Your retail workers and sleeping workers make a honest days income.The popular belief is lawyers are scoundrels scavanging and making money on the pains of others.They are no better than the corrupt government officials.And if you will work for a Tier 1 law firm you will.know why law firm lawyers are most hated.

no one here cares about popular belief, you're on the wrong site if you think anyone here cares about people perception, because its shite, in that way all occupations are seen as scoundrels scavenging for money, eg doctors who make money off the pain of others, prescribing extra, medical negligence, and retail worker who sleep whole day but are paid their coins by the CEOs malik without fail, engineers who eat the money and use cheap materials, shopkeepers who overcharge in credit, the list goes on,

Good try but doesn't work.Doctors save others from pains.Retails workers have sales,despite their snoring, to prove their value.What value do lawyers bring?Nothing.Instead they like to keep taking dates so that can keep a litigation alive and keep charging the client for each date.

A quote I read a while back, which may be apt-

True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures—unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.

- John Davis

Yes and No.

In terms of payscale, definitely it does. Initial returns can only come your way if you are in a tier 1/2 law firm. Litigation does not pay bare minimum generally (even in metro cities). Getting good in-house jobs for freshers is generally impossible. You will see an engineer graduate before you and earning more than you, despite the cumulative investments being more in law schools.

The legal industry is not big and generation currently at the helm, is worst in terms of business mindset, payscale to employees, work culture. The recent AZB event reflects the fiasco which the law firms are. Forget who says what in this episode, such thing came out and devoured the brand (if there is any) of AZB, itself shows that the firm does not enjoy a respectful command in the eyes of its employees.

And what to talk about law chambers. Even in cities like Delhi/Mumbai/Bangalore, the average pay (for those who pay) hovers around 15k-18k for freshers. One would be lucky to start from 25k per month. But even then, the work pressure would be so high, that you would consider it better to do a corp law thing than to continue with litigation where the pay range won't increase much even after 2-3 years. The pay and work pressure definitely need fixing.

Now when I said no the law does not suck, here is what I meant. The immense scope one has, to do any work which directly impact people is so enticing that no immediately remunerative professional choices like engineering can prevail over. You can do litigation, go for judicial services, get in legal policy work, work as law clerk for a judge, try for fellowships, and many other things (which I am personally still exploring; and know there are a lot more jobs that I can take with my law degree).

The pay is not good. As I mentioned it for litigation before. But imagine, if you are from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 city, the opportunities for a law graduate are numerous. No matter if you don't make good money for some 2-3 years, you will be living with your parents and doing stuff which interests you.

Now compare this with an engineer graduate who gets employed to serve clients dealing with stuff like coding mostly in the office. Life of a lawyer, I believe, is certainly more adventurous than such professions. And once you will get old, you would yourself depreciate the fact that you considered immediate earning in 20s as that important, which you would wish you had not.

(These are my personal opinions. Your thoughts may differ. Please don't post trollish comments.)

The fact that you grind non stopped unnecessarily is the fault of the preachy MP or Partner of your law firm who refuse to acknowledge you are human and you deserve to be treated like a human.That retail worker works ten times harder than you and deserves even more pay.You need a break and breather more than higher pay but your master won't give you that humane treatment.

I've seen this trend with the new upcoming law students and graduates where they've this sense of defeatist and fatalist mindset. Now I'm no David Goggins or justifying the toxic environment and the shitty pay in general but if your goal is to earn shit tons of money why are you even pursuing law lmfao dawg do an MBA you'd be living a chill life w good pay. I mean yes this field has fucked up work practices, shitty pay and long gestation period to settle but y'all need to realise you chose this field in the first place and you've to deal with its shortcomings till we the next gen of lawyers gradually shift the culture instead of assimilating in it. But the fact is you chose this field if you don't like it just move on big dawg there are many opportunities than wearing black coat all day and fighting for your clients or doing advisory work.

lawyers turned MBA grads will most probably get into consulting or IB and that pays almost the same as a T1 with equally bad hours.

Plus the opportunity cost to do the MBA and the student loan repayment. Even on scholarship you'd have to loan out a considerable amount, unless you're some unreal scholarly guy with a good history of business/investment that even harvard would like to have, which most people won't be.

so no, don't do mba either if you want to get wealthy.

I also believe you're talking about only MBAs from abroad here and not iim which doesn't make sense for someone who has a t1 job lined up.

and I'm also talking about USA jobs only since it pays the best.

See the problem is not bad or long hours. The problem is lack of respect and empathy towards the juniors. Everybody knows that law is not a profession for work life balance but getting negative comments, office politics, manipulation, toxic and hostile environment, even abuses and god knows what else is the problem.