Yes the difference really is significant. Big Law associates in the US get paid a lot more compared to Tier 1 associates in India (adjusted for purchasing power). The reasons for it come down to (i) the fact that the US is leaps and bounds ahead of India economically while having less than a third of its population, which means the same is true for nearly all professions, and (ii) the significantly higher competition for talent among firms in the US. While the two are interconnected, the Indian legal market is also very arbitrarily restrictive which plays a part in bringing law firm compensation down (at least at the associate levels)

nonsense. us first year grads are typically 27-30 years old and have 4-6 years of (non legal) work experience under their belt. by the time a lawyer is 27 -30 in a good firm in India, should be earning between 40 - 50L. The question is whether 200k at 50% taxation and NY rents and cost of living is comparable to 40-50L in Delhi with delhi costs of living. the objective answer is that 40-50L is a lot more.

even if one were to go a step below to a slightly lesser paymaster at 30-40L, still better than NY.

so cost is not the ideal comparison. independance, prestige, quality of work etc. ought to be the difference (but even that is changing - r u saying a leading M&A partner at CAM has less prestige than an M&A partner at Nixon Peabody? nonsense) , and on the other side there is racism, tougher market, visa etc.

Add the cost of that LLM although it seems to be a fun break year

As someone who’s worked in NY and in India there is no doubt the US firms pay a lot more on an apples to apples comparison. The rents in NY are high yes (approx 30-35% of post tax pay) but isn’t the proportion the same if not higher in Mumbai? You may say everyday things like groceries and all are more expensive (and thats true) but do you not realise those form a relatively smaller part of the average monthly expense for high paid professionals like law firm associates (both in India and in US). Outside of rent the biggest expenses tend to be discretionary purchases where the PPP difference almost entirely fades away.

The OP’s question was not if Indian grads have it better at US law firms but in general whether law firms there pay higher on an adjusted basis.

On CAM v Nixon - if we’re not taking relative standing of the firms into consideration why don’t we compare Veritas with Kirkland as well? Neither is a fair comparison and you know it.

And no a TYPICAL first year in the US does not have 4-6 years of non-legal experience. Most of them do not work beyond 1-2 years before joining law school. Many of them have no prior work experience at all (though that would only be around 15-20%)

The highest paying Indian law firm for freshers is CAM/KCO at 21-22LPA - highest paying among magic circle is Clifford Chance/Freshfields/Links at 76LPA (this is pre SQE - trainee salary). Now, if we were to compute PPP as against the most expensive city in India (Mumbai) and the most expensive city in the UK (London) - the math is that the London trainee earns about 3.5 times more on the face of it.

Approximate PPP adjustment

A reasonable way economists think about this is that the UK price level is roughly 2.3–2.8× India’s (depending on the basket of goods and methodology).

Using a midpoint of 2.5×:

- London trainee:
- ₹76 lakh nominal
- PPP-adjusted purchasing power ≈ ₹30–31 lakh in India

Compared with:

- CAM/KCO fresher:
- ₹22 lakh

The effective purchasing-power gap becomes:

31 ÷ 22 ≈ 1.4×

So after accounting for local prices, the London trainee is closer to 40% better off, not 245% better off.

(ChatGPT did the math)

But really, when the London trainee becomes a NQ solicitor - the difference is steep. And even accounting for PPP, Indian law firm pay is abysmally low compared to UK/US/even Singapore counterparts.

But SQE is actually rigid and has a lower pass percentage so it makes sense for them to make it steep afterwards. I mean we also have/had firms who paid for clearing that bare minimum level AIBE. However, that is not to say that I disagree with your point in here and to make it worse since the market is closed off for India everywhere it's highly difficult to crossover to there unless one has contacts (yes I did not include foreign LLM deliberately because there's no guarantee through that).

It matters where you live in the US. All of BigLaw in the US pays the same scale. So, an associate living in Chicago, Philly, Miami, Houston, etc. and earning the typical Cravath/Milbank scale saves a LOT LOT more than ones working in NYC and living in the city (triple taxation).