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Having said that, when I look back today, I realize and feel pity for the law firm craze existing in law schools. Is the 15l pay cheque really that great? Well, to your surprise, its not. While we as lawyers are glorified as "associates", there is no personal development, no brand building involved. You work for the firm and are known by the firm. As an associate, you are expected to work for at least 12-15 hrs/day and your life is reduced to the daily activities at the firm.
On the other hand, take an example of a blogger, youtuber or a digital marketer. A successful YouTuber or a blogger usually earns anyway between 5/10 lacs per month. They are known by their personal brand, charge lakhs for an Instagram post or a 10sec video promotion. I understand that they must have their own set of challenges, however, what we earn in a month by putting approx. 400 hrs of our time, they do that in relatively much lesser effort and time. One might argue that the difference is the amount of value which is being created by them and that is to some extent true, but again, is the amount of compensation you get for putting in those insane no. of hrs enough? Take an example of MBAs, Engineers from reputed colleges who handsomely earn anywhere between 25 to 30 lacs as their starting salary!!
The point is that the legal industry is underpaid to such an extent that a pay cheque of 15l seems unrealistic. A litigation office would offer 25k or less/month; pay at lower judiciary is extremely low (considering the stature) due to which, gullible law students have no choice but to choose the path of exploitation at the hands of these firms. In my opinion, a major revamp needs to be done in terms of the pay scale.
I would really like you all to share your own views on this!
This will be an unpopular opinion, but the main reason law firms like hiring NLU grads is because it is easy for them to do so. You hire from the top few NLUs and the odds that most interviewees are smart enough to work in law firms (due to CLAT), the baseline teaching and legal knowledge is good enough, the competitive crucible of a residential NLU can give students good work and extracurricular experience, and finally, RCCs often already do a lot of pre-selection, and finally, Days Zero are a really efficient and cost-effective way of hiring many low-risk candidates in one go.
We'll show ourselves out now... 😊
Instead of thinking you are "superior" why don't you sit with your books and study first.
Clearly, you did not watch Alma Matters.
"Humein to lagta tha 1 crore ki job lagegi. Ghus kar pata laga 1000 mein se 1-2 ko 1 crore milta hai bas."
In NLUs it is a little more standardized - the top 50% all get the same salary in the top 5 NLUs because of oligopoly of a few law firms. But yes, in terms of highest pay, we are nowhere close.
Even in that documentary, the guy who smoked and chilled all day - didn't know zilch about his subject and had the lowest CGPA - got a 12 lacs p.a. job.
Massive demand for a tech engineer > 700 lawyers in a single firm, hundreds of lawyers, being supplied new firms starting every other day around.
Risk of successfully making money as artist > passing out from a law school and starting a job
Economic distinction aside, lawyers essentially sell there time and creators (MBA/Youtuber/Engineer, etc.) are creating self sustaining items that don't require selling their time, but rather make money as they sleep. I believe anybody selling their time to make money is never gonna do big, maximum potential of making money is always going to be limited for such people (especially lawyers).
If you are an associate, it is imperative that you figure out time and spend time to build your brand, and/or continue learning and developing yourself. You can be successful as lawyer, but as publicly available data suggests, the max you can be expected to make per annum is 15-20 crore at the fag end of your career in 2021.
But getting rich is easy and if money is your concern, its absolutely necessary that you look for options that adds to your income as a lawyer. Some people do investing in startups (high risk), some engage PMS services, some are now sleeping partners in their family or friends businesses, some are sneaky and do offshore investments. These are things that add to the income without requiring active involvement, however these things require savings and 'investment of those savings.' For example, its easy to save 40K per month and if it grows at 25% p.a., inflation adjusted for 10%, in 7 years max you will have one crore in capital, which will give you 25L p.a. passive income (if you choose to withdraw). Honestly, that is enough money for most people to relax and chill in life without going back to the grind.
You are not going to go big if you just save and don't let the money compound. On another note, you are similarly not going to make money if you keep cashing in on your investments, tax is going to eat you up.
1. Working during vacations
2. Working on weekends
3. Working on holidays
4. Working overtime without overtime pay
5. Spending 10L over a course of 5 years to earn Rs. 417/hr = $5.71/hr; which is less than what you will earn while waiting tables at McDonalds in any developed country. (High School dropouts earn more abroad)
Calculation for 5:
- 12 hours for 30 days = 360 hours
- 1.5L per month (which is much more than what any law firm pays)
- 1,50,000/360 = Pay per Hour = 15,000/36 = 7,500/18 = 3,750/9 = 1,250/3 = 415.67/1
Doctors for a 10 minute consultation charge a minimum of Rs. 100-250 depending upon the type of doctor and location of clinic / hospital. In an hour, many of them (even the less successful ones) end up doing at least 10 consultations. Most of them don't work for more than 6 hours a day (unless they work for a hospital as well). Even a doctor charging Rs. 100 ends up earning Rs. 1000/- per hour, double of what a star NLU grad working at a Tier 1 earns. This doctor will probably be operating out of a shack because every doctor who works out of a decent place (read: has an AC and footpath outside the clinic wide enough for 2 people to walk together comfortably) in NCR charges a minimum of Rs. 250/- per consultation. It is more than 5 times of what a lawyer earns at a law firm.
