year, while NUJS Kolkata had placed 84 per cent as of April 2010 and NLIU Bhopal recruitment committee also placed 96 per cent of students.