Legal jobs boom with riders – master AI, intern longer, practise 3 years for judicial services

It’s a good time to be a law graduate in India – at least for those from top-tier institutes. The salaries are ascendant and opportunities are abundant, as the central government keeps coming up with new laws and rules for citizens and businesses to comply with. And if the law firms continue to be measured in their recruitment, the development of in-house legal capacities by corporates and the mushrooming of ‘boutique’ firms have opened up new avenues for the aspirants. As for the public sector, all levels of courts continue to be expanded.

Yet, getting hired by one of the sought-after organisations has never been so much work. For starters, employers are increasingly relying on internships and subsequent pre-placement offers (PPOs) rather than the scramble of campus placements to onboard graduates. The disruption caused by generative artificial intelligence (AI) means that the candidates now need to be prepared for specialised, client-facing roles from the get-go, rather than the traditional research-and-drafting stepping stone. And those looking to join the judicial services will now have to first get their hands dirty in litigation, thanks to a recent Supreme Court (SC) judgment.

Here’s a zoom out: a random sampling of 10 out of the top 40 law colleges and universities ranked in the latest edition of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) shows a promising picture.

In 2023-24, on average, around 73% of the five-year integrated LLB graduating class across these institutes was placed on campus, up from 67% and 56% in the years before. A majority of the institutes have improved their recruitment record, with some like Alliance University, Bengaluru and Maharashtra National Law University (MNLU), Nagpur registering more than 50 percentage points’ growth within a span of two years.

The average median compensation offered to budding lawyers at the 10 institutes has also increased from Rs 6.71 lakh per annum in 2021-22 to Rs 7.83 lakh and Rs 8.5 lakh. While half of the institutes recorded a significant surge in packages – Andhra University’s Dr BR Ambedkar College of Law and Galgotias University at Greater Noida both managed to more than double their median salaries – others saw only a slight change in this period.

According to Suman Rudra, the chief talent officer at J Sagar Associates (JSA), a Mumbai-based law firm, the leading law firms continue to bank on campuses for a significant chunk of their hirings. He estimates that the fresh graduates account for around 22-25% of the workforce at his organisation, with their share continuously growing.

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“Many of the bigger tier-1 law firms have restructured their programmes to groom freshers. Compared to lateral recruitment, the talent pool available at campuses is unmatched. The freshers are very moldable according to the values, culture and mindset of the firm,” Rudra explained.

Legal Jobs: More recruiters

Multiple factors are driving the steady placements at law schools – new laws and regulations, boom in the initial public offering (IPO) market, diversification of the legal sector and consolidation of legal departments at corporate houses. Corporate and commercial law; dispute resolution and arbitration; regulatory compliance and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) advisory; data protection, privacy and technology law, legal operations and contract management; and risk advisory are some of the areas that have witnessed a heightened demand in recent years.

“Many graduates are finding jobs in companies, compliance roles and advisory services. This has helped maintain good placement results across law schools,” said Priyamvada Tiwari, head of the law department at MEDICAPS University, a private university in Indore.

A spokesperson for Bennett University, Greater Noida adds, “While individual organisations take in fewer graduates, the number of recruiting organisations has increased, driven by the growth of in-house legal teams and boutique law firms. Chamber hiring has remained stable in terms of both numbers and compensation, though it is often a lower preference for students due to comparatively modest entry-level packages.”

The development of the many niche domains within law has also meant that employers are no longer hiring graduates for generalised roles and are rather hunting for specialisation and sectoral knowledge. At JSA, for instance, candidates are hired for one of their three practices – corporate, dispute resolution and banking and finance. In such a situation, prior exposure and experience in the particular legal segment become invaluable.

At Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law (RGSOIPL) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, the conventional law-firm centric recruitment has given way to a more diversified hiring across policy, technology, and regulation roles. “Students increasingly secure positions in intellectual property (IP) law firms, corporate legal teams, policy think tanks, government advisory roles, technology companies, and research-driven organisations,” said Dipa Dube, dean of the law school.

“Unlike standalone law schools, RGSOIPL’s integration with India’s premier technical institution enables interdisciplinary career pathways at the intersection of law, technology, innovation, and public policy, a segment that continues to grow even when traditional legal hiring cycles fluctuate,” she added.

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Law Internships: PPOs over ‘zero-day’ hiring

Besides prioritising domain knowledge, employers now tend to prefer evaluating aspirants over a longer period of time through law internships. As a result, there’s a clear shift from the ‘zero day’ – the high-stakes first day of the placements at NLUs – to the PPOs offered post internships as the more reliable way of snagging lucrative positions at law firms.

“Over the course of the past two years, firms have been shifting their recruitment strategy towards the internship/PPO model. The reason is a preference towards hiring candidates who fit the DNA of the firm and possess practical skills and not mere bookish knowledge. Campus placements depend more on ranks, while the PPO model relies on real-world skill application,” said Abhinn M Aadrit, a final-year UG student and coordinator of the Campus Recruitment Committee at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS).

This approach is also aimed at broadening and diversifying the talent pool by accessing candidates from lower-rung and private institutes without zero-day campus hirings. Skills are being valued as much as, if not more than, the pedigree of the institute. “Internships reduce hiring risk, ensure better practice-area readiness, and allow candidates to join with shorter learning curves, making them the preferred hiring channel for many legal employers,” said the Bennett University spokesperson.

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Legal Jobs: AI churn

AI is another key element causing a major churn in the legal profession as well as recruitment. Law firms and in-house legal teams have begun using AI tools for repetitive and mundane tasks, such as legal research, document review, due diligence and compliance tracking, that are often handled by entry-level associates. While it has not yet diminished the manpower requirement, it certainly has led to the added expectation of candidates not only being well-versed in the use of technology but also in advanced legal skills – advisory, interpretative, and client-facing work – hitherto not replaced by the machine.

“In internships, candidates are expected to work along with AI to deliver faster results. This is a new skill which has to be learnt. This wasn't the case five years ago, when slogging through paperwork and putting in the hours could get you an offer,” said Aadrit.

Dube said that employers now look for everything in the candidate, from strong legal writing and domain expertise to analytical reasoning and problem-solving ability. “Hiring has become more skills-driven and portfolio-based,” she said.

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Judicial officers

Things aren’t easier for law graduates from smaller cities and relatively lesser-known institutes either. While they have always struggled to land high-paying legal jobs at corporate firms, their preferred career option of becoming judicial officers in courthouses has just got more arduous. This is because SC, in May last year, overturned its 2002 decision eliminating the compulsory legal practice as a prerequisite for appearing in judicial exams. The candidates will now have to practice for a minimum of three years at the bar in order to become judges.

According to Sonali Roy Choudhury, who heads the placement efforts at Department of Law, Lucknow University, this decision has led to more students eyeing higher education and state provincial services (SPS).

“The students in non-NLU universities, who aspired for the judiciary, are now forced to go into litigation. Besides, it’s not necessary that there would be vacancies in courts every year. While earlier, very few law graduates opted for SPS, their share will increase. Others aspire to study LLM in India and abroad,” she said.