In last August, a private publication approached me with some questions. I recently came across the answers I had shared with them and realized that a lot of this may be relevant to a lot of readers of this blog, especially the part on recent outlook of the legal job market. Please do read and share your views on the same.

– What are the qualities that you look for in a student while hiring?

The most important things are integrity, loyalty and willingness to work through the sticky situations. People who have the vision to understand what we are doing and will stay with us. Technical skills is the next important thing. If someone has good writing and research skills, and can get work done easily – that is wonderful and will be decisive. We make it a point to put people through at least a 7 day trial to observe whether they are appropriate for our kind of work, and do not rely excessively on academic performance.

– Do you think more start-ups should come up in the legal field?

Absolutely, there are lot of opportunities. However, people need to come up with original ideas and see them through rather than trying to make quick bucks by copying other entrepreneurs. Some amazing legal startups have matured over the last 3-4years – with some raising serious venture capital from investors and breaking the 10 Cr barrier. It is time for law students to consider legal startups as a serious career option.

– What would be your advice to those planning to start up post law school?

Work with real businesses before starting up. You can work through your college years with another startup. There is no better way to prepare yourself if you want to start up right after college, or even one or two years of graduating.

It was my experience of working with a big tutorial throughout my college years, building courses, ghostwriting testprep books, building a blog and online communities like CLAThacker, managing a team of content developers and travelling to multiple states to take classes and promote educational products equipped me with lessons that was very useful when I started my own businesses. If I did not have this experience, it would not have been possible for me to quit my day job and start iPleaders the way we did.

– What would be your comment on the existing recruitment trends?

Recruitment is on an upswing as market has found its positive sentiment back, and associates are again spending long hours after midnight at big law firms. Still, there is a lot of experienced talent in the market in sub-optimal jobs – so until they are absorbed things will remain a little dismal for freshers. We have noticed 3 interesting trends:

1. Many experienced law firm associates are unhappy with how their career is progressing, and they are taking the plunge leaving their safe jobs towards litigation or other passions

2. Recruiter base has increased a lot over the last two years, but salary has been an issue. Still, a lot many small and medium law firms are paying INR 60K+ to lawyers with 1 or 2 years o experience compared to 2011-12.

3. People did not change jobs as the job market sentiment wasn’t good – but this seems to have change in the last two months. A lot more people are switching jobs or looking for new opportunities since August.

For freshers, interning for 2-3 months with potential recruiters and impressing them with work appears to be the best option at the moment as campus recruitment activity has not been significant outside of 3-4 top law schools.