Three structural changes are required in the Indian legal sector for law firm salaries to move up in a meaningful manner where they reflect value for the effort and commitment the legal profession demands.
One, reduction of the ownership of the promoters who take away disproportionate share of the profits - Trilegal may not be perfect but once founders retired, at least the Firm was able to pay everyone significantly better - any large firm in which one person or one family owns a disproportionately large equity is structurally flawed in my view and will never be able to pay fair compensation to its talent. No one person or family can contribute enough value to a firm to be able to justify holding a disproportionately large equity share - irrespective of the age of the brand. The change will either come either when foreign law firms set up shop in India - then the change will be rapid, or as and when the current crop of founders/ promoters transition ownership and control to their progeny - to be able to do that, they will have to reduce their equity to fund higher salaries in order to buy peace with the talent - this may take another 3-7 years from now to play out.
Second, the fee rates in Indian market are way lower than the international market - tier 1 firms are happy charging Rs 13000-14,000 per hour blended (including partner) to their Indian clients (with the exception of AZB which bills at slightly better rates), whereas a fresh associate in the Singapore office of a US firm bills at upwards of USD 1000 per hour; the reason why rates are less in India is primarily because most Indian companies and GCs focus on cutting legal cost more than risk mitigation. A lot of GCs in India have had no experience of having been in legal practice - either as a corporate lawyer or as a disputes lawyer. Where the GC has very little understanding of good lawyering and thinks of lawyering as a commodity, rather than a bespoke service, the focus will always be on shopping around to lower the cost. The exceptions to this are high corporate governance companies where risk mitigation is a part of their DNA. The promoters don't bear the brunt of low fee mandates (beyond having to live with a lower margin but still make a humungous absolute number) and the entire pain is picked up by the professionals in the Firms - working crazy hours to support insane volume to compensate for low rates and somehow meet or at least come close to the team target.
Third, NJAC - this will most certainly break the existing dominance of a few families over the disputes end of the profession. Ironically, the talk of NJAC riles up the NLU students due to its perceived threat to judicial independence. But think about it - is the existing collegium helping the talent coming out from NLUs reach their true potential in the disputes practice area. And if the existing system is broken, why oppose an alternate one - it may just work better.
One, reduction of the ownership of the promoters who take away disproportionate share of the profits - Trilegal may not be perfect but once founders retired, at least the Firm was able to pay everyone significantly better - any large firm in which one person or one family owns a disproportionately large equity is structurally flawed in my view and will never be able to pay fair compensation to its talent. No one person or family can contribute enough value to a firm to be able to justify holding a disproportionately large equity share - irrespective of the age of the brand. The change will either come either when foreign law firms set up shop in India - then the change will be rapid, or as and when the current crop of founders/ promoters transition ownership and control to their progeny - to be able to do that, they will have to reduce their equity to fund higher salaries in order to buy peace with the talent - this may take another 3-7 years from now to play out.
Second, the fee rates in Indian market are way lower than the international market - tier 1 firms are happy charging Rs 13000-14,000 per hour blended (including partner) to their Indian clients (with the exception of AZB which bills at slightly better rates), whereas a fresh associate in the Singapore office of a US firm bills at upwards of USD 1000 per hour; the reason why rates are less in India is primarily because most Indian companies and GCs focus on cutting legal cost more than risk mitigation. A lot of GCs in India have had no experience of having been in legal practice - either as a corporate lawyer or as a disputes lawyer. Where the GC has very little understanding of good lawyering and thinks of lawyering as a commodity, rather than a bespoke service, the focus will always be on shopping around to lower the cost. The exceptions to this are high corporate governance companies where risk mitigation is a part of their DNA. The promoters don't bear the brunt of low fee mandates (beyond having to live with a lower margin but still make a humungous absolute number) and the entire pain is picked up by the professionals in the Firms - working crazy hours to support insane volume to compensate for low rates and somehow meet or at least come close to the team target.
Third, NJAC - this will most certainly break the existing dominance of a few families over the disputes end of the profession. Ironically, the talk of NJAC riles up the NLU students due to its perceived threat to judicial independence. But think about it - is the existing collegium helping the talent coming out from NLUs reach their true potential in the disputes practice area. And if the existing system is broken, why oppose an alternate one - it may just work better.