I see your point. I think the number of people staying on in law firms after 5-6 years is also relatively higher than in other markets where decent exit options start appearing from year 3. Companies and government offices continuously absorb legal talent from law firms. At a more senior level (year 7-9) people moving in-house are able to send work to their law firms and it’s a win-win placement for the law firm and company. There is a serious dearth of in-house opportunities where ones career and pay can grow.

Although Indian law firms have more attrition than Indian companies, many shuffle within law firms for bonus and fancy designations. Not too long ago Trilegal was recruiting Principal Associates with the promise of a Counsel position. Eventually teams will become top heavy everywhere and will have to quote lower prices because the client cannot afford to staff top-heavy teams.

I don't Agree with this. I think Law School along with the first 5 years after Law School should be about exploring and working on multiple practice areas. Then decide the practice area and natue of work environment most suited to you. Because it is going to define the next 30 years of your life. Cannot decide your niche so early without any exposure and maturity as well in most cases.

A petition does not need to be endearing to be effective.

It just needs to be cheaper for the client (AI cost), no errors (newest version LLM models have suprising accuracy in citations), and legal application (Also AI). Just enter a court and see how much a judge allot time to a petition and how they all want to just cut to the chase.

Adding to this discussion, one big problem is that law entrance coaching centres present an unrealistic picture to law aspirants and their parents. They are told that if you get into any NLU or Jindal, or even Symbi or Bennett, you will get fantastic salaries.

I think the best career is actually running a law entrance coaching centre. Say a lot of shit and have zero accountability. Very good money too.

This problem is across the board / practices. It's not because of anything but the fact that Indians are promoted in the law firm setting way too fast which has massively increased cost pressure for firms and target pressure for individuals.

The rapid growth model made sense for law firms initially as they were gunning for size. But at some point, law firms need to stop and think if such large-scale growth is financially feasible. I personally don't think it is. When I joined law firms, a tier 1 would have 50 to 70 partners. This growth in size happened over more than 20 ish years. Less than 10 years later, firms have 150 to 200 ish partners. The rate of growth is insane. The rate of increase in non-partner strength is even greater.

I don't think we will see large scale layoffs, but we will see promotions being stretched out. I mean, we must also accept that something is weird in our system where our newly minted partners have less experience than associates at foreign law firms, both in the west and in the orient.

Having too many young partners sets the course for having incompetent partners. I do not mean they are incompetent in terms of work (while some are), but incompetent in terms of selling legal work to clients. Therefore, these new partners undercut severely to generate a "book" which spoils the market. Developing a book is a skill which takes time to develop. You cannot have associates working 15 hours 7 days a week for 9 / 10 years and all of a sudden ask them where is their book? When law firms do that, such newly minted partners are forced to undercut and get some chunk of the pie which in turn spoils the entire market. This increases financial pressure which trickles down.

Developing relationships in the market, which is a precursor to developing a book, takes time. Firms need to give that time, and that can only happen when law firms adopt a more feasible model. In the Indian context, the counsel model which KCO follows is currently the most sustainable model. However, if other firms keep dishing out the tag of partnership before its feasible, even KCO counsels will run. Anyways, even the KCO counsel model will run out of steam in a couple of years once there will be counsels in large numbers. The tenure for associates, SAs and PAs need to increase at least by 50% to 75%, if any meaningful change is to be seen in the ecosystem. Also, while the tenure for associates is extended, these resources need training on BD and personnel management over the years to become ready to be relevant partners who will not have to engage in bottom feeding or undercutting to sustain themselves.

If we cannot change the growth trajectory for individuals, firms will need to fire people to cull the herd. I do not think that is a solution anyone needs / wants. We need sustainability and not hunger games. But this is a truth, all lawyers need to internalize and not only law firm management.

