Become a Tax Lawyer.

Lawyers in India practice across three broad streams: (1) corporate / transactional law — M&A, capital markets, banking and finance, private equity, IP, employment, dispute resolution at tier-1 firms like Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM), AZB & Partners, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM), Trilegal, Khaitan & Co, Luthra & Luthra, J Sagar Associates (JSA), Nishith Desai Associates, Argus, IndusLaw, Talwar Thakore; (2) litigation — Supreme Court / High Court chambers practice including senior-advocate-led teams (Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi, Fali Nariman before him, Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Gopal Subramanium, Salman Khurshid, Indira Jaising), High Court trial chambers, district court / sessions court practice; (3) in-house counsel — at Indian corporates (Reliance, Tata Sons, Aditya Birla Group, Infosys, TCS, HDFC Bank, Bharti Airtel) and foreign multinationals (Google India, Microsoft India, Amazon India, Goldman Sachs India). The Indian path runs through 5-year integrated B.A.LL.B / B.B.A.LL.B at National Law Universities (NLSIU Bangalore, NALSAR Hyderabad, WBNUJS Kolkata, NLU Delhi, GNLU Gujarat, NLU Jodhpur — collectively the 'NLU' brand), or 3-year LL.B after graduation at Delhi University Faculty of Law, Government Law Colleges (Mumbai, Pune), Jindal Global Law School (private premium), Symbiosis Law School, Christ University Bengaluru, ILS Pune; followed by Bar Council of India enrolment via the All India Bar Examination (AIBE). Pay varies extremely: tier-1 firm fresh NLU graduate starts at ₹17-22L/year all-in (CAM, AZB, SAM, Trilegal, Khaitan); senior associate at 5-7 years ₹40-80L; salaried partner ₹1-3Cr; equity partner ₹2-10Cr+. Senior advocates at the Supreme Court charge ₹10-25L per appearance for the top tier and ₹50L-2Cr+ for marquee constitutional / corporate disputes. Litigation chambers practice early on pays ₹0-3L for the first 3-5 years before income builds.

Civil lawyers in India represent clients in non-criminal disputes before district civil courts, High Courts, consumer fora, RERA authorities, family courts, and the National Company Law Tribunal — covering property, contract, succession, matrimonial, and recovery matters governed by the Code of Civil Procedure 1908 (CPC). The bulk of civil court volume flows through property title disputes, loan-recovery suits, RERA complaints against builders, divorce and maintenance under the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 and Special Marriage Act 1954, succession and probate applications under the Indian Succession Act, and money-recovery suits under Order XXXVII (summary suits). Established independent advocates in tier-1 cities with a strong property or matrimonial client base earn ₹25-80L annually; district court specialists in tier-2 cities stabilise at ₹8-20L after 5-7 years. Entry into civil practice is via LL.B / B.A.LL.B enrolment with a State Bar Council followed by junior work under a senior advocate, and the AIBE from the Bar Council of India.

Criminal lawyers in India represent accused persons, complainants, and the state in offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 (replacing IPC), the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023 (replacing CrPC), POCSO Act, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam (BSA) 2023 (replacing the Evidence Act). Practice runs from district sessions courts — where bail applications, chargesheet challenges, and trials are conducted — up to High Courts for anticipatory bail, revision petitions, quashing petitions under Section 528 BNSS, and to the Supreme Court on special leave petitions and constitutional challenges. Leading practitioners include Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Mukul Rohatgi, Siddharth Luthra, Sidharth Aggarwal, Rebecca John, Vrinda Grover, and N. Hariharan, whose PMLA and UAPA practices define the ceiling of what the criminal bar commands. Entry income is low but growth tracks courtroom standing, not credentials alone — a skilled advocate who builds a Sessions Court reputation can earn ₹15-30L by year 5-7 without ever attending a tier-1 law firm.

