Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) caused quite a stir earlier in August when it said 103 103 Jindal Global University Blog JINDAL GLOBAL LAW SCHOOL ACHIEVES NEW MILESTONE WITH MORE THAN 100 STUDENTS PLACED IN TOP LAW FIRMS AND CORPORATIONS Read more candidates from the current batch of about 500 students had secured job offers in the first round of placements.
The biggest recruiters were some of India’s best-paying and most sought-after law firms, such as Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM), AZB & Partners, Indus Law, Khaitan & Co, Saraf & Partners, Trilegal, and Veritas Legal.
CAM, India’s largest law firm, alone onboarded 44 candidates. People had to take note.
“A tier-1 law firm hiring those many from a single college… the numbers are unheard of,” an associate working at CAM tells The Ken. To put things into perspective, in 2020 [when the associate joined], CAM hired about 70 people through campus placements and pre-placement offers.
CAM is just one of the many law firms that have ramped up hiring from JGLS in the last few years. Interestingly, it doesn’t hire that many candidates from many National Law Universities (NLUs) in the country or older rivals of JGLS—Symbiosis Law School and Amity Law School.
“JGLS wasn’t taken very seriously in its early years, but the quality of education and faculty made all the difference. In the last few years, recruitments (from the school) have shot up,” says Akanksha Antil, founder of legal talent management firm To Whom It May Concern and former head of talent management at CAM.
Set up in 2009 by the steel and power business tycoon Naveen Jindal, JGLS was the first school established under O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU) in Sonipat, a city 35km north of New Delhi.
Last year, JGU broke into the top 500 universities in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings, which assesses universities’ ability to produce graduates with the skills required for the workforce. JGU is the only Indian university focused on the social sciences to be featured in these rankings.
Like Naveen Jindal, several business leaders have entered the space recently. There’s Haryana-based BML Munjal University, named after the man who founded the Hero Group; Mahindra University in the southern Indian state of Telangana; and the Times Group-owned Bennett University in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, an hour’s drive from JGU, has also thrown its hat in the ring by announcing a five-year integrated programme in law.
There are over 1,500 private law colleges and 23 NLUs in India.