And the above comment does not even take into account pressure imposed by "tier - lex [something] or similarly named" law firms who have set up shop because they couldn't take up the intense pressure of tier-1s. While much of those firms are shit, many are run by quality tier-1 trained resources. They have the ability to provide similar quality service at a fraction of the price. Big law firm models need to figure a way for sustainability to not lose out on these resources which invariably increase further upward pressure and unreasonable price competition. If culling the herd is a solution, similar law firms will not only rise in numbers but also in quality further complicating the issue. Where exits from one Amarchand Mangaldas gave rise to half a dozen tier 1s, imagine what exits from half a dozen tier 1s can do.

What we have is an industry wide issue. People need a reality check, but nobody wants one.

I know this comment is all over the place but wanted to vocalize a few quick thoughts. Someday, when I have time, will structure this better.

Answer is simple. Make legal education more relevant and rigorous. Abolish BALLB and have BBALLB or BScLLB as the standard course. Offer courses in hardcore finance, statistics, economics, calculus, econometrics, data science and data analysis. Offer weekly CAT/GMAT or CA/ICWA coaching, so that students can have more options after graduating. Also offer courses in spoken English, business communication, grooming and etiquette. Have workshops on entrepreneurship and starting a business The CLAT exam should have a 30% maths component, to filter out students accordingly.

Sorry to sound blunt, but wokeness is a luxury we cannot afford anymore.

M&A Partner at SAM here. I agree with SA2 TT&A. I don't see this playing out the way OP puts it, at all. I agree that firms need fewer lawyers IMO. That's not to say younger lawyers can't do better than the existing ccrop.The market will be competitive and the expectations of clients will change. Not all current lawyers will be able to make the cut. It's the older lawyers (the ones that can't adapt) that need to worry IMO, they're about to be outperformed by younger ones. It's an excellent time to be a young corporate lawyer.

So, basically, very few will be able to become PA. Out of that, extremely less PAs shall become Salaried Partners. And even lesser will become Equity Partners. In that case, what are the Exits available to SAs or PAs or even Salaried Partners of they are fed up with the life and unable to sustain it anymore? What are the job prospects for such senior corporate lawyers? Is independent corporate practice possible? Should Associates state working with goal to become independent instead of aiming to become partners? Gimme Some Truth.

Salaries were great when there was only one NLU in Bengaluru dishing out 80 students a year. Now, thanks to the mushrooming of NLUs and private law schools, plus huge batch sizes, the market is weighed against law grads. Salaries haven't changed in 20 years, in some cases.

Kids, focus on an MBA.

Agreed with most of OPs points. To add some more factors - you are most likely to build a career if you can get expertise in a certain field and "corporate law" within most firms tends to be an umbrella...public M&A, private M&A, commercial transactions and advisory work, private equity, venture capital. It's simple, to make revenue a corporate partner will do any kind of corporate work once they have built that relationship with the client. They can look for associates who have particular expertise in that kind of matter but frankly staffing happens on availability.

As a student you are: (1) unlikely to understand what the day to day in each sub-set looks like; (2) unlikely to have a choice when you start out. When I started, we were fortunate if we were assigned to our city and practice area of choice.

I think corporate still presents the most opportunities and there is a lot of scope for growth, and for the smart ones who want to make partner, find a niche and become an expert over time by investing in your career and networking with industry professionals once you are PA level (which few people do) or become a service partner executing the endless deals of your firm's big clients. But law firms are inherently a pyramid scheme (max number of junior associates, smallest number of partners) so if you're 10 years into your career and not on partner-track, it's tough. In other fields, you're rising to upper management or decision making positions because you're an expert.

When a counsel from Trilegal is posting this, shows so much on the state of affairs. Is the market really that bad?

Khaitan just released a new report on mergers predicting a rise in M and A transactions for the second quarter of 2025

If this the state for M and A which is supposed to be a very lucrative practice, what about other subsets like employment/cap marks...or even disputes

Which area should an Associate join in a law firm then?

The legal profession is in chaos.

It’s oversaturated. Everyone’s competing to the bottom. Clients push back on even basic fees like they’re haggling over roadside chaat. And honestly? It’s exhausting. Here are a few real stories from my independent litigation practice in Delhi that sum it all up:

1. Section 34 petition for a ₹30 crore arbitral award.

Big money at stake. Complex issues. Multiple hearings. I quoted ₹7 lakhs all-in—with instalments, mind you. Still got undercut by someone who quoted ₹1 lakh. For the entire thing. No typo. One. Lakh.

