NUJS Kolkata saw almost a third of its batch snapped up by law firms as Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co, Luthra & Luthra and Trilegal together made 30 offers two weeks ago.

Amarchand Mangaldas’ Mumbai region offices have made 2011 job offers for 41 students, most recently picking up 12 each from GNLU Gandhinagar and Nalsar Hyderabad, nine from NUJS Kolkata and eight from NLSIU Bangalore. Last year the firm had recruited the equivalent number of freshers from only three campuses more than a month later.

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) company Pangea3 has hired 18 students through campus placements this year with a majority 12 coming from non-national law schools, as the company has moved into larger Delhi office and plans to grow the location with significant investment.

NLU Jodhpur has beaten the recession blues with its entire 2010 graduating batch of 2010 finding jobs or placements with Trilegal, Luthra & Luthra and Amarchand Mangaldas picking up 17 students in total and legal process outsourcing (LPO) companies including Clifford Chance’s captive LPO hiring eight, according to faculty.

Amarchand Mangaldas and Trilegal conducted interviews on NLSIU Bangalore campus with 35 students yesterday (25 May), making 15 job offers and hoping to steal a march on competitors in the recruitment war for 2011 graduates.

HNLU Raipur’s recruitment committee has placed 39 out of 63 registered students in its 98-student 2009-10 batches, with HDFC, Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan, Amarchand Mangaldas, AZB & Partners, Bajaj Allianz and Desai & Diwanji picking out students from the college.

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.

The recruitment committee of NLIU Bhopal has successfully placed 46 out of 48 students registered with its recruitment committee, as of today, while the remaining 27 of this batch have chosen active litigation and judicial services as career paths.

The NUJS Kolkata recruitment committee has almost doubled finalists’ job offers this year with a new policy, having placed 84 per cent of students and enticing a Bollywood studio to recruit from campus.

NLSIU Bangalore’s student recruitment committee has placed 96 per cent of its students after a law firm recruitment flurry took 28 students last week and eight students joined UK firms for training contracts.

Luthra & Luthra is continuing its run of on-campus hires after visiting NUJS Kolkata and making further offers to NALSAR Hyderabad students, with the firm set to visit and recruit from NLSIU Bangalore next week.

Trilegal has recruited seven final-year students from National Law University (NLU) Jodhpur, almost filling up its fresher quota for the year.

It is hard to establish to what scale Indian law firms have laid off associates during the down-turn.

One thing is clear though: the domestic war for talent has begun to heat up again, especially as foreign firms have lost buying power after a tough year of retrenchments and falling profits.