Trilegal has already made offers to seven fifth-year students from National University of Juridicial Sciences Kolkata (NUJS) for its Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore offices.

Last year in the same recruitment round, by contrast, the firm only hired final year students from NUJS half-way through their fifth year in the winter term.

Trilegal co-founding partner Anand Prasad (pictured) said: “This is the first year we’ve done it this early. We are largely responding to what our competition is doing.”

“What started happening,” he said, “is that a lot of other competing firms started hiring people one year before [they finished the five year course]. Basically we were responding to that and we thought it is useful to get people early.”

In the last twelve months 17 freshers joined Trilegal, primarily from law schools such as NUJS, National Law School of India University Bangalore (NLSIU) and National Academy of Legal Studies & Research University Hyderabad (NALSAR).

Prasad said that Trilegal would probably be visiting and conducting interviews at other national law school campuses in the coming weeks.

The interview process is typically conducted in two stages, with an initial application followed up by a one-on-one interview, explained Prasad and added that the response had been “quite solid”.

Amarchand Mangaldas is also understood to have already recruited students early from a national law school campus but the firm was unavailable for comment.

Trilegal’s international best friend Allen & Overy is understood to be looking to recruit from Indian law schools later this year.

For law school league tables, click here for India Today, Outlook or Mint’s rankings.