I come from a middle-class background; modest family income, tbh. However, I know people around me who make at least 10 LPM and I can guess that some people make at least 20 LPM given their expenditures - all of them are from business families in a T3/T2 city. They don't have lavish lifestyles, tho, but have invested heavily in assets (by lavish I mean the way people spend their money in Delhi or Bombay)

Now, in your law firm career, you will at max make 1 crore after 10 PQE at least. Post-tax, I believe the income would be close to 7 LPM in a TIER 1 CITY.

This is a good-money but nothing spectacular given that it's a T1 city.

Also, help me understand how some people on LI are claiming that partners are driving premium cars that cost upwards of 60L? It is not possible unless they are being impractical.

I mean as a partner, a few years down the line, you can at best have a decent flat, a good car in the range of 20-25 L and a good lifestyle (depending upon how you are spending on expenditures).

OR is there anything that I am missing? I am underestimating what a partner makes or I don't understand how money works? Or, am I just on point? Help me understand.

As partner you talk with CEOs, CFOs, big industry leaders, get invited to exclusive meetings and restaurants, hangout at expensive spots and feel like top of the world while earning 1/100th of a CEO salary.

At work, you have people who will fight (extremely hungry/ ambitious) to work for you or serve you. Ultimately, everyone stays because of their self image and how it makes them feel.

Money > > Status > > Power

The hype is around where you start from. When you compare the partner with business owners of T2 or T3 city, firstly, it should also be taken into consideration how it is started from scratch by a certain person and with more effort than what a Partner may put into its work. Secondly, you are comparing a 10PQE partner to a business owner who on average has owned and run it for the last 15-20 years to make it to that level. On the same aspect, if you see a senior partner who roughly has about the same experience, the senior partner for a T1 may make upwards of 3 Cr. annually. No wonder any day owning and running a business that is capable of making super profits as in your case is more lucrative but it comes with the cost of gathering courage and confidence in yourself and your product/service.

"I know people around me who make 10LPM from a business family" — yep, if I had a family like that, I probably wouldn't have had to work hard for anything in life either; the whole allure of high-paying jobs is that the middle class doesn't have money and currently, You law firms are the only way to make money in law when you come from a have-not family. If you don't think T1 pay is good enough, then your "modest" family income is far more than what an actually modest family income in our country is. Touch grass.