Indian Law Firms Now Scaling Back On Hiring Graduates

Anthony Lin the correspondent for Incisive Media in Asia has written a piece for the Am Law Daily…

Entitled:

LETTER FROM ASIA: How’s the Job Market in India?

And his answer as you’ll see below isn’t heartening for recent legal graduates in the country. Will the LPO industry keep giving them jobs.. is the question.

Lin writes:

It’s not just U.S. and U.K. law students facing a tougher job market. According to a report from Livemint, a Wall Street Journal affiliate, India’s top law firms are also drastically scaling back their on-campus recruiting.


Over the past five years, Amarchand Mangaldas Suresh A. Shroff & Co, India’s leading corporate law firm, hired some 200 graduates from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Science, lecturer and placement adviser Anirban Chakraborty told Livemint. But this year, Amarchand has only hired three. Luthra & Luthra, another major firm that used to heavily recruit at the school has recruited no students this year. So far, only 36 of 64 students applying for jobs have found one.


At Bhopal’s National Law Institute University, only 17 of 35 students have landed a job. And those jobs pay a lot less on average than graduates were offered a year ago: 500,000 rupees ($9,817) versus 900,000 rupees ($17,671).


"We are hiring a little less than last year, which is a function of where we see the market headed," said Zia Mody, senior partner of AZB and Partners, which earlier this year announced it was entering a strategic alliance with London’s Clifford Chance. The firm is planning to hire 12 to 15 new graduates this year, all of whom previously interned at the firm.

Full article at http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/03/letter-from-asia-2.html