Legal search firm Vahura told Bar & Bench that general counsel (GC) with between 15 to 25 years of experience, working at companies, could earn from Rs 80 lakh to more than Rs 300 lakh per year as a cost-to-company (CTC) package, according to the recruiter’s internal research (see table below).
CTC can include such perks as insurance or gym memberships, and even a head legal with 10 to 15 years of experience could earn between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 100 lakh per year, according to the data provided by Vahura senior consultant Avinash Sah in an interview.
At the junior end, salaries started at Rs 4.8 lakh per year.
However, with 5 to 8 years of experience started at Rs 15 lakh per year up to Rs 36 lakh per year.
At law firms in 2012, according to Legally India’s salary survey data and research, a five-year PQE tier 1 law firm salary was between Rs 20.5-30 lakh per year, or Rs 17-25 lakh at tier 2 firms.
A 7-year associate at a tier 1 law firm could have earned between Rs 24-55 lakh per year, while at tier 2 law firms this could range from Rs 22-40 lakh per year.
Each of the in-house figures depended on the company, with Sah saying that Mumbai companies are the highest-paying, followed by the Delhi region, Bangalore, Hyderabad and then Chennai. Companies in the finance and pharma sectors paying the most, alongside IT or multinational companies or in sectors such as e-commerce or technology.
On average, in-house salaries were 15-25 per cent below pay at law firms.
According to a survey of 70 GCs by Vahura in 2014, the average in-house legal team was 12 lawyers large.
| Experience | Designations | CTC range (in INR lacs) |
|---|---|---|
| 1-3 years | Executive Legal/Assistant Manager | 4.8 – 12.0 |
| 3-5 years | Manager/ Legal Counsel | 8.4 – 18.0 |
| 5-8 years | Senior Manager/Senior Legal Counsel | 15.0 – 36.0 |
| 8-10 years | Asst. Vice President/ Lead Legal Counsel | 24.0 – 60.0 |
| 10-15 years | Vice President/ Head Legal | 40.0 – 100.0 |
| 15-25 years | General Counsel / Director Legal | 80.0 – 300.0+ |
Photo by Ravindraboopathi
Comments
Plz mention that you are talking of the Big 6 Law Firms & not your regular old school firms like Mullas & Crawford!
In CB A0- INR 60 K PM & 3M+ bonus which is much...(Hope you know basic math)
How much does Mulla pay its Associates? Might be much lower than Sanjay Asher's dept, not sure!
What I can't figure out is if people are hell-bent on working 18 hrs a day as a normal, then why can't the work load be shared with two persons. Less pay, sure, but also more time -- and less headache and misery for both employer and employee.
Kian, is there any indication of what percentage of in house lawyers for the specified experience group are on the higher side of the spectrum? I think what may give a better picture is not only how many companies pay on the higher side of the spectrum but also how many people do they hire. So if a top paying company has a legal team of 3 people, then its not as helpful coz it increases the barriers to entry. as opposed to a tier 1 firm paying that one (which has 25-40 people every batch) making the specified salary bracket more accessible to more people.
From my exp (graduated from one of the so called top law schools, worked at tier 1 firm and then in-house)- yes the wrk is very different but by no means less. In-House Counsel has very different agenda than a counsel at a firm. In-house has to manage abt 10-15 internal clients every day, deal with the firm counsels advising on ongoing transactions (M&A, Real Estate, Lit, Tax etc.). It’s not universal statement but every now and then in-house guy has to do disaster management/correct what his external counsels are doing.
On a daily basis the transaction value (actual value) at a decent business is at a min region of USD 350-500K. This don’t even cover the M&A and Lit (coz assuming external counsels are so amazing that only thing which remains is signing)
http://barandbench.com/the-average-size-of-in-house-legal-teams-is-12-and-growing-vahuras-avinash-sah/
Avinash really make good points.
Business really pays what it pays to In-House guys for a) being connected to business, b) ownership of results and c) enabling business - this is very different from what a firm pays a counsel for.
Not sure if he's trolling or serious.
Reminds me of the anecdote of the Wall Street investment banker on a holiday in a quiet Mexico coastal village advising the natives on "thinking big"...how to go for bigger catch of fish, processing plants, new technology, investment blah blah...end-result = become a millionaire.
And do what? the incredulous village folk ask. The investment banker replies: once you become very rich, you could strum your guitar by the beach, have two hour lunches with fresh fruit and fish, followed by a long siesta, then long chats with village folk in evenings over a drink at the village pub..
To that the village folk say: but we are already doing that...
Bro your story is exactly like mine, only difference is i got into big NLU in 2001 by cracking entrance test among 205 total applicant (even my family became suspicious about the quality of intake as i got [...] rank) thereafter i developed a unique superiority complex thinking myself superior from non NlU students, in first year i learned that no body gets fail in exams here if he/she can "write.."
i was sure that i will get job easily as i am from NLU and its my right to get one (for that i started) and i will obviously get preference over all untouchables (like u)
my dream got shattered when i sat for an interview (the opportunity which i easily got due to NLU Tag, which otherwise very difficult for Non NLUs student) but I spoiled it as thinking myself superior to a non nlu interviewer i started asking questions to him justifying my point of view...
obvious thing happened thereafter..!!! i was left way behind than many of my hardworking batch mates (though the consoling point is many other are in similar position)
now i regret my colg days when i was expected to learn and work hard as in real life.. a word of advise to all my junior friends take your studies seriously as by only hard work u can reach on top and merely by getting admitted into NLU wont make you best (please stop comparing with IITs IIMs),,,
i m NLU and NLU within me.. mirror mirror on the wall on the wall .. who is smartest lawyer of the all ??
bowl full of "Peanuts" coupled with lots of politics..!!
Glorified clerks, really. But then no one is complaining if all you want is a decent salary and a 5-day week with fixed hours.
Mind-numbing stuff, day-in and day-out. Just form filling you are doing all day..and end of the month making "reports" which no one reads.
For even slightly difficult legal point of law - as for external counsel advice!
The counsel working for small and medium enterprises, do better, more fulfilling and more lawyerly work.
The smaller companies you are referring to are very exploitative with no regard to logic or human well-being.
The core concern of all small companies is to survive with minimum salaries to their workers. They would never treat a worker professionally and consider it an entitlement to make you work after office hours at peanut wages.
With my personal experience of three years in start-up and mini companies, I advise that only take up such jobs if you are offered minimum 50%+ hike. Otherwise, never ever choose such risky assignments endangering your and your family's well-being.
Another aspect is that in companies there is always a competition among departments to prove their relative importance to the management for seeking salary hikes. Undoubtedly, finance and technical/ operations top the list because of their closer impact on money. Therefore, if you wanna sustain in an in-house role then, you should better know how to sell yourself to the management and get respectable hikes.