The last punch line was a real joke.........."It is understood that several firms are in the process of evaluating their base salaries over the coming months". Advocates lecture on how they worked for no income for months...........and that is what they do with the freshers. So I'm eagerly waiting to see which are those SEVERAL FIRMS.

what do the freshers do at a law firm so that they are paid this much huge salary at the starting? i mean i don't have any idea about freshers jobs in a law firm. but if this is the situation then I think perhaps knowledge in law matters after the brand name of the institution where one studied law.

Several firms... ALMT? Majumdar? Nishith Desai?

Amarchand pays over 11!

I don't understand why people think that these are large sums. The firms are still not paying associates as much as they should considering the billings of these firms. Most law firms are tight lipped about their revenues so that they can tell their Associates that the firm isn't doing well.

@5 that happens with Nishith Desai!

I've worked at NDA and compared to the place I moved to, which ofcourse pays "very" well, I can only say that the team at NDA is by far the nicest and most competent I have ever worked with. Not only do they know what they are doing, unlike certain firms which is still "try"ing to figure things out, they also offer very good learning. At NDA you are treated with respect and not talked down to. The downside I guess is that clearly they are unwilling to pay as much as some of the other firms. The upside, if you are willing to stay for a few years, you would have learnt twice as much as your peers elsewhere and would definitely not have been treated as another a slave in a sweat factory.

I chose money, a decision I regret.

Most of the Third Tier firms like [...] belive in cribbing about revenues while partners keep on buying properties and never belive in sharing even a bit... as such Tier One law firms are far more better than these!!!

Kian...why were the names of Third Tier firms deleted and Nishit Desai is publicly being criticised?

Agree with #9!!!! Let us have an open forum...else whats the point of inviting comments?

@#2 - Frustrated Junior Advocate: Why do you want to pull other people earning well down. If you are frustrated then plan a career change from litigation. Why are you pulling down transactional lawyers from earning salaries commensurate to the billing by firms on the basis of their work in the field.

Undoubtedly TT&A is doing some excellent work. Has a good board of lawyers and I hear the work-life balance is wonderful. This seems like one of the most perfect places to work.

Law firm salaries in India are a joke. Let's look at some figures.
Even average firms such as Trilegal bill time of fresh graduates at not less than 5000 per hour. these chaps are made to work at least 8 hours a day for 25 days a month. That gives you 10 lakhs - assuming the firm discounts that by half, it gets 5 lakhs. as against that the associate is paid less than a lakh or about 1.5 taking bonus into account. in other words the firm makes more than twice the amount the associate makes, and this is as conservative as it gets.

the big prob in india is that most firms still are too stingy in paying their non-partner staff. amss and azb pay relatively high but nothing warranting a debt of gratitude. khaitan used to be a miserly firm but they have recently made big payouts and raises. what the other firms dont realise is that in a growing legal market, unless you pay well, no one is going to stick around. meaning you cant develop a practice for the long run, thereby remaining confined to the B-grade clients.

In comparison, IIM alumni with comparable years of exp. can easily expect to earn twice an amss salary, in india.

to mr. more money(#12)

Sir I am a resident of a 3 tier city of India(NE region) & studied law in a govt. law college(rather I should say 3 tier law college). I frankly don't have any idea about what the freshers do at a law firm. In my state there is not a single law firm. I am not trying to pull other people's earning but just want to know what do our counter parts in such bigshot law firms do so that they are highly paid. Do you ever could think in your dream that a fresher from a college as I have studied get a placement in such law firms with such extravagant packages?? that's why I said the brand name of college matters.

@ 14 - i don't think first yr salaries shld be compared to revenues of a firm coz first yr graduates frankly do not add any value to the firms work. in the first yr as they r mainly learning, most times the work done by freshers has to be re-done. plus the firm provides the learning opportunities as well as infrastructure support. thts y first yr salaries need not be unnecessarily exaggerated. however, in principle i do agree wit the point tht associate salaries in indian firms are nowhere compared to firms revenues.

@Frustrated Junior Advocate: Apologies, I had not get the tone of your first comment initially.

See, first year law associates are paid these amounts of money since, the "Big Law" firms bill in the range of Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 10,000 per hour of their time to their clients. Its only fair that the firm passes on a small fraction of their billings to these associates even if a lot of their hours need to be discounted they still bill lots on the basis of the manpower provided by first year law associates.

Brand names do matter but you can achieve anything you want including coming to a larger city and work for these firms. It only needs taking risk, hard work and a bit of luck. But honestly, in a 3 tier city you have been presented with a great opportunity to earn a name of your own, rather than work for the "Big Law" Firms, albeit for higher amounts of money. Best of Luck! Cheers.

