salaries

For now they are only skirmishes but these are also early hints of future salary wars brewing.

Amarchand, Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co and Trilegal have all ramped up their basic starter pay above Rs 10 lakhs, with offered packages including bonuses now running up to Rs 15 lakh at the top end.

ICICI Bank's in-house department, which hired 24 campus graduates this year, has increased the salary package of new joiners to Rs 9.05 lakhs per year. This figure includes all benefits that employees receive but lawyers can choose to be paid the amount in full on a retainer basis after six months with the company.

AZB & Partners, Trilegal, Wadia Ghandy and legal process outsourcing (LPO) company Pangea3 have hiked their basic starting salary packages to as high as Rs 11.4 lakh per year, which makes AZB as the top-paying legal recruiter in Legally India's new law firm salary table.

FoxMandal Little's Delhi office has paid its fee-earners the salaries it owed them, after the firm was unable to pay for two months due to cash flow difficulties.

Luthra & Luthra has hired an Amarchand Mangaldas senior associate, as targeting expansion in Bangalore. The firm also paid out bonuses last week and increased base salaries earlier this year but it has delayed its announced lockstep conversion process until the end of the year.

Late salary payments are nothing new for some lawyers.

"It's a regular feature at some firms and the reason is that the managing partner might not feel like signing cheques on some days," muses one Delhi partner.

FoxMandal Little has not been able to pay fee-earners in Delhi their salaries as the office faces a liquidity crisis.

Trilegal has promoted four partners, raised its associate base salaries by 20 to 30 per cent and paid out unprecedented bonuses this year.