Work should not take up more than 8 hours everyday. Spend time with loved ones. Spend time doing things that you love. Spend time on legallyindia like me if you don't have anything else to do.
I moved to a chamber set up where I earn slightly more than 50k after almost half a decade. I am at my own terms. My work hours are way under 12 hours per day on an average. If I don't count hours spent on reading judgments, it is well under 6 hours per day on an average. Such days are also not more than 200 in number. Approximately 75 days' vacation. Sundays / Saturdays (one of the 2) are off. Unless there is fire, Friday afternoons are off too. Have had to burn the midnight oil and pull all nighters, but such cases have been few and far in between. I am underpaid and I feel it.
I am not enterprising enough by my own objective standards. I have friends from my law school who started on their own after 2-3 years in a lit chamber. They are now charging 50-70k per case in HC/ NCLT/NCLAT. Even if they get 3 such cases per month (many of them get more than that), they make more than (or equal to) what their peers at a Tier 1 do. Actual work hours are around 40 (as opposed to a whopping 360). You can do the math for 1,50,000/40 (it is 3,750 per hour :-P ~ what Associates at Tier 2 and Tier 3 law firms are billed at, and what a half decent doctor earns).
:-|
Secondly, comparing the firm salary with doctors is also not rational. You may compare independent practitioners with doctors. In both the cases, it takes time without family backing to build a practice, but once it is done, then sky is the limit. Consider also that a lot more people actually need the services of a doctor compared to that of a lawyer.
As for your point about not glorifying 12 hour work days, that I totally agree with. I left a law firm job, shifted to academics, work around 30-40 hours per week (many of my colleagues work far fewer hours), and get paid around 13 lakh after half a decade's work exp. I do have a thriving life outside work and am content with the money I'm making. If someone works for 85 hours a week and earns 25 lakh doing something else, that's their call if they are okay with it. Neither is good/bad as such. Law firms will never pay you the full value of your time, too much of a demand supply mismatch.
Education in US is expensive, but most European countries have free or highly subsidised education. You can compare the RoI with them if you want.
Forget Europe, go to Bangladesh, human. They get a better bang for a buck.
I only wanted to highlight how underpaid lawyers in law firms are. Doctors in institutional set up do better than Tier 1 firms. Do you know any doctor who does not have a private practice? Doctors in an institutional setup are also the beneficiaries (indirectly) of expenses incurred by the patient in the hospital and any affiliated institution / laboratory.
Returns Suck at a Tier 1. That is the only point I made. Even the best among the best make at most 20 crores per year. There are hardly 10 of them in number. You have a better chance to earn that much in other industries / fields.
Rest are examples. If you can find a hole in my reasoning, you are probably smart enough to come up with 10 new examples. [...]
First of all the pay you are getting is great for a freshers and dont compare medical field with law I respect each profession but medical is the most hardworking and underpaid of all dont judge it by just seing some top few doctors they too get there after immense hardwork and patience of long years.. a fresh mbbs grad gets 50k that too after working day n night. If one wants a good career in medicine they have to study till superspeciality n give entrance exams 3 times 1st for ug then pg then superspeciality no one likes to go to a plain mbbs grad which takes 12 to 13 years of immense hardwork then they have to senior residencies then they actually start earning and they deserve every penny of it . Do u know any fresh mbbs grad earning 1 lac a month off course none of them . Therefore they are called 2nd gods of the earth . What u are earning as a fresh grad is far better than an mbbs grad who gets 50 60k after working in pathetic smelling government hospitals. No fresh grad opens their own clinic as they dont have enough experience and no one visits plain fresh mbbs doctors they do duties for peanuts in private and government hospitals
1. Use some punctuation ffs
2. You just bumped a three month old thread to basically say that another field is underpaid - how that is an excuse to keep us underpaid is beyond logic.
3. Are you the same guy who was spamming the UPSC thread?
It was not an excuse. Some lawyers too are underpaid and few top lawyers are earning great so I just meant this happens in every field top few in every profession earns great and then come the crowd who are underpaid it happens in each n every profession . There is no point of comparing it just makes one unhappy and unsatisfied instead loving the profession you chose.
3 no
Really? Which city are u in bhai? Are they second gen
Obviously not every vlogger is successful enough to earn in lakhs, but similarly not every student can
get into Tier 1 law firm
Also, the illusion that vloggers or influencers do no work is probably not true in most cases (unless they're already famous from the start or just become an overnight sensation). Especially when starting out, some of the most successful ones would have been working way harder than most corporate lawyers, plus have things that you can't necessarily learn, like a certain 'look', talent, performance abilities, video editing, huge amount of drive, some ego, and so on...
From that perspective, corporate law might have better and safer odds of making you good money (at least once you've been able to get into a good law school and your foot in the profession, which obviously requires a lot of privilege).
And yes it’s true - exiting law school and entering an already established firm does give you that safety net.
but generally, law firms pay higher than other jobs, especially to start with, but then you wont have a life beyond your firm, give or take