@16 - I disagree with you. Even though their work needs to be redone or reviewed, the firms NEED to invest in their next gen of mid level associates. Also even if they generate 10 hours of billable work in the month, its a break even for the firm...and most associates end up doing more hours per month. Additionally, firms get many deals because they boast of man power for labour intensive deals like cap markets due diligences etc. So let's be very clear the law firms are not doing any favours to the associates.

To mr. more money(#17)

Thanks for wishing me luck sir. now I hv understood to some extent what is the position. but I would like to be a a self-made man. nevertheless frustration comes as there is sometimes no pay or a meager pay like a NREGA worker, where I had to work 12-14 hrs a day for the senior !! but I believe in "no pain no gain".

@16 - i agree with u tht firms need manpower to show strength in numbers, but the firm's strategy is mostly to (a) attract best talent and (b) to retain talent so tht they form the next gen of middle level associates. however, this does not mean tht firm's shld pay first yr associates higher salaries jus coz the firm is generating higher revenues. first yr associates do no add much value to the firm's revenues. plus they are raw n need training. the high salaries are mainly an investment by the firm, without ne guaranteed returns. these associates may move to anr firm in their 2nd-3rd yrs if they find better deals. fact is firm's need junior lawyers and junior lawyers need work experience n training. so no1 is doin ne1 any favours. also, salaries of associates shld be compared with firm revenues only once the associates actually strt contributing to the firms revenues.

I don't know what is giving so many the impression that first year associates do not contribute to firm revenue. They very much do and in fact the bulk of billing hours is made up of 1st to 3rd year associate hours. Only when time caps are exceeded do firms usually discount the 1st years hours but nevertheless at least 1/3 to 1/2 of all revenue comes from such associates.

@20 - A lot of first year law associates after the initial six to eight months start contributing to the revenues by generating billable hours. Lot of them are sent on due diligences, which even first year law associates can do easily, and the firm can bill their hours. Therefore, the firm does earn some money off the first year associates and we cannot discount their roles completely, albeit the need for supervision of more senior associates also. Additionally, I agree with you that partly their pay also is an investment made by the firm, ut this investment is essential. The firm can incentivise retention and attracting the best talent through higher pay packages. If the firm does not pay enough, students from the best law schools will not join the firm. So believe me firms are not paying high salaries through the goodness of their hearts, but because they need to.

all i can see is some crap news which cannot be true at all.
fresher contributing.........billable hours etc.........even if it is true.....10 lakhs can only be given if that person has some rich business contacts that could fetch work for this law firm. not otherwise.

@ Mr. Haha - #23 - Well the fact is that these are the salaries being paid. Without "business contacts" being brought to the form. Lol. That is what the market has decided. Actually, many senior associates / partners earn much much more, without bringing "business contacts" to the firm - just on their ability to manage a deal.

Interesting posts. I completely agree with Frustrated Junior Advocate. As a person who is in a state which has no firm and coming from a government college he has brought up the very important issue of branding which is escaping a lot of freshers from the National Law schools.

I am a DU graduate -- so that's not some obscure law school, and have been practicing for 8 years in Delhi. I have worked with a Senior counsel as well as a reputed law firm and I can say that unfortunately while freshers today are getting paid more than me thanks to the branding of their colleges they are more interested in payscales than work. I am not making a sweeping statement here but kindly consider that people in your own firms who are far more senior and have slogged their butts off on 24x7x365 basis have now reached some level of comfort.
While I agree that most companies remain stingy as hell in paying their associates the fact is that freshers today are getting scales that people with vast amount of experience are only beginning to get today.

So please the next time you feel that a fresher is being undervalued you might want to look up at the people who have put in years of work and are yet to make it to a good pay scale.

Let's take a look at the urban myth that this guy from DU believes -

"freshers today are getting paid more than me thanks to the branding of their colleges they are more interested in payscales than work."

- there is nothing wrong in being interested in pay first and work second. work satisfaction is good but it can't pay the rent, buy a car, take care of retired parents or support a family.

- It is stupid to expect well-informed law schoolites to accept the disrespectful m anner in which practising counsel throw some loose change at them and expect them to live on that. If these younbg lawyers find better paying jobs it is to their credit.

- Branding of colleges is in part a reflection of the type of students they produce. No college can maintain a branding for too long unless it can substantiate this. Firms and Companbies are not fools to pay large salaries to incompetents. They have obviously evaluated these graduates and found their worth equal to the salaries they offer. If an AMSS does not offer a DU graduate such a high starting salary, it means that AMSS has found through experience that the average DU student is not equal to the average NLS student (and I don't blame them).

