I fully agree with the above observations. I think as someone who began their career with boutiques and is sort of shifting towards a full-service law firms, I particularly do want to reiterate a few of the above points -

1) PAY - It is definitely less than the average corporate pay. In fact, your peers in corp will always earn more, even if you are breaking into Tier 1 [at least I believe so; I could have negotiated my own deal poorly lol]. At 4 PQE, a lot of my friends have been struggling to crack 1L a month (in hand), while corp/lit people seem to be getting it quicker.

2) OVER-SPECIALIZATION - So Boutiques largely run the game in terms of prosecution (at least in Delhi), and also (owing to the SME business they take up as opposed to big ticket clients that a Tier 1 looks for) do see a lot of highly tricky cases. But they also overly-compartmentalize. In fact, prosecution itself is broken down into: contention and non-contentious. I have spent time at firms where I literally just did oppositions or prosecutions or C&Ds. In full-service, there are two firms (in my mind) which are attempting to also take on the prosecution game - KCO and FM. The name of the game with these firms is volume, even if it comes at the cost of lower prices. Result: the usually under-staffed associate team takes the brunt. But, owing to being full-service, they often get work outside of prosecution/litigation/core IP as well (such as metrology advisory, even a little bit of data privacy compliance). Personally, I believe I should have pursued a more general role than IP prosecution, as it is highly specific.

3) Lack of feedback: If you venture into IP prosecution. I have two specific gripes I want you to know: 1) In 2026, I believe a substantial number of attorneys who have made it to the top, came-up at a time where IP laws were a little too lax. I thus find my faith waning a lot in such partners (usually people who have only done prosecution and are now partners in prosecution teams). I actually kind of blame allowing trade mark agents into prosecution. It's just a shitty mix where the attorneys in this field feel like more sophisticated TM agents without the rigour of law. E.g. - It's an entire industry who functioned on putting a Stamp Paper of INR 100 for allllll POAs without any of them even once consulting the Stamp Duty Act, ever - An.Entire.Industry. 2) TM Registry has a loooong waiting period. You can initiate an opposition and then have to wait like 6 years for an answer to come your way on merits, with no interim hearings, no update, nothing. Thus, the problem? You have a partner you can't entirely trust and a system which is not quick enough for you to truly see if your arguments bear any merit in the actual game. In some existential sense, I believe that not a growth has happened for me owing to that. I do read a lot and constantly attempt to get better sectoral knowledge and hope to upskill myself. I have also had good partners, so touch wood, I don't feel lost. But this feeling is there.

P.S - I must admit, I am writing this at a time of my life where I am frankly a little embittered with IP Prosecution and am actively moving away from it to a more transactional IP space. I know people who are having a lot of fun in this space too. No work is bad work in law if you're willing to think your way through it like a lawyer - meticulous and forensic. So don't take this to mean IP prosecution is a dead route.

P.S.S - My career (as on date) has been fully Delhi. It is possible other cities have better experiences. But I largely Delhi to be ahead in IP.

P.S.S - About the Feedback Loop. I must also admit, the TM Registry is becoming more vigilant, more stringent, and better. Thus, in 3 years time this comment might have been ancient and unusable to fingers crossed

I am a non-nepo kid practising IP law. I am very fortunate to have had a mentor (a professor during my LLM in IP in the UK) who helped me a lot. Thanks to this professor, I am working for a top foreign company in India and doing very well, both financially and in terms of exposure. It’s also a great workplace with a work life balance. In contrast, my life in a law firm, prior to my LLM, was very depressing: low pay, hectic work, not a single word of encouragement from my boss.

I am at a boutique but Renowned IP Firm, however as it goes at all other places, I am limited to protection, but am highly interested in developing my skills in the allied areas like M&E, Tech etc. Any suggestions as to how should I start and what skills should I develop exactly?

I am a reasonably senior IP lawyer. Earning pretty well and advising good clients in both lit and prosecution. Some advice I can share with students are:

- You need patience in this space. Starting salaries are low but will go up with time. Don’t be depressed early on if you get low pay. I myself am an example. Thought I don’t earn as much as a CAM corporate partner, it’s still very good pay. I started by earning peanuts.

- The top lawyers and law firms in this field survive entirely on foreign clients. Indian clients are 🤮 both in terms of work and billing. If you happen to be in a firm which advises mainly Indian clients, that’s not a good firm! Many small boutique firms have very good foreign clients. Join them.

- The future if this field is tech. Tech. Tech. Tech. You must keep yourself up to date with the latest developments in this space and get to know about the tech itself.

