I hope you are all well. We have seen law firms (especially top of the rung, now Tier-1s) grow tremendously over the last decade since India has been hot property for gradual FDI induction (yes, I am aware 2021 is different, media and partial FDI numbers can lie by overestimating things) along with a healthy amount of M&A activity over this period. All this, I assume, has created an amazing amount of transactional/business work for firms generally and now, with the markets hitting ever new heights means that things haven't been better for big Indian law firms than the past decade or half.

Now, there is constant chatter of US raising the interest rates and the impact/effect that it would have on emerging markets such as India (see ex-RBI gov Subbarao's piece here: https://www.ft.com/content/30652b8d-8aff-444a-a703-fd8582058c69). A downturn in the markets and the economy in terms of credit and its general well-being (besides what is already happening in terms of unemployment and crisis) is a troubling but very real possibility for the times ahead. (recall 2013, here: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-india-of-2013-is-not-the-india-of-1991/article5068745.ece and here: https://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2013/aug/19/india-financial-crisis-rupee-stock-markets)

I want to understand (since we have all only seen good times): what does this mean for the law firms on the road ahead? How do/will they cope with this downturn? (Is it time to for low hiring? loss of jobs (sorry to bring it up)?) What is it like at a law-firm in an economic downturn of this scale? Is the general doom and gloom of today going to keep on going for the months ahead? What do these large scale changes to the essentials of fiscal policy mean for law firm business?