- it is not uncommon for freshers to get paid more than existing staff (upto 3 yrs senior to them) in all sectors across all organisations. As demand for staff grows, the entry level salaries rise and people who joined in the previous 1-3 years may actaully be paid the same. It's regrettable but a function of demand. Nothing unique to the legal profession. An IIM MBA of 2009 was given a starting salary at a bank of 50k, his junior three years down the line has an offer of 70k while the former himself gets about 80k today - it's unfair yes but such is the law of supply and demand.

Without going into the merits of the pay-scales on offer from some of the law firms to entry level lawyers, it is sad how today's young lawyers use the salary on offer as one of their strongest parameters to mentally decide the best firms to work for. Unfortunately, consequently, most of these people start their careers thinking they have good 'jobs' and do not inculcate the values the profession requires

Here's blogger #25 again. The person at #27 has it absolutely right.

Dear Dear #26 its not the contents of your blog that I object to but the tone. I completely agree that its a good thing that people graduating from law colleges are not settling for loose change "thrown at them" and I've said in my earlier post that changing pay scales is a rather belated and slow change in most Indian companies, as most continue to remain stingy. Also freshers need to earn money and I'm very aware of that. You might first like to correct the record that I'm not against freshers getting a paycheck in consonance with the rank of their employer.

What Urban myth you might be referring to I'm not sure of. What I am saying is this- there is nothing wrong with aspiring to a paycheck, but unfortunately that should not come at the cost of work quality and ethics.

Not being a holier than thou here, but in the couple of years of my experience in the law firm sector I've seen loads of Law school students coming in to graduate who have a rather strange attitude to work. Most are about the money and wanting it with least amount of work.If you can call that healthy...well then we are certainly not on the same page.

Its a fact that even today Litigation is mostly employing from the rather as you understand sad quality of students from DU and other as I'm sure you believe lesser universities which have actually been responsible for all the seniors of the profession today. The reason I point this out is that most students from law schools are simply unwilling to put in the kind of quality time and work for lesser pay (compared to corporate firm or corporate department of a firm) and that is not a choice based on interest but simply money. That is the kind of attitude that will not get you far though initially it gives the fresher a good start monetarily no doubt.


As for your argument of freshers getting paid more than the seniors, I agree its not unique to the legal profession alone. However I'd like you take a look beyond the three year period that you seem to have set. You might want to compare a freshers salary with a person having put in about 8-10 years across the board and kindly don't keep looking at an AMSS alone. That one law firm is not a mirror of India's legal profession.

If you truly believe that freshers deserve to be paid and are justified by the laws of demand and supply to be paid more than more experienced professionals, then I hope you remember this argument when you've been in the profession for about 10 years.

@22 - Mr. More Money - more than 50% of due diligences today are fixed cost matters n not billed at hourly rates. so get a reality check.

i completely agree with 27 and 28 above - law firm graduates are being paid astronomical salaries by firms to retain talent, which has led to some kind of warped sense of "entitlement" among the law skool graduates. this is not only bad for the recruiting firms but also for the profession at large.

www.legallyindia.com/201104182037/Law-schools/cnlu-patna-students-hunger-strike-protest-few-job-prospects

contrast situation..........but this is the fact with many law institutions. when one get paid 10lakhs ctc, the other strive to make a living.

@25 - I don't believe the BS about "work ethic" being spouted here. What makes you think that that working for less money inculcates values of work. Who gave you the authority to judge the value of the work put in by a transactional lawyer. Believe me many from the top law schools, choose to forego the large salaries and join litigation. While from places like DU have their students join litigation out of compulsion (who later on will spout crap like "worth ethic" and then move to a corporate firm the first chance they get).


@29 - Btw even if DDs are fixed fee matters, the point I am making is that the associate is contributing...You cant have a Partner go to a DD data room and review documents right? And FYI, being in a top tier law firm I can tell you from experience even in fixed fee matters, the fee is decided by the number of hours expected to be put in multiplied by the normal or slightly discounted hourly rate of the associates. Most fixed fee matters have caps on the number of hours put in. I don't know why people who don't have an understanding of bigger law firms choose to comment on things like billing and "work ethic"!!

Mr Law Firm Lawyer This is 25. Please get your facts straight and try to understand the point I'm making. First you might want to read my further post at 28.

There is nothing wrong in making money. So get it out of your head that I believe in making less money. Nobody does. Its a question of parity in terms of work experience that I am talking about.

That you are paid in consonance with your employer is not only fine but desirable. My point is that a lot of freshers are coming with an unhealthy attitude to work which is all about the money and not the work.

