Adding some more companies here. If someone can start an excel sheet then I can contribute a lot there.

Morgan Stanley Derivatives - 15L (4 PQE)

HP - 15L (3 PQE)

Amazon - 42L (3 PQE)

Google - 80L (6 PQE)

Crypto Industry - 25L (4 PQE)

Fintech (Groww, Zerodha, Razorpay etc.) - 30L (4 PQE)

Funds - 20L (4 PQE)

I am trying to be more active on LI given there is an extreme shortage of people who are providing real advice on In house opportunities. I don't know if we are allowed to provide email addresses or not here. You can reach out to me at rishabh.rw@gmail.com

This is probably one of the most informative comment I have come across Ll. I’m currently an a1 at a tier 1 and wanna shift to in house eventually maybe in a year or two. I had some doubts regarding the same, do you mind if we connect over mail/call for a short discussion on what I can be doing to strengthen my cv for the shift. Your opinion on learning about marketing/sales etc particularly stands out to me, would be great if we can connect.

A lot actually. A lot of things have changed in the past 5 years or so. I am aware of people with 8 PQE making 50+. Plus now the entire game has shifted due to ESOPs, stock grants etc.

For example - A Google L4 corp lawyer can earn anywhere around 80 lakhs (including stock grants). This post requires 6 years PQE

Coming to startups - Partner level PQE (10+) people usually head the department or are one down. If they head the department (GC or head of legal) then easily expect 1 CR +. For better companies, GC earnings can cross 5 CRs as well (check out Swiggy, zomato etc. through their DRHP filings)

Tech startups pay the most. And you can work and negotiate non stop. If you do actually work and make yourself indispensible then sky is the limit. I am constantly offered 40-50% hikes by companies ( I have 4 years PQE, and currently earning the same as A3 Tier 1)

The best thing. No drama, good work life balance and you actually step outside the mundane law profiles and learn everything like business, marketing, HR, strategy, product designs and implementations etc. That is what keeps us going. Yes we also do doc reviews and redlining as part of our BAU but advisory work is where you can shine.

Not taking any shots and strictly my personal opinion but I regularly engage tier 1 law firms for legal opinions etc. Trust me when I say that a decent intellectual in House counsel always outshines a similarly experienced law firm associate. I have seen that time and again and that's why I have stayed away from law firms.

Per hour we are paid more. After 10-12 years, the pay disparity is almost negligible. You can always grab the chance to be on the ground floor of a start up or a pre ipo company and get retirement grade stock options (My previous GC cashed in around 90 crores after the IPO).

1. The Big 4s range from 6-9l PA depending on the location, the team you are joining and your school.

2. German companies are better at paying but since those opportunities are practically non-existent, I don’t even have a ballpark figure to give. Maruti on the other hand offers somewhere around 35k to 45k in hand.

3. Adani - depends on the vertical. If you are in land acquisition/title verification or HR compliance then it’s somewhere around 35-40k in hand. If you are in HO and doing gen corp then that is pushed to 60-70k.

4. I don’t really know what are WITCH companies. Sorry.

5.Investment firms don’t really hire law graduates unless you have CFA or CA cleared at some level. Plus they like someone with an engineering and science background. Insurance companies pay around 35-40k in hand provided if you are in the claims department. Lower this if you are in the branch offices. If you are in gen corp team at HO you can expect around 50k.

Hope this helps.

The best way to go about it is to go through the LinkedIn profile of a person who can get you referrals by contacts. This can be a close friend who is from a good college alumni network. You go to these companies’ individual career pages and apply. Do not worry about experience requirements as such. Companies are flexible with those.

Usually the opportunities which are posted online are also floated internally as “Internal job postings” and that is a much quicker way of drawing an interview.

Hope this helps!

Being in-house and having a circle of in-house lawyers, I can pretty much draw a rough background on major companies. Ranges differ from positions to experience to previous salary.

If you are starting in-house as a Lateral hire in the 0-1 PQE range, do not expect more than 50k in-hand salary.

You can ask me companies and I will try to provide a very rough range of salaries but please provide the designation also.

Exactly, in house legal pay outs are very subjective basis the sector; projects and infra/ funds being more lucrative than banks/MNCs. I know people with 15 PQE in a Private Bank making 40-45l ballpark as against someone as who is at GMR/Adani with the same PQE making around 55-60l. Further, guys having prior Tier 1 PE-VC experience are making upwards of 70l at family office funds/VC houses as against someone at a Big 4 doing the same DT/IDT advisory work for a 30l plateau. Back to my point, it depends from sector to sector and its allied dealmaking curves.

Sadly in-house salaries have no real benchmarks. All the reports that legal recruiters post trying to post a salary level range for a said no of years of PQE is more or less bullshit and a desperate attempt to have salary charts similar to law firms. To have a salary range chart equivalent to law firms is almost impossible.

In in-house what you negotiate is what you get. Of course if you are a great lawyer and a Tier 1 grad and T1 law firm you will get a good kickstart if not you will start at much below. An inhouse lawyer at say 3 or 4 years PQE may be earning as little as 40 or 50 k to as high as 1 lakh. The range becomes even more miserable at say 8 years PQE. It may range from 15 lakhs to 50 lakhs per annum (ball park, of course there are outliers) depending on what background you are from and what you bring to the company and which sector you are working on. This sheer range makes it difficult to have any set data. The typical in house team is so small that it makes no sense to compile a company wise list of salaries, something which is much easier to do when you are just compiling a Big 7 law firm list.

For experienced real estate lawyers (PQE 5+), usual inhouse salary ranges from 15-22 LPA. Some companies offer more than this too, but it all depends upon the position you are being hired for. Someone with 5+ PQE is usually hired at the position of Manager. Companies that fall herein:

Max Estates;

H&M;

Pacific Developers;

Reliance Retail (they may lowball you too);

Subway;

Assuming you get a CTC of 13 to 13.5 lakh, you would get approximately 90-95 thousand per month in hand after tax and other deductions.

This is also assuming that u utilise all (or most) tax deduction/ exemptions possible such as 80C, HRA, etc.

Some amount gets deposited to EPF (which builds up a nice corpus over time) and gratuity (which may or may not be paid to you if you leave before 5 years). Also imp to check policies about leave encashment while leaving, leave carryover, mandatory working hours, etc.

Cognisant that it’s not possible to get to know everything if a fresher, but best to be aware of.