There seem to be a lot of discussions/info available on offices in Delhi and Mumbai but less so about the ones in Bangalore and Chennai. I get that a comparable job/pay to a Delhi or Mumbai-based office isn't likely but if one is restricted to these locations, which firms/offices should one seriously consider? Are the T-1 offices (applies to Bangalore mostly) at all similar to their counterparts? What about smaller offices with a presence in these cities and good culture/learning opportunities, even if the pay is on the lower end.

KCO Chennai: interned with them for 2 months a couple of years ago, nicest team - starting from the partners to the associates + good work.

Not sure about the team structure now but would defo work there

AZB chennai may has prospects since they just opened up but only time will tell

AVOID CHENNAI.

Firstly salary is shit. Local firms don't even pay you anything. HSB Partners (best local law firm in Chennai) for eg pays less than 25'000 per month.

Secondly, if you get to BigLaw firm you can never become partner or even a Counsel while working in Chennai offices. For that you need to go to Mumbai or Bangalore.

Unless you are Tamilian or is from Chennai AVOID Chennai. It is not a city worth moving to. Other than other problems.

Other problems -

1. No diversity

2. Conservative Culture

3. Hostile to outsiders (you gotta learn Tamil)

4. Business happens through local connections.

If you are an outsider move to bangalore or Mumbai. Not chennai.

One of the comments attacking Chennai as a city is utter nonsense devoid of any reasoning.

1) HSB pays 45K for A0's and not 25k. And for the record, Chennai's cost of living is pretty reasonable thanks to the excellent transport connectivity and the spread out city, compared to the island shaped city of Mumbai.

2) Partnership - boss, national level firms are just blossoming in Chennai. If you have even basic GK, you'll know that Tamil Nadu is second most developed and industrialized state after Maharashtra. And Chennai as a Metropolitan city is the IT as well as automobile hub of India. It has world class port too and all these have majorly attracted industries. If you know, Apple has setup their iPhone manufacturing unit near Chennai, and now Corning and UPS are entering too. All these means more business for corporate lawyers.

2) conservative culture - like seriously? Chennai is one of the most progressive and earliest Cosmopolitan cities. Don't know which cave you live in.

3) hostile to outsiders - lol man, there is a big community of marwadis, Rajasthanis, sindhis, bora muslims, apart from malayalis and Telugu community settled in Chennai for generations. Just because there are less north Indians you find it less conservative? Come on man, the Hindi belt doesn't represent whole of India to constitute diversity. There is a diverse crowd of South Indians from all 5 states as well as north Indian crowd. Just because we don't speak Hindi in our streets doesn't make Chennai lesser in diversity.

4) hostile to outsiders - I'm not sure what you're speaking of. Unless you to insult someone or tall trash about Tamil, no one's really going to trouble you.

5) business happens through local connection - where does it work the other way? You think local connections doesn't rule the roost in other cities? My god even locals rule it in NYC, forget Chennai!

There is a deep rooted sense of entitlement with North Indians that only Mumbai and Delhi are the mega cities in India. Maybe a bit of education and commercial awareness would make you understand that Madras was always a big thing and will continue to be a big thing in India's economical landscape

Every city is hostile to outsiders who come with a certain prejudice about a city, it's people, it's culture and disregard to local customs. Bangalore as a city is nothing in front of Chennai, the very fact that most to all appellate tribunals like NCLAT, DRAT, ITAT etc are situated in Chennai speaks volumes about the significance of Chennai as compared to Bangalore. As for corporate openings, the legal teams of many corporates like L&T etc and other manufacturing MNC 's are headquartered in Chennai. Bangalore is just a IT hub with some technology law scenes. Chennai and TN is the place where a lot of FDI, M&,A, PE, VC funding takes place compared to Bangalore. Do your own research before commenting nonsense on the basis of Hindi entitlement

This is simply not true at many levels.

(1) HSB Partners is not functioning now, but when it was, it paid between 35k and 200k. Other firms (local) pay comparable salaries.

(2) "Hostile to outsiders" is a generalization, which is incorrect, as most generalizations are.

(3) "No diversity" : Again incorrect. What diversity are you expecting ? If you are looking for gender and caste based diversity, Chennai is fantastic. If you are looking for linguistic diversity, perhaps not. But the same is true of Delhi.

Look like you had a bad experience.

Well, if you are looking at corporate then Bangalore over Chennai. There are loads of corp M&A and VC deals in the Bangalore market and tier 1 firms are booming. CAM’s best corporate partners are based out of Bangalore. Trilegal has really grown like crazy and is expanding more. SAM too, from two partners two years ago to 9 partners in Bangalore this year. And pay difference against Delhi and Bombay is not much. Like 10 percent lower mostly. And cost of living against Bombay - you save more.

Bangalore is more of a cosmopolitan city. You don’t need to know Hindi. You don’t need to know Kannada. And you can still get by. Chennai is a very nice city, and honestly, you don’t need to know Tamil to survive in Chennai as much as you need Hindi to survive in Delhi, but corporate law firms are just up and coming. AZB, SAM and KCO have decent practices there. But pay is lower than even Bangalore. So.