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Unfortunately, there is a wide disparity between the salary of the two. Also, I made it clear to the place I joined that I would rather stick to the corp law firms if the pay wasn't good. Remember, you get terrible pay only if you look desperate, if you have options (even if not good options or no options at all) as long as you can take with a straight face, you can negotiate.
I don't get: You were paralegal for one month (May). How were you getting 4x of what an average fresher lawyer was being paid?
Learn one area of practice which you can wing it alone, come what may. It would give you the confidence that if the worst comes to pass, you could make it out alone and independently.
I am a non-NLUite from a middle-class family with no social capital to leverage when I entered the field. I am sharing some experiences that you may find relevant:-
1) Getting First Job - I interned at this law firm in my final year (not Big6 but a decent paymaster overall). I worked with some of the nicest people and one of the team members even agreed to recommend my candidature for the job.
I had an hour-long interview. Post-interview, I was asked to do another internship at their another office before they could commit. This was my final year and I declined their offer on the call itself. I told them that I had other job offers and I had no intention of leaving those for an internship. I was asked what these other job offers were (I had no other offer at that time) to which I replied that clearly, this firm was better than any existing offer I had, as otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Eventually, they agreed to prepone the so-called internship so I can join them in the month of May itself, converted the position of a Paralegal which implied I would be paid a living wage (slightly less than half of an associates' salary) and renegotiated the decision period from 6 months to 1 month. Once I joined them at this new office, (team members were different here) I discharged all the functions of an A0, with the distinction that I wasn't a law graduate yet. Anyways, at the end of the month, they told me that they needed to extend the observation period to which I politely said no. Some of the folks working at the firm were upset and saw this as ego talking. My personal take was that a promise was made and it didn't seem fair that I was asked to do the job at half the pay for no reason. Anyways, I was told that were unsure and could not extend me an offer.
Not all was lost. On the last day, I pitched something I was working on for some time to the managing partner, and while I did not get the account, it gave me a lot of confidence. Also, The stint at the firm helped me get a very good stint at litigation (I was getting almost 4x of what an average fresher lawyer was being paid, though overall I was still underpaid by the law firm standards).
2) Doing Pro Bono Work - Doing pro bono is nice if you are doing it for the needy. I was doing free work for major organizations in the hope that I will get some work later on but zilch turned up. I started saying no and instead of doing the job for free would say something similar "in order to build trust and have a long term relationship, I would be happy to do it at half/one-third of what I charge". This helped me a lot more than what I was doing earlier.
3) Negotiating with Large Client - After following up for more than a year (yes, you read that right, it was about 14 months), I eventually landed a very large client. They liked my work and I was in but consideration for my services was yet to be settled. To close the deal, I gave them a very generous discount (Instant regrets post-closing). They had the volume but margins weren't there. After working with them for 2 years, I eventually told them that I cannot continue to work at the discounted rate and the price will need to be hiked substantially. They of course said no to that. So, work stopped coming in and I had doubts if I had made a mistake. Anyways, 5 months later and (trying it out with few other folks I imagine), they came back and offered to pay what I had initially asked for.
4) Taking Down Bullies - It was my early days with this one major client, and this one person was giving me hard time for no reason. In the larger scheme of things, I was the master of my own destiny, and this guy was not even management but because he was the client I took it. Eventually, I was about to lose my cool one day and decided enough was enough. I reached out to the decision-maker i.e. who was my initial contact at the organization and asked him for a quick call. I requested that I would like him to change my contact person at the firm. He asked the reason, I did not say anything adverse other than that I don't think we will get along. The person told me if perhaps I would be generous enough to give one more chance to the guy. I don't know what happened internally but I never faced any issues over there again.
Yes, I can also write about 10x of more incidents where things didn't go my way but such is life, the point is you need to stand for yourself and be confident in your abilities. Law firms or any other organization is not a charity, they pay you that much because they extract work of atleast 3-4x value. Also, no matter how much they try to convince you are replaceable and 100 are sitting outside to replace you, don't fall for that. If it was so easy to replace people, headhunters would have died out by now. Remember a law firm's core assets are its people, and if they think they can get any idiot to do your job, then what exactly is their strength. Be firm, be assertive and always stand up for yourself.
Self-assess yourself, and see if you are up for the task, if you are, don't take any sh*t from anyone. If you are not, I would recommend that you work on yourself and if the place is toxic still, consider changing jobs. Self improvisation requires you to be at peace, if you are constantly stressed out, the last thing you will be able to do is exceed expectations.