Speaking from experience, disputes before the charity commissioners. Have seen advocates who practice solely before the JCC/ACC and mint money like crazy. The core dispute before the charity commissioners is almost always disposal of lands and there’s always a steady flow of income since redevelopment activities (around Bombay atleast) is at an all time high. There are large land parcels held by various public charitable trusts and builders are ready to pay up good amount of money to acquire rights with respect to these lands for their projects.

Nclt and nclat has the most money apart from sat. But sat is very much fixated in mumbai and dominated mainly by bombay counsels. Drts and drats come next. Then aptel etc. Yes if u compare two people with equal standing practicing in hc/sc and the other in nclt/nclat, chances are the latter would be charging more and earning more. But the issue with a sole and exclusibe tribunal practice are the following:

1. Looked down upon by almost everyone - like it or not; there is a unsaid hierarchy in law where sc lawyers>hc lawyers>dist court lawyers. Tribunal lawyers stand at the very bottom

2. V less scope of senior designation - regardless wof what judgements say, this is true. Experienced it. Ask anyone around.. you dont practice in hc/sc - hardly any chance of getting semior gown

3. Very specialised - while it can be a plus, but all your eggs are in one basket being the tribunal..sc/hc lawyers who primiarly practice in hc and occassiomaly in other fora do better in this regard

Electricity Law, I feel perhaps is the most lucrative Tribunal to practice. Apart from APTEL, there's i think electricity commissions in every state. If i am not wrong at JSA one of two key managing partners Amit Kapur also solely practices electricity law. in fact, Vishrov Mukherjee who was the other high profile partner to move to Tri last year, with Anuj Berry, also solely practices electricity law. Even Akshay Jaitly (Tri co-founder) was key person in electricity law and routinely puts up electricity sector posts on his Linkedin.

A close friend who practices electricity keeps telling me me how in SC electricity law matters are some of the biggest commercial matters with dispute value almost always being above 500-800cr and its only the top tier silk gowns who are briefed. I feel the reason is that its the playing field of adanis, tatas, reliance, vedanta, renew power. He tells me Tri, KCO, JSA, DSK are knee deep in the practice. There a lot of small boutiques firms like SKV and MSA Partners with a good chunk of the work who are good paymasters as well. to summarize electricity is some serious money for those who can get in.