Law catches up with campus placements

After IITs and engineering colleges, business schools and management institutes, it’s the turn of the law student to catch up with campus recruitments.

Sapna, not surprisingly, is a strong advocate of the CRP started two years back by a group of enterprising students. The CRP was initiated by the students of the Government Law College themselves who realised that since the institution was government-run, they would have to take the initiative. And the result is evident; the year 1998-99 saw over 50 students landing jobs. And around 40 students had benefitted the year before.

Of course, there is a difference compared to placements for the higher-bracketed business schools and petri-dish institutes for whizkids. For example, even now few companies set up camp in GLC’s corridors to woo students with competing pay packets and attendant perks. What they usually get are law firms.

The standard recruitment procedure is as follows: a GLC student who usually gets his list of law firms from the notice boards, chooses five of them for his programme sheet under the CRP. The firms then come to the campus to play judge and jury to the aspirants.

Obviously, those most benefitted are students who otherwise would not have had a fighting chance with the bigger law firms despite being meritorious. Like Amer Siddiqui, one of the brighter students of the University, and a member of the students’ council who got a break with a one-month training programme with the chambers of Zia Modi, daughter of advocate-general Soli Sorabjee and considered to be one of the more successful solicitor firms in the country. “Of course, if you’re really good you could get in by approaching the law firm directly too, but for those without any means of guidance, the CRP is godsent,” says Siddiqui.

Modi, too is enthusiastic about the programme. She feels it is more convenient to conduct interviews, but “a lot more students get screened this way”. Says Viswank Desai of Deasi and Diwanji who has also recruited students this way, “Everybody gains. Students, firms and the college”.

Then there are students like Vikram Bhatt who don’t want to join their family’s law business, but want to make it on their own. Bhatt began the programme in 1998 along with a few others in the GLC. “I wanted to pursue it differently”, he says. He was able to win his way with Desai and Devanji with whom he is at the moment.

All the correspondence for the programme goes through GLC’s principal B R Rao, who is all praise for his students. “It is a very good programme run responsibly by the students. It has given a boost to the college. We had an increased number of applications this year from students who have heard of the programme. Also the students now work harder to get in through the placements”.

Students though are still hungry for the corporate tag, which is not being whetted through the CRP. Many of them despite being chosen by law firms prefer joining companies by applying separately. Like Sonal Jain, who responded to a letter from a French bank BNP Paribas which was seeking recruits, and got selected. She opted for it over two law firms that had picked her under the CRP.

Bhat meanwhile feels that a lot more is needed to make the programme more professional; like the formation of an official committee, more active interest from the faculty, breaking up the committee so as to foster interaction with two types of prospective employers namely, firms and advocates – who come in large numbers — and corporates – who are rare.

He also suggests making placements earlier in the year in December-January before the other institutes begin the recruitment season. That could be the blueprint to put GLC back on the legal ramp and show it off for what it is: one of the finest law colleges in the country, a position that has been wrested for some years now by Bangalore’s National Law College which boasts of campus placements for its entire alumni!