Boss but do you think retire early level wealth is attainable in law firms? Like by my calculation, family life in a city will require 2 Lakhs a month (assuming you are the sole earning member and you plan to have kids and your parents might need nominal support). So at 25 LPA, you need approx 8 crores (33 years by that 3-4% annual expenses) of savings to be able to retire. Is it possible to make that kind of money in a law firm in the first 10 years?
Even if you invest and make say 10% returns a year.

Experience. Quickly learn the tricks of the trade and to become better at stuff, especially business and contractual advisory, is my goal. I enjoy working with energetic founders, advising them on the basics and the industry practices. I love helping legal and founders to basically crawl through stuff, understand what floats in their industry and what doesn't, etc.

I belong to a business family. It makes no financial sense for me to not join my family business and work a law firm job. So my main motivation is interest and passion to possibly skill up enough to independently render advice. I am always in two minds - family business or legal. Learning ropes of law firm job with aim to go independent opens options to do both for me.

Getting clients and business development? Yes. That's on my list too. It is something I am forthright to my seniors, who encourage me to learn and grow my skills.

How do I perceive other lawyers at my PQE/lower (0-3)? They are brilliant, but motivation really shapes how you do and approach things. My approach has gotten me far.

I approach things from a perspective of getting paid to be learn to render advice independently and often want to do excellent work, pay notwithstanding. Client paying the firm lump-sum or hourly is not my concern, rather it is to get the industry insight out and build relationships. This makes me reliable enough for seniors to trust me on tasks from day one.

The above approach won't be reflected in working purely for pay check at the end of the month. Your deliverables may be great, but learning, networking, going out of your way to be top notch, etc - you will not do. It's going to be difficult and you might loose motivation if you work for money and not passion or a bigger goal.

This is also in my opinion the number one reason for dissatisfaction among corporate attorneys. We are in an era of excitement, billion dollar IPOs and countless opportunities and ideas to make a million (including by becoming a tik toker). If you are going to work for money, at the intellectual level needed to get in at a top law firm in India - you have a 100 easier options.

My dad likes to say that people love to criticize things and can only talk without criticizing things/people/situations for three mins a conversation. I don't disbelieve anyone who says that they have serious qualms about their jobs and the stress and hours are actually quite poor.

However, I suppose largely people in a job market behave rationally, and either they do find some redeeming parts to their job or they suppose that the salary trade-off is worth all the other nonsense.

That being said, I'll tell you what I like about it. I have always loved solving problems, since forever. I loved being a part of organizing events in school mostly because there'd be hundred issues to sort out.

My job offers me so many opportunities to do this. If you really look at it, trying to condense what your clients want into what works in an agreement is intense creative work. In a way drafting is like solving and fixing a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand pieces, with the stakes in millions. I do like being a point person for clients and hearing the trust when I take up deliverables or negotiations with them.

Negotiating is something else, I do like maintaining tact and gently pushing across what my clients want - winning points is a good rush. It's a brilliant course in communication skills with legitimate stakes involved.

Lastly, my job is something that offered me good and valid meritorious validation in my life - because I knew I would only get any praise if it was warranted.

I know for a lot of people looking at tier-1 jobs think that money makes up for all of it - do look up the hedonic treadmill - very very soon that money is just numbers on a screen, and you'll look to find more in your life. Despite saying all this, even I've realized that this life is not for me because the only legitimate currency in our lives is time and saying my job is okay but the hours doesn't really cut it. Like with all things in life, ymmv (your mileage might vary).