Recently, I had conversation with a senior who got hired at Vedanta (Hindustan Zinc) as an in house counsel and his salary was 20-21 LPA for a fresher with 0 PQE. Tier 1 Law firms hardly pay upto 16-17 LPA for A0. If MNC jobs pay much better and also presumably offer a far better work life balance then why do students at NLUs go after law firms? Which would be a better choice consider the pay and the work burden?
And btw that's a bluff - Vedanta does not pay 20-21. In hand realistically is around 70-80k per month. Tier 1 firms pay about 1-1.05L in hand post tax deductions.
Vedanta package seems more like the inflated MBA packages with ESOPs and other components. I am not a big fan such packages, looks very unreal and infact is unreal. But nevertheless, its a good place to be at so you take a call what works better for you, in-house or law firms.
Another Vedanta hiree here. You are a tad bit wrong. The fixed pay is 12 LPA (in-hand comes around Rs.80,000-90,000 due to different tax treatment, PF and all)
Then there's a joining bonus of Rs.2 Lakh, then a performance-based bonus of Rs. 3.5 lakh, and then comes the ESOP worth 3 lakh. At last, there's Rs.50,000 allowance for Hardship posting too.
But yeah, even though the initial package is high, the law-firm counterpart would surpass the pay with more PQE.
The answer is simple: the growth and learning that law firms offer lawyers. Being out of law school, law graduates aren’t trained at all in the practice of law (certainly not corporate law). The ability to practice law is usually and mostly acquired at law firms. It’s very unusual and difficult for a lawyer who was always an in-house counsel to transition into a law firm, but not vice versa.
In-house lawyers are cost centers as opposed to law firm lawyers, who generate billable hours and earn for their organization. There is no revenue generated by a company paying for a general counsel.
Law firms allow deserving lawyers to become partners. Once you’re a partner, you have the ability to control your destiny to a great extent. You can be a salaried partner in charge of a book of business, or if you have your own, then you have the capacity to move the book to another law firm in case you don’t like your current one.
Law firms allow for a tremendous upward potential to earn - in the form of equity, bonuses and fixed income.
In-house counsel salaries over a period of 10-15 years pale in comparison to the salary of lawyers who manage to stay inside of law firms for the same duration (usually!)
At the end of the day - you’re more valuable if you can generate wealth for an institution rather than be a cost center.
And btw that's a bluff - Vedanta does not pay 20-21. In hand realistically is around 70-80k per month. Tier 1 firms pay about 1-1.05L in hand post tax deductions.
Vedanta package seems more like the inflated MBA packages with ESOPs and other components. I am not a big fan such packages, looks very unreal and infact is unreal. But nevertheless, its a good place to be at so you take a call what works better for you, in-house or law firms.
Then there's a joining bonus of Rs.2 Lakh, then a performance-based bonus of Rs. 3.5 lakh, and then comes the ESOP worth 3 lakh. At last, there's Rs.50,000 allowance for Hardship posting too.
But yeah, even though the initial package is high, the law-firm counterpart would surpass the pay with more PQE.
In-house lawyers are cost centers as opposed to law firm lawyers, who generate billable hours and earn for their organization. There is no revenue generated by a company paying for a general counsel.
Law firms allow deserving lawyers to become partners. Once you’re a partner, you have the ability to control your destiny to a great extent. You can be a salaried partner in charge of a book of business, or if you have your own, then you have the capacity to move the book to another law firm in case you don’t like your current one.
Law firms allow for a tremendous upward potential to earn - in the form of equity, bonuses and fixed income.
In-house counsel salaries over a period of 10-15 years pale in comparison to the salary of lawyers who manage to stay inside of law firms for the same duration (usually!)
At the end of the day - you’re more valuable if you can generate wealth for an institution rather than be a cost center.
Also, the work is generally so proc