This year Luthra & Luthra and Amarchand have been the biggest recruiters so far for the batch graduating in 2011 followed by Trilegal and Khaitan.

Luthra has hired 11 from NUJS, Kolkata; 14 from NLU, Jodhpur; 6 from NLSIU, Bangalore and 3 from NALSAR, Hyderabad, thus bringing the tally to 34, near the number of 45 which they intend to hire this year. Luthra will fill in the deficit by looking at laterals and would also be visiting GNLU, Gandhinagar.

The Bangalore office of Luthra will accommodate 2 of the 34 hires while 16 graduates each will join the Delhi and Mumbai offices.

Amarchand on the other hand has recruited 41 students. The firm has recruited 8 students from NLSIU, Bangalore, 9 from NUJS, Kolkata, and 12 each from NALSAR, Hyderabad and GNLU, Gandhinagar.

Amarchand has also hired this year from IIT Kharagpur for their Intellectual Property department. Shardul Shroff in a statement to Bar & Bench said, “We have hired 45 lawyers since October 2009 across various levels. The focus this year will also be on recruiting LLMs and experienced lawyers rather than relying merely on the newly qualified lawyers from India and abroad”.

Trilegal, which was one of the largest recruiters last year, has lapped up 14 graduates this year. The pan India recruitment is being handled by Partner Nishant Parikh, who said, “Depending on finding the right talent, the firm is looking to hire more graduates.” Trilegal has lapped up 6 students from NLSIU, Bangalore, 5 students from NLU, Jodhpur, 2 students from NUJS, Kolkata and 1 student from NALSAR, Hyderabad. Nishant Parikh also explained that the firm will soon visit NLIU, Bhopal for recruitment.

Khaitan has recruited 12 students so far and is looking at adding more this year. Speaking to Bar & Bench, Partner Upendra Joshi, who is incharge of recruitment said, “We scout for the best talent and based on our rigorous recruitment process whoever qualifies is hired”.  Khaitan is yet to recruit from the NLUs of Bhopal, Jodhpur, and Gandhinagar and is also looking at visiting ILS and Symbiosis in Pune. So far Khaitan has recruited 8 students from NUJS, Kolkata and 4 students from NALSAR, Hyderabad.

Graduate hiring in most firms have already begun and several of these law firms are scaling up their recruitment process and are visiting campuses well ahead of time.

Speaking with Bar & Bench, Anirban Mazumdar, Recruitment Faculty in-charge for NUJS, Kolkata said, “Our recruitments started in the month of July and is still in progress for this semester. Out of a batch of 95 students 40 have already accepted offers.”

Job markets have definitely bounced back with firms aggresively looking to hire talent. Law firms have already started hiring a year in advance, which is very different from last year where the mood was dull. With the positive recruitment trend, the number of hires is only going to increase which should be good news to the current batch of graduates.

See Bar & Bench’s exhaustive report on the recruitment statistics of the 2010 batch of NLSIU, NALSAR and NUJS.