Here is why lawyers are on India Inc’s hot list

NEW DELHI: India Inc is scouting for many more lawyers this year following the uptick in mergers and acquisitions, fundraising activities and large-scale investments in the infrastructure sector.

Headhunters estimate that Indian firms are likely to hire twice as many lawyers as they did last year amid increasing demand not just at senior positions but also at the entry level. This is evident from the spike in offers for students at institutions such as Nalsar University of law, Hyderabad, and National Law Institute University, Bhopal.

Foreign law firms, which are barred from operating directly in India, are adding to the competition for acquiring talent by building teams to work along with their partners in the country. Sensing opportunity, leading Indian law firms such as Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Khaitan & Co are also on a hiring spree. Headhunter RGF Executive Search has seen mandates for senior positions in companies rise to eight-10 this year from just four last year.

"The legal function has shifted from being plain vanilla reactive to strategic and proactive in order to mitigate business risks in the long term. Hence hiring at the top as well as N-1 level is on the rise," said RGF’s executive director Anindita Banerjee. Similar is the case with EMA Partners, which has seen orders double from last year.


"We are currently searching for half-a-dozen lawyers for either general counsel positions or a level below," said A Ramachandran, client partner at EMA Partners. The firm currently has three mandates for a global FMCG firm for positions including head of legal cell, head of M&A and head of IPR.

The other searches are for general counsel positions at a large Indian conglomerate and a global automotive firm. "With firms undertaking restructuring to fuel expansion plans and more and more M&As taking place, coupled with a rising trend of stricter and complex contracts and SLAs (servicelevel agreements), there is a significant spurt in demand for lawyers," said Navnit Singh, managing director and chairman of Korn/Ferry in India.

According to Singh, companies, especially the Big Four accounting firms, are increasingly opting for in-house legal cells. Korn/Ferry is currently working on at least half-a-dozen mandates for general counsellevel position and one level below that.

Salaries on offer are rising in tandem with demand, given the dearth of top legal talent. According to headhunters, the median annual salary for head of legal cell has risen toRs 1.8-2.3 crore this year from Rs 90 lakh-Rs 1.3 crore last year. At the entry level, too, the demand for lawyers for corporate jobs has seen a sharp increase.

At Bhopal’s National Law Institute University, about seven companies other than law firms recruited 14 students from the 2015 batch of 93 students, as compared to seven students recruited by four companies from the 2014 batch of 81 students.

"The interest from non-legal companies has surely risen over the past one year and we expect more companies to come for placement this year," said Raka Arya, faculty coordinator of placement coordination committee at NLIU, Bhopal.

But what lures lawyers to corporate jobs? V Balakista Reddy, registrar at Nalsar University of Law in Hyderabad, said it is more money and a less stressful life than in law firms. Stanton Chase, which has also seen the demand for lawyers double, recently hired legal chiefs for companies in the power sector and consulting firms.

"The demand for general counsel (and in-house legal teams) has risen as companies seek to integrate legal as a core strategic function in their businesses. The ‘India Story’ is also partly responsible for this. Legal talent is scarce, both in technical areas and areas of ethicality," said Sudhir Yadav, principal — professional services at Stanton Chase India.