I find it amusing how you assume that you alone are working for a top law firm while those espousing work ethics must be sad cases crying sour grapes. Not one to brag bit I'd like to set the record straight and tell you that I've worked in a top law firm for 5 straight years so I do know what I am talking about. So the next time you want to call someone judgmental you might want to lok at your personal biases.

I reiterate- understand the post in its letter and spirit. No one says that associates don't work. For heaven sakes we all start as associates and spend a very long time of our professional lives as an associate (junior/senior/principal etc.etc). What people need to do is get a grip and understand that its not only about the money. I can't speak for you or others but only from my experience. I personally find that there are an alarming number of people who have adopted an attitude where they believe that there is only so much that they need to do in terms of work despite the fact that they get fat paychecks...and just to avoid confusion I am not talking of situations where people are exploited and given a pittance. After all that does not happen in big law firm according to you but only to the sad types on the outside.. Right!!!

Work is all about learning and making yourself a better professional so there are times when you are called upon to do more than even you fair share. Its at times like these where if you only think money I believe its wrong.

So lets just focus and accept that while there needs to be a reform in the salary scales in the legal sector, people also have to inculcate a healthy attitude to work where choices are not made simply on the basis of money. If money is their only driving force then I do have serious doubts about their commitment to work quality.

Also I have nothing against associate getting paid big money if he/she is a transaction lawyer. There is never a comparison in payscales between corporate and litigation because litigation in most cases cannot afford to bill by the hour..why..because the client will go broke!! Corporate transactions I agree are as a rule billed by the hour and I do agree that most (though not all) firms incorporate the rule of billing by the hour even in a fixed bill.

Lastly but not the least for someone who believed I was judgmental kindly do look within before you call and classify and imply that anyone from a non 5 year programme is unworthy. Personally I never take offense at such comments because it just shows what the person making the comment is all about. But you might want to keep in mind that the best judicial minds today come from Law schools (Yes that nomenclature existed before the 5 years schools) which you might never even know exist, least of all DU. DO take some time out and look up the schooling records and universities attended by the Ex-CJI's of India and the Senior advocates. It might surprise you that many have govt. school/college education.

That many such universities are in dire need of help and need to take a serious note of declining calibre is not even a point of argument, its an admitted fact. However for you to run down people coming from such universities in general I think is a bit low...but then what would I know..I'm probably just being judgmental.

The salaries of fresh law graduates at the top law firms are astronomical because the top firms want to attract the best talent. It is purely about demand and supply. Majority of the law students would rather be arguing in court and working with LAW and ADVOCATES on a daily basis, and not with target minded partners who are only interested in billing, business development, politics etc. It is a known fact that the work at a law firm is mundane and repetitive, to compensate for the dreary nature of the work and to retain talent the firms pay such astronomical salaries. To blame students for choosing these firms and not inculcating values is shortsighted and immature. On a side note what are these values which a student in a law firm should inculcate: a. increase billing, b. increase billing, c. increase billing.............. z. increase billing.

There are no values left in law firms mr. 27. the only value is client mata ki jai!

hilarious lolzzzz!

Well money is good, greed is better, it seems.. after a point, mad ambition is also sexy.

Insofar as the NLS, NALSAR "cream" are concerned, they better start working on why it is that most relatively senior legal professionals appear to hate them.

Or why there is the perception that they are the most "ehsaan faramosh" dogs ever to have been given professional license.

Case in point many 96/97 "creamy" layer kids... most of them are seen to have carefully and deliberately spat on the very plates that gave them their first morsels (that too at a time when all they knew was spouting some inane academic rubbish and perhaps wearing short skirts, hoping to seduce senior lawyers).. one such 'runaway" i know has been banished by her rescuer to the South of India to do "capital markets" work (Ha HA!) and who continues to be kept away from that Firm's central think-tank because of her "i will cut, take from you and run" demonstrated tendency in the past.

You may say that "every one is a chor in the practice of law" --- but hello, the ones that are truly respected (even from amongst the creamy layer) are the ones who have demonstrated true diligence, intelligence and ETHICS...

So, this goes to all the lawyer here, young or old:

The practice of law is supremely multi-faceted and even the top 1 percentile in terms of burning intelligence will take 20 years or more, to fully grasp its nuances - so relax and get some real skills...

Surprise, surprise, ethics and values DO matter when you have a true sense of responsibility to your clients and to building a good legend yourself. and more importantly, when you feel that you as a lawyer are socially responsible to society at large and not merely to your own wild fantasies of material acquisitions or your list of "to do" items...

a Very senior.