Law firms pay well.
I personally did not know this till my 3rd year of law school. I did not even know how to apply for internships there. But thankfully, I got internship in 3rd year and then interned at different law firms across India.
This article will help you in finding out the right law firms where you could intern based on the salary they provide.
Now if you are wondering 'How to apply at such Firms' - I have written a detailed chapter titled - '4 Ways to Get Internship at Tier-1 Law Firms' in my eBook. After following the steps, you will be able to intern anywhere you want.
My Internship Confirmation at one of the best law firms in India
There are 12 other chapters on important topics such as -
How is it like Working as an In-House Lawyer - Salaries, Type of Work and More
3 Reasons Why You Should do CS with Law
Detailed 5-Year Internship Plan - Plan from 1st Sem to 10th Sem
5 Tips for Performing Good in Internship - How I Secured a Job Offer Through My Internship
2 Ways to Get In-house Internships
5 Practical No-nonsense tips on How to Write Research Articles
You can checkout my eBook here. I have also attached the chapter talking about Now let's talk about the salaries.
What are the sources of these figures?
Most of the research is primary, wherein I asked my seniors & batchmates who are either already placed, or about to get placed in these firms.
I also did deep research by reading several posts on Legally India platform. For the uninitiated, LegallyIndia is a website where law students & lawyers engage in discussion ranging from Law, to work culture to everything else. You can click here to visit the platform to see how it works.
First, let’s understand some terms used in Law firm salaries
You’ll read terms such as variable pay, fixed pay, and so on. Here is their meaning so you don’t get confused-
Fixed pay– Simply stating, this is the salary that one would be getting for sure.
Bonus pay– Also known as variable pay, this is dependent on the individual lawyer’s performance.
Illustration- If a firm has 10 Lakh Fixed pay and 2 lakh variable pay, then the package is 12 Lakh per annum, but the salary would be Rs.10,00,000/12 months = Rs.83,000 per month.
This 2 lakh may or may not be paid, and that’s totally dependent on the individual’s performance.
Just for the sake of info- while the salary of new joiners is composed majorly of fixed pay (70-80% of total salary), the variable component keeps taking the major portion of salary as one rises to the level of Partnership.
For example– a partner (read this article to know what a partner means) might have Rs.1 Crore total compensation, wherein Rs.50 lakh may be fixed and 50 lakh may be variable (dependent on firms overall performance).
With that said, let’s dive into the main topic.
Law firm salaries in India (Need update in 2024, as the salaries have increased)
Tier 1 firms (those with the highest salary (retainership) in India)
Firms other than Tier 1s. Some of them have equal salaries as Tier 1.
For many firms mentioned below, we’ll update the bonus section soon.
Conclusion
In my eBook, I have written down 4 ways you can intern at ANY law firm in India, including the ones stated above. You can checkout my eBook here.
I hope the article helps in giving you an idea about law firm salaries in India. If there’s any correction or mistake in any figure, do comment down below so we could correct the same.
In the next article, we’d give details of salary of In-house counsels too. Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!
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