Stop chasing behind 'emerging' law firms. If your skills allow - try to secure positions in more TMT teams at established firms. In Emerging Firms - you will end up doing a lot of speculative work - making policy predictions, writing memos on foreign law, providing commercial guidance on monetisation and go-to market strategies with no qualification or experience..and so on. You will hustle a lot - but you might end up giving wrong and misguided legal (and non-legal) advice and not learn transferable legal skills.

If its that obvious that Ikigai's name will come up (which it is), then they have probably already made it (which they have). Its a great org and in a fairly traditional market, a breath of fresh air. How do you determine a "leading player"? Should we rely on rankings in chambers and legal500 and IBLJ and ALB, and what clients/broader market (particularly in tech) has to say or listen to you? Don't make generic statements and diss for no reason.

Both Spice Route and Ikigai Law are beyond 'emerging' for TMT. Have been around for a while, offer a wide range of work spanning data, fintech, ecommerce, healthtech and transactions, enough new-age work like AI, blockchain etc, good pay upwards of 10L going up to 60L per annum, and top tier clients. Between the two firms, you would cover most of the global tech companies as clients. Spice Route has the advantage of a large Bangalore office in the midst of startup activity. Ikigai as a smaller Bangalore presence but sizeable in Delhi where it also does a lot of government facing work in tech policy. It also does a lot more exotic stuff. Both have large teams now with alumni spread out in the TMT ecosystem. Spice has a (much?) larger team overall but with two partners and is junior heavy. Ikigai has a more established mid-level and has 4 partners. Managing partners at both firms I would consider as very forward-looking. Both firms are ranked highly but Spice's name comes up more often in the rankings. Work-life balance and culture generally good at Ikigai, in fact used to be excellent but of late I have heard of mixed signals from their stable on this front. Love reading the Ikigai tech newsletters and blogs. Find Spice route's material slightly more generic in comparison. Both firms do good webinars, and frequently. Overall I would say exceptional and promising TMT practices with rapid career growth if you stick around. Would rank much higher than some others TMT practices commonly named - Indus, NDA, PSA, Khaitan, and would rank in a similar league as Trilegal.