I wanted to know which teams (specifically partners) draw highest salaries in Tier 1 law firms and how much is the difference between each team approximately. It would be really helpful if someone who is familiar with the compensation and pay structures to give detailed answers

Please include the following teams-

gen corp/M&A/PE/Vc/transactions

Disputes - lit/arbitration/white collar

Projects/taxation/ IPR/ real estate/ banking and finance/ projects finance etc

1. Gen Corp (Transactions) - The M&A/PE/VC teams at any law firm are the highest billing teams. Most law firms are surviving because of the transactions teams only.

2. Disputes - Most dispute teams are low billing compared to other teams. However, some arbitration teams such as Tejas Karia's team in SAM have high billing. Equity partners in the disputes team at SAM Delhi are easily drawing in 3-4 crores per annum.

3. Capital Markets - It is a very low-margin practice area but the thing is, the practice is high volume. The frequency and high volume of IPOs, FPOs, QIPs, Rights Issues and secondary issuances make up for the low margin. There is too much work in this space to not generate high earnings.

4. Projects Finance/B&F - Both are similar in terms of billing. B&F might be higher but there is a cross-over between these two practices as in some teams, there is no bifurcation between B&F and PF work as most project financing involves financing-related work.

5. Taxation - For taxation, LKS rules. They have a very good practice with great clientele. The billing is very high in some indirect taxation teams at LKS. If you can stick it out, there is high scope for drawing in 4-5 crores at the higher positions due to the intense specialization of this field and lack of many lawyers.

6. IPR - Lowest paying practice area across all law firms. However, this practice is growing and might become huge in the future.

7. Real Estate - This is a very low-billing practice area. There isn't much work to generate high earnings. Better do traditional real estate litigation than enter in this area through lawfirms.

Visit CAM someday and see how much the project finance teams bill as compared to your real estate teams in Kco billing peanuts lol. You sound like a fourth year law student who just recently got an internship with the real estate team as you are not capable to get an internship with the GC team through the recruitment committee in your college.

kiddo CAM PF lawyers charge peanuts for their debt financing transactions. Doing a 200 crore deal for a project outside India comes with a billing of 7-8 lakhs at max. Don't talk if you don't know how the world works. Even if each partner has more than 3-4 transactions of such sort a month, a lean team involving a partner and 2 A0s at max can wind up the documentation. Projects is a volume game and all about undercutting since another firm outside CAM will do the same deal for half the cost. While I'm nobody to comment on the KCO vs CAM debate, Real Estate teams charge a fixed % of their large scale transactions unlike Projects (which more often comes with a better chance of billing higher sums).

Gen corp advisory teams are not worth it, they don't pay as much because you are not running transactions. You will end up working more because Partners end up taking more legal opinion mandates to meet targets.

Good option if you like learning new things and don't want to look at DDs

Sit down buddy - take a look around you, see and observe what’s happening. It’s capital markets era and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Compare your bonus with folks from cm teams across t1s. See where t1 firms are taking their Cm teams for retreats and then see where they are taking random so called high billing gc teams.

Capital markets is here to stay, winter can come n go.