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Airtel, considered a good paymaster among Indian conglomerates, in 2020 had around 60+ employees who were earning more than 1cr. These 60 employees in all certainty have 15+ years of MBA PQE. Minimum age of these employees would be 40 (uninformed guess). Best work life balance.
MBB consulting might pay close to those numbers once you are at a principal or equivalent level. One can attain this level, provided they survive the needs of the firm, at 6 years MBA PQE. Minimum age of these consultants would be 30+. Work life balance takes a hit but still doable.
Top law firm only pays this amount to non equity partners and above. I am assuming a minimum of 10+ years PQE. Work-work imbalance.
Investment Banking, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, Venture Capital, AIFs, MFs might pay such amount at an earlier PQE but I don't have any clue. Most I could find was unverifiable rumours of IITB guys and IIMA guys being hired for 50+LPA and 1+CRPA respectively. Although these are the upper limits, the median IMO should not vary by more than 20%. PQE does not matter in this case. Work life balance depends, IB is worse than law firms and VC is pretty chill.
Most of the students who get into top law firms on merit are smart enough to choose any of the other career paths. Plus expert knowledge of a particular subject is not a pre-requisite in any of these fields. These are all learn as you work jobs which require an above average problem solving ability. The options apart from law firms are also in almost all certainly are much well managed simply because of how they are structured.
Assuming that the above information is true, which might not be, and if it is not please correct me in the thread, what makes law a logical choice of profession to pursue?
Really depends on what suits you.
2. Consultancy is not an easy job. The work hours are in fact worse than law firms, considering the constant business trips and travelling. It takes a toll on a person’s mental and physical health. The lack of a uniform work-location is not good if you want to build other relationships outside of work. You are barely going to have time to engage in stuff which require you to stay at one place at least for a longer period of time without constant travelling. But money compensates for it and if you like the fast lifestyle, you may even like it.
3. Law-firms provide a relatively decent career progression with good money. While the money isn’t that great initially, the compounding effect of staying in at a law firm kicks in after yours 30s when you make partner at Tier 1s. But mind you, work hours and stress is similar or more at higher levels. Law-firm life is not as fast paced as consulting or IB/PE/VC so it gives you the time and opportunity to build relationships at one place but still many relationships turn sour due to the law firm work hours. However, the worst thing about law firms are the toxicity that runs through each floors in a law firm. At the same time, corporate lawyers are not viewed with same respect as that of counsels appearing in High Courts. The work of a transactional lawyer is mostly meaningless as the work that you’ll be doing doesn’t justify the pay. All the major work is already done by a PE/IB/VC guy. Only post-negotiation transaction works are given to M&A lawyers who do the crumbs and residuary aspects of a transaction. It is mostly due diligence, drafting word docs which has no material value in the transaction honestly. Such work can be even done by low tier corporate firms.
4. IB/PE/VC has the worst work-life balance but the money is too good to be true. If you are in this field, forget about everything else in life and just console yourself with the money that you will be paid. A lot of trade-offs in this field but if you are obsessed with money, choose this field.
I am a person who hates any sort of mathematics to the core. So naturally I cannot imagine myself doing a job involving quants for rest of my life for a slightly better paycheck who a similar hectic WLB.