2. Reply to a legal notice—client’s staring down a potential contempt case.

I quote ₹15K, knowing I’ll be pulling an all-nighter, skipping the weekend, crafting it like a Supreme Court reply. Client says, “How about ₹4K?” I declined, obviously, and just gave him some pointers ex gratia—so he could YOLO his way through the legal minefield.

3. Arbitration hearing (March 2025).

Client snaps at me for charging ₹50K for a hearing that lasted 2+ hours—and took two days of prep. His logic? “I can’t lose this case anyway, so why are you charging?” This, right after I got him interim relief. Delulu is truly the solulu.

4. This one hurt.

Spent two months drafting a detailed oppression & mismanagement petition—every comma placed with care. Client never filed it (strategy reasons), then straight-up ghosted on the fee. In another case where I got him exactly what he wanted, he randomly deducted 35% from the bill. No conversation, no rationale. Just… vibes.

I’m not broke. I’m not bitter. But let’s be real—this is not sustainable.

The undercutting, the entitlement, the disrespect for labour—it’s wild.

I became a litigator to fight cases, not clients. Wtf!

Absolutely. It is a profession that is completely saturated now and the number of new lawyers coming in (or even those who came in say post 2010 or so) is just beyond the capacity of the current market. Strongly recommend that that you pivot if possible as the explosion of law schools has only made this problem worse.

Why is M&A bleeding? Trilegal M&A might be bleeding but not otherwise.

I joined as a Capital Markets A0 and they've been telling me that I may be replaced anytime now. If M&A is gonna cut down then safe to say freshers will loose jobfaster than usual.

Request to mods to flag such posts because this creates unwanted panic and hysteria, the least of which someone at a A0 level needs.

Stop fearmongering. Corporate law is currently the best profession for young law graduates to earn financial stability in their lives. With increasing globalisation and India signing FTAs with developed countries, the market is going to open up more. The PE/VC market is still at a very nascent stage in India as compared to the mature PE market in the US/UK. When Indian PE market matures and capital markets reach all time high, practice areas like M&A/PE/VC, capital markets, B&F will become the highest billing fields, even more than US (barring China). The A0 pay would easily cross 40-50 LPA in the next 10 years. Mark my words.

OP here - if you can somehow pivot to a corporate litigation practise of your own and build even a decent sized client base - nothing like that. However operationally seen it to be very tough for first gen lawyers. Some of us have real bills to pay - cannot afford to not earn anything for the initial even 5 years - even if you aren’t supporting your parents. I am sorry if I don’t have better answers - me and many people my age are in a similar flux. No one wants to be 32 and out of a high paying job but the reality is in front of our eyes.

C2 at Trilegal here - absolutely attest to what the guy’s saying - partnerships tracks? Forget about it? Any ounce of stability? Forget about it. Also if you are an A0 who has gotten placed a big firm - just know - they are already discussing about cutbacks. M&A as a practise is literally BLEEDING.

Would it be advisable for professionals working in corporate law to pivot to another practice area such as real estate, intellectual property, or commercial contracts? Also, what is your opinion on starting an independent corporate legal practice after gaining around 3 years of experience?

Kids, there's no easy way to say this - this profession in India was meant to consume a much much smaller number of lawyers that could meaningfully work and rise through the ranks to become future partners. I see it everyday - principal associates are regularly told to pack their bags. At that time you are what 31, 32? in any other profession you would be just starting out, finding your footing. Here? Complete eradication. I say this with zero malice, think about something else. Not because of AI, not because of pressure but because if you truly try to understand the depths of corporate law - the paying capacity of clients, the actual revenues of Indian law firms vs foreign law firms, the partner track as of TODAY - you would actually do much better literally in any other profession. Ask any principal associate or even retained partner and they will tell you the exact same thing.