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Best Paying Corporate Firms in the country
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Junior Assoc. (6 months): 60kpm
Assoc (6 months): 12lpa
Regularised Assoc (1y+): 12lpa + 8% revshare. Roughly 20-24lpa incl bonus
SA (4+) = 24lpa +8% revshare so roughly 30-32lpa incl bonus
Compared to this, my brother who is an engineering grad from NIT, companies need to submit the exact breakup of salary before they are allowed to solicit candidates. This is to prevent companies from fooling students by inflating CTC. Microsoft for example offers CTC of 41 lakh while the base salary is just 12 lpa and the rest is stock options to vest over a period of 5 years and stuff.
I think the community as a whole should opt for more transparency because the only person who benefits when these numbers are guarded is the one having a stake in the firm, otherwise, transparency also works out better for the folks when they discuss their salaries.
Honestly these law firms, especially the top ones are nothing more than a cartel. In the end, this privacy and lack of transparency serves their own interests and no one else's.
If you don't agree with compensation or transparency or lack thereof, start your own practice.
Ultimately running a law firm is a business and unlike other businesses, the only asset a firm has are the lawyers.
Hence the only way to maximize profits is to maximize the returns of the relevant asset. i.e. the lawyer.
Thereon it's simply a demand/supply game, there is a glut of lawyers and hence firms can choose to price the asset as low as the market dictates and extract as much as their business model enables them to.
These metrics change as you grow when incoming business dictates your take home.
Lawyers as a whole and especially corporate lawyers are risk averse and want to have their cake and eat it to.
They want the lower taxation and accounting flexibility that a retainer enables and the comforts/perks and transparency that a corporate set-up grants.
Doesn't work that way.
As a retainer you are entitled to a fee and variable compensation that has been negotiated. After that whether the promoters of a firm make a million or ten is of no consequence to the retainer.
If you want a larger share of the pie then the only option is to get opted in the equity pool or start on your own.
Most of the firms are either partnerships or sole proprietorships and hence not legally mandated to share there numbers or profitability.
Off course there is nothing wrong with a firm that is transparent in their billing but to expect that as an entitlement is just divorced from reality.
No one is arguing that the law firm business is not a 'business' or should not be driven by profit motive. My point is these top law firms occupy a major share of the legal services market in India, hold themselves comparable to the best law firms of the world and borrow from global best practices in terms of their work/ work culture. So why the hesitation when it comes to transparency about their business and compensation?
Also, if we must talk economics, after all, asymmetric information only benefits the sellers - a la Market for Lemons. Secrecy ultimately benefits these top law firms and their founders. Even if I were to start my own law firm, these major players would have an effect in terms of overall competitive behaviour. And to think they pontificate on competition law and appropriate market behaviour.
Why should they not be held to the same standards? Sada Kutta Kutta, Twada Kutta Tommy?
You can run your own firm, run your P&L in a larger set-up or make rain, each a perfectly acceptable choice but you can't limit yourself to execution and expect to be paid profits. That's how it works not only in India but across the world.
In fact the most important metric for partnership across the world is PPP (Profit Per Partner).
Regarding your tirade on lack of transparency, as I said, no firm is legally or morally mandated to share that with you and any expectation otherwise is just wishful thinking.
So rather than rant about how promoters in big firms mint money or how they distort competition, be part of their competition and that is only possible through the business of law not through wishful thinking.
At most firms, starting from salaried partner level, information about the top line is available to all lawyers.
Information regarding bottom line and expense items are usually shared with equity partners.
There is simply no legal mandate or justification to compulsorily share this information with associates or the market at large.
That's why firms continue to be closely held and structured that way.
All I am saying is when Indian law firms claim to be on the same level as Big Law in US/UK, why the hesitation in revealing revenue figures or associate compensation, considering the general public availability of information on these two parameters in those countries. The legal services market in India would be better for it.
And, sure while there is no legal mandate for Indian law firms to share such information publicly, I would argue there is a strong moral case that exists.
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