Advocate Girrish Sundaram said that in Chennai, the money that juniors and interns get paid is not enough to sustain themselves in the current economic scenario.
“Monthly pay of ₹20,000 for a fresher may sound too high amongst legal circles, but the truth is that a fresh professional in any other field tends to be paid much more. Hence, there does exist a huge disparity in payment to juniors. In many offices, interns are not paid at all, but work is extracted from them in the name of learning. For the graduates to be, that seems to be good bargain, considering the learning and exposure weighed against salary/stipend,” Sundaram said.
He feels this practice is part of the legacy left behind by the previous generation seniors, when the profession used to be mainly chamber-run.
“But now, advocates who are 25-26 years old are struggling to make even ₹25,000 per month. The seniors must realise that even juniors need to run a home, and sustain themselves,” he said.
He went on to say that there are big offices that despite making a lot of money, do not pay their juniors enough. On the flipside, he added,
“Of course, the other side is that there are independent senior lawyers who themselves do not get a regular income as it depends on the number of cases they are handling, and the clients they have. So in such circumstances, how will their juniors get paid?”
He went on to say,
“Advocate profession has become a profession where only seniors can make money. At least those juniors in the High Court still get paid some money, but what about those practicing in district courts? They don’t even make ₹10,000 to 15,000 per month. So some form of stipend from the government will prove very useful to freshers to sustain themselves during the initial years.”
Sundaram said that in his office, interns get stipend of ₹5,000 and juniors start at ₹15,000 per month. This sum is raised to ₹20,000 based on their performance in a year.
Source: Barandbench
