Mr Rajshekhar Rao pays freshers (with zero exp.) upwards of INR 35K, and yearly increments depend on how hard you work. Within a year, you could go from 35K to just over 40K. He also pays bonuses twice a year, depending on his total income. Quite apart, spoke to one of his recently exited juniors, who just went independent - he said Mr Rao paid him a substantial sum over the bonus saying it would help him set up his practice! Phenomenal guy, this Mr Rao.

In the SC, the arguing counsel couple of Mr Gopal Sankarnarayan (2001, NLS) and Haripriya Padmanabhan (1998, NLS) are decent paymasters and very popular bosses. Even their interns (of which I was one) get 12,500 to 15,000. Juniors get between 40000 to more than a lakh depending on the years of experience. Most important, there is a proper work life balance:

1. You don't have to go into office in the mornings and go directly to court.

2. Friday after court and Sundays are off, except for online conferences for the junior who worked on the case.

3. They make it a point to refer to juniors during arguments and acknowledge their assistance.

4. One of the juniors who plays football is allowed to go for training and matches when she has to.

5. They take all Supreme Court vacations off and juniors get paid. So you get paid leave of almost 2.5 months a year!

6. In addition, juniors can do their own independent work and get guidance from the two of them.

7. Right now they have 6 juniors all of whom are women. There have been men in the past, a few of whom still continue to work on matters after they have left.

Jayant Mehta is also extremely picky about his juniors — if you're not from NLS, you're already not a preference. Anywhere below GNLU and you're not even considered seriously.

That said, there's no doubt that his brilliance and work ethic has made the careers of multiple of his juniors, some of whom are now AORs and well-established in their own right.

Seems like most seniors dont pay much after all - stingy folks. Fee should be commensurate with atleast Tier 2,3 law firms given that juniors work as hard, if not much much harder. Rent, travel, food - everything is so so expensive now.

Curious - heard that some seniors pay a couple of thousands extra for each matter (hearing) a junior assists on. Is this indeed a practice or just a hoax?

You are barely employable when you graduate. This is the quality of our degrees. You would need about six to eight months to understand how things work in a court. Seniors end up teaching everything to law graduates and hence, refuse to pay. I wish all the seniors paid atleast the expenses for accommodation and travel but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Best way is shut down atleast 80 percent of the law colleges and focus on the rest. This should increase the demand and consequently, the pay. This is what happens with the other professions.