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I know enough has been spoken on this site on multiple about the horrid working conditions in law firms. However, it took the death of an associate in Khaitan to actually make the firm sit and up and announce a policy on paper. Something similar followed at CAM whose managing partners tried to gain some PR by telling partners to "allow" "one switch off day" per week.

However, post this pandemic, the problem with work hours has genuinely aggravated. With increased mortality, realizations about living life before dying - people are no longer ready to put in 14 hours a day at a stagnant pay. This is visible from the extremely high number of attritions occurring lately.

I know law firms have till date gotten away with "we can find replacements". But I hardly see any of the law firms being able to replace their attrition-associates this year. Every single team I know of is grappling onto last straws in terms of associates numbers. If the market was indeed so elastic and homogenous, new associates would have propped up in the past 3-4 months and yet they haven't.

People who are even decently smart do not want to sacrifice all their waking hours of life at the altar of a salary that has been stagnant for half a decade. It's time law firms at least acknowledge the economics of it, if not the humanitarian aspects.
Very valid points. However, from my personal experience (I'm presently an SA at a tier 1) the law firms tend to ensure loyalty by trying to institutionalize the lawyers working for them by feeding on their need for validation/ insecurities/ lack of life elsewhere (such as "you need to drive this car/ wear this watch/ become a member of this club", etc.). This leads to unsustainable spending habits and horrible personal finance practices. I've seen A2s buying cars worth 40-50 lakhs only for the cars to be parked outside office all day and for crows to shit on. Now if you've spent almost 2.5 years of your income on a depreciating asset that you don't even have the time to use, think of what it does to your net worth and your ability to become financially independent (to the exclusion of the firm). Hence in my view unless associates learn to manage their finances better, law firm managements are unlikely to understand the economics of their semi medieval practices.
While I do not disagree with what you have said, I don't see how the behaviour of an associate has any impact on the crappy management practices in this context.
It does - bad financial choices by the associate bind then in a vicious cycle of reliance on their job (not firm. You leave one, but you need to join another to keep paying for the asset you have already bought).
If you don't see how bad financial choices and getting influenced by the firms into making them actually result in the firms' undue influence on the associates' lives (in turn resulting in their inability to move away)- life for you is going to be a rough ride dear
Yay! Let's be condescending because that's what our sad lives at law firms have taught us, instead of properly asking a genuine question!

Hooray!
But what's the solution to this? My seniors sound nice but they say clients set unrealistic deadlines.

One thing I can think of is adding good number of paralegals with stable tenure who can take off good amount of work which is currently being done by juniors. My team of 30+ has only one secretary.
Clients set unrealistic targets because your seniors don't push them back. If they've been given the colonial slavesque expectation that people who're executing for them don't have a life other than doing their work (be it a Friday night or a sunday afternoon), of course they'd expect the same everytime. But the same clients won't barge into their bank on a Sunday afternoon to get things done (despite that the bank's role is much more important than a law firm's), because the banks never gave them that expectation. Your nice seniors, led by the nicest senior partner, is selling you out for money.
@Elais - what you say makes sense, no doubt about that. I think it's about finding a right balance. I'm sure we all prefer private banking over psu banks because we can, if urgent, reach a branch executive over call who has especially given his personal cell number. But like that service cannot be misused to make that banker work overtime, there should be systemic checks in law firms as well to prevent abuse.
Very true. We firm lawyers aren't emergency surgeons and our work isn't life and death. The earth won't turn upside down if a deliverable is sent on Monday instead of Sunday.
The market is not as elastic as you think it is. It takes time to find able replacements. They will come slowly but surely. They will find candidates from smaller firms and boutique firms who will not be able to match the T1 branding or the T1 salaries. These people who have never had the opportunity to work in T1s will leave their "better" work-life balance jobs for jobs in T-1's for "better work" and the cycle will continue.

India is a labour supply market and will always be one. Don't for a second think that replacements won't be found this time around. Everyone is replaceable.
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I know law firms have till date gotten away with "we can find replacements". But I hardly see any of the law firms being able to replace their attrition-associates this year. Every single team I know of is grappling onto last straws in terms of associates numbers.
I'm a T1 Associate from the batch of 2020 who graduated from a top tier NLU. The number of recruiters who have reached out to me over Linkedin offering opportunities at other T1 law firms is insane. SAM, CAM, Khaitan and Trilegal have all been offered. I get repeat calls for the same vacancy in a particular team months later. I'm very surprised that I keep getting such calls, I mean I'm a pandemic A1 and still get offered so many options - folks senior to me must get even more. They clearly can't fill those vacancies with good people.

I always thought that Associates are easily replaceable and hence the firms have all the bargaining power. However, apparently not. Even I'm looking to leave my current job and move out of law firms. I'm just figuring out what to do next. I'm sure there are more like me. This job is just not fulfilling.