- Finally, just like in corporate law, there are some law firm owners who unfortunately are oligarchs in this practice area: keeping salaries low, promoting nepo kids and making no investment in continuing education and training. If foreign law firms come in they will hopefully fade away.

I understand there is a dearth of information about niche practice areas such as TMT, IP etc., and I hope this response provides a bit more clarity to readers -

1) The IP practice in India is dominated by boutique IP firms who operate primarily in cities that have a branch of the IP office or a High Court that regularly takes up IP matters (typically Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata). These boutique law firms are involved in the bulk of prosecution work, which is the bread and butter of any IP lawyer.

2) A pure IP practice can be classified into three major areas - prosecution, litigation and transactions. Prosecution pretty much relates to all IP filing work (including responding to office actions, opposition proceedings) and corresponding advisory work. This accounts for a bulk of income for IP firms. Litigation, naturally, relates to IP disputes. Most firms work straightforward cases related to trademark, copyright or patent infringement. Since IP is still growing in India, complex cases involving various questions of law usually go to a few boutique firms who have a history of doing good IP litigation work (such as Anand, Remfry, Singh, Saikrishna etc.). These offices are primarily based in Delhi due to the IP Division having judges such as Pratibha Singh, who were former IP lawyers and have a deeper understanding of IP law. Transactional work is available with very few firms, but typically involves drafting and negotiation of agreements (licenses, assignments, co-existence agreements, JV agreements etc., that are IP centric). Such work is also very sector specific, with firms such as ANM Global, Khimani etc. dominating the M&E industry and regularly making production, artist agreements.

3) A few full-service law firms (T1 and T2) such as Khaitan, AZB, SAM and now CAM have fully functional IP teams. However, these firms (barring Khaitan) do not do a lot of prosecution work due to the clerical nature of work, and abundance of competitors who are willing to do such work for much lesser fees. These firms typically work on IP transactions (assisting M&A teams with IP portion of transactions), negotiating IP agreements and allied agreements for larger clients. They also tend to do a lot more advisory work across IP and allied fields. The IP team in AZB, for example, also handles a lot of pharmaceutical regulatory work whereas Khaitan seems to be doing a lot of technology related and advertising regulatory work. Can't comment on SAM, and CAM has recently started an IP team so not too sure about the kind of work they do.

4) Breaking into a boutique firm is SIGNIFICANTLY easier than joining a full-service firm with an IP team.

5) Ideally, one should always be very clear with IP prosecution before venturing into other areas of IP (including litigation or transactions).

6) The industry is slowly (but surely) becoming more sensitive towards IP as a practice area. This is also evident with the increased involvement of IP and Tech teams on commercial deals (go check any deal reporting by major law firms and see IP partners who have assisted such deals). However, understand that as a practice area, IP is very very concentrated and there is an over-availability of lawyers. If you wish to succeed and make it to the top (which is where the money is, unfortunately), you need to have a very deep industry / sector understanding, along with experience in allied fields such as TMT, Data Protection and Privacy etc.

7) Hours are not, as others claim, "chill". This is completely dependent on the firm you work for, and the quantum of work they have. This is especially true if you're working for a fullservice firm's IP / TMT team. Due to the smaller team sizes, the quantum of work often gets overwhelming.

8) Money, especially in early phases, is significantly lower than Corp Teams unless you manage to break into a Tier-1 firm. (Do your research about differential pay here too).

9) If you're interested in pure IP work, join a boutique firm. No better place to learn and do only IP work. Personally, felt that such work was very mundane and wanted to have a taste of all work under IP and related fields, thus chose to join a T1 full-service firm. Work is fun, regularly get to work across sectors including M&E, Pharma, Tech. This means work isn't purely IP, but also a lot of compliance, advisory and regulatory work.

10) DO YOUR RESEARCH about the kind of work the firm does. Boutiques may also place you in over-specialsed and demarcated groups such as 'prosecution' team, where you may be stuck doing purely IP prosecution. While you gain immense expertise in the prosecution field, I feel like you shouldn't limit yourself to only one area, especially as a fresher.

First suggestion, do not enter ip prosecution. Once you enter there is rarely an exit from the practice and after the ROI does not justify the salary increase as majority of IP prosecution is done by boutique firms so the corporate T1s don't really want to enter it (other than KCO).

My suggestion would be to enter IP transactional or litigation. Try to get into the relevant teams in Anand and Anand or Saikrishna. Remfry is also great provided yothey don't push you in prosecution.

Disclaimer - this is a personal opinion. There are many who have found their footing in IP prosecution and are earning really well.