Guess what. Name the only business entities which ALWAYS turn a profit. That's right, Law Firms by their very nature (Partnerships) almost always run at a profit. They have drastically less regulatory costs and taxation than Companies. And by their very nature are very lean, mean and efficient organizations. Law Firms are not the average large listed company that can turn losses for a couple of years and yet face no threat of going bust.

This is just rubbish.The inflation applies to all but law firms are bent on being slave houses.And they are getting not so competent ppl at lower salaries they dont care so that they keep bringing down the payscale overall.At the end,its only Shroff-Adani getting richer while all young lawyer get poorer.Fireaign law firm entry is need if hour, but nobody understands that the reason foreign law firms are not getting entry is because Shroffs corruption alone won't get exposed,on the opposite side will be a Judge or court clerk or court typist who will get exposed.The judicial system corruption is also being hidden by not allowing foreign law firms to enter India.The entire system will get overhauled and entire system could get exposed.

There is a downward pressure on law firm revenues across the world:
1. Clients want to cut costs and found out they can do so in many cases during pandemic as they were desperate to cut costs and now they have excuse of a looming recession. They will demand lower fees and often get it.
2. There are way more law firms to choose from compared to how it was 10 years back.
3. There is a trend of hiring more in-house lawyers for recurring legal work and going to law firms only for ultra specialised stuff
4. Tech tends to reduce billable hours and there are more innovative law firms and alternative services providers using tech reducing bill sizes
5. Big brands don’t command the premium they once did

This makes it harder to pay a lot more - but those firms that can always tend to pay more for several reasons.

1. Signalling to clients and talent in market that they are superior
2. Harder to quit once you are in - you are forced to put up with crazy stuff nobody will put up with if they won’t lose a very big part of their income

Lots of law firms could not function at all without paying significantly above market rate. But it really depends on how profitable they are.

If pay is not growing fast it’s because profitability is stagnant for years now.

There's no hard and fast rule that salaries must keep up with inflation, payment of salary by corporates or firms does not take sustenance of employees into account if they could be replaced easily
This is the same everywhere, I read about a large listed corporate paying 2 lpa for its freshers to 2.5 lpa working for 5 years, and the same has not changed in 20 years.
Unless one firm increases salaries fundamentally, as you pointed out, there is really no incentive for firms to do so, unless they loose too many people by competition- for example the past 3 years in Biglaw, where Milbank kept increasing its scales quarterly, and other firms kept matching.
But considering the nearing recession and the fall of tech, revenues would crunch causing tier 1s to lose a lot, does not really seem someone would risk incrementing scales

Not really - they seem to adjust upwards only when they absolutely need to and one of the firms starts the process. Also, they're always very late to the show, a bit like the judicial salaries are lagging behind most years and only get adjusted upwards to competitive 7 years after they've turned into near-minimum wage again (though the more recent rises were quite good): https://www.legallyindia.com/the-bench-and-the-bar/judges-pay-is-so-last-century-20150707-6243

In 2012, firm salaries for A0's at Tier 1 firms was 12-15L. See https://www.legallyindia.com/analysis/li-salary-survey-results-pt-2-how-much-do-a-will-your-law-firm-batchmates-make-20121123-3261

In 2022 the entry level pay is 16-18L (as per crowd sourced estimates in Legally India)

Do firms actually account for inflation? Have their revenues increased over 10 years, definitely. It seems to me that partners take a larger share and it trickles down to associates.

Thoughts?