Hi, as the title says, just looking for recommendations of good, as healthy as reasonably possible capital market teams where the partner has an iota of care for their associates, and has enough decisiveness to stave of unnecessary work until Monday instead of showing off and making associates work on the weekends. Anything?

The words "good, healthy" and "boundaries" are words in a foreign tongue to commercial law firms in India. Please understand that and start life on that basis. Working in an Indian law firm means your health and your personal life go to die. Getting married? Be ready to be asked if it can be avoided/postponed to later in life. Mother's funeral? Carry the laptop, maybe you don't have to work, or wait... perhaps you actually do... sorry for your loss and all that mate, but business is business. Brother's wedding? Type an email related to a deliverable surreptitiously while the priest is chanting the mantras. Child's school is conducting a parents' evening where the French teacher wants to complain that little Johny's been ragging in class and the Maths teacher wants to complain that if his marks don't pick up, he'll fail the board exam? Let the kid's other parent deal with it unless you want the golden prison doors unlocked and to join the lines of unemployed up and down the country. Oh and don't forget - don't give a flying fuck about Johny's behaviour in French or marks in Maths except to the extent required to administer the obligatory tongue lashing and moderately hard slap on the arm (neither of which will ever happen, be honest with yourself, because no child, however badly behaved, should be tortured into staying up as late as you return home).

Whether or not you make that sacrifice or should do so are not questions on which I should give a judgment. That's just how the status quo is, nothing indicates that there'll be a change and therefore, you need to decide for yourself. You know that the foreign law firms ain't coming - they aren't stupid - so the Lalajis gonna rule us for a while longer. Simples.

Best of luck and have fun, either way.

Hi, OP here. I understand all that - have been working for a few years now. I think the points about skipping funerals and weddings is a little overblown. You must be good at your job to finish it on time. I did not mean the general rush of the practice area itself but more personal preferences to make people work for no reason. I take my job very seriously and I understand no law firm can afford to sit idle while other firms send in their deliverables - in CM, that is most of what actually happens. Thanks though