Corporate lawyers in India practice exclusively in the transactional stream — structuring and executing M&A deals, private equity investments, capital markets transactions (IPOs, QIPs, NCDs under SEBI ICDR), banking and finance documentation (facility agreements, debenture trust deeds, ECB), and day-to-day corporate governance under the Companies Act 2013. Unlike litigators who appear in court, corporate lawyers produce paper: SHA, SPA, DRHP, board resolutions, FEMA compounding applications, and CCI merger-control filings. The primary employers are India's tier-1 law firms — AZB & Partners, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM), Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM), Khaitan & Co, JSA, Trilegal, L&L Partners, Nishith Desai Associates, IndusLaw — plus in-house legal teams at Reliance Industries, Tata Sons, TCS, Infosys, HDFC Bank, and Bharti Airtel, and the Big-4 legal arms (KPMG Legal, EY Law, Deloitte Legal). Entry is almost entirely through National Law Universities (NLUs) via CLAT; a US or UK LLM is the accepted credential for international capital markets work.

Intellectual Property lawyers in India draft and prosecute patent applications at the Indian Patent Office (IPO) under the Patents Act 1970 (as amended), file trademark and copyright applications under the Trade Marks Act 1999 and the Copyright Act 1957, and litigate IP disputes before the Delhi, Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta High Courts — IPAB was abolished in 2021 and its jurisdiction merged into the High Courts. The practice cuts across two distinct skill profiles: Patent Attorneys, who typically hold a B.Tech or B.Sc (Engineering) plus an LL.B plus the Patent Agent qualification under the Patents Act (Chapter XXIA), and IP generalists with pure LL.B degrees who handle trademarks, copyrights, designs, and IP licensing. Tier-1 IP firms — Anand & Anand (Noida), K&S Partners (Gurugram), Remfry & Sagar (Gurugram), Lall & Sethi (Delhi), S.S. Rana & Co (Delhi), and the IP teams at CAM and AZB & Partners — are the primary employers, alongside multinational pharma, tech, and FMCG in-house IP teams. PCT international filing, FTO (Freedom to Operate) opinions, technology licensing, and cross-border anti-counterfeiting enforcement are core service lines.

Psychiatrists are the medical doctors of mental health — diagnosing and treating depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, ADHD, addiction, dementia, eating disorders, and the complicated overlap zones where brain biology meets life circumstance. Unlike clinical psychologists, psychiatrists prescribe medication, admit patients, run ECT, manage medical comorbidity, and carry the legal authority to certify mental capacity, sign committal orders under the Mental Healthcare Act 2017, and direct inpatient psychiatric care. The Indian path is MBBS plus MD Psychiatry (3 years) via NEET-PG — competitive but not as crushing as surgery or radiology — with premier seats at NIMHANS Bangalore (the most prestigious mental-health institute in South Asia), AIIMS Delhi, IHBAS Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh, JIPMER, and CMC Vellore. Workplaces span government psychiatric institutes, large private hospitals (Apollo, Fortis, Manipal, Max, Medanta), stand-alone psychiatric and de-addiction centres (Hope Trust, Cadabams, Manas), private clinics, and the rapidly growing Indian online-mental-health platforms (Amaha, Lybrate, Practo, MFine, Manastha) where senior consultants now earn supplementary ₹15-50L from tele-consults. Demand has structurally exploded post-COVID — India has roughly 0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 population versus a WHO recommendation of 3, and the supply-demand gap will widen for the next two decades.

Senior: ₹60.0L

Private Banking RMs manage bespoke wealth relationships for HNI clients (₹5 Cr–₹25 Cr investable assets) and UHNI clients (₹25 Cr+) at dedicated private banking arms — Kotak Private Banking, ICICI Private Banking, HDFC Burgundy Private, Axis Burgundy Private, Edelweiss Private Wealth, IIFL Wealth Management, Anand Rathi Private Wealth, and ASK Wealth Advisors. Unlike a retail wealth manager who runs 150+ mass-affluent accounts on a product-push model, a Private Banking RM owns a concentrated book of 15–40 ultra-high-value families, providing full-suite advisory across discretionary and non-discretionary PMS, AIF Category II and III, structured notes, listed equity, pre-IPO opportunities, private real-estate debt, art advisory, and NRI RFC / FCNR accounts. The role demands simultaneous competence in investment strategy, family-office setup, succession and estate structuring through private trusts, and deep client emotional intelligence — clients' trusting their life wealth to one person. Compensation is base + revenue share tied directly to AUM mobilised and trails, meaning senior RMs with ₹500 Cr+ books at IIFL or Kotak regularly clear ₹60 L–₹1.5 Cr, and the top 50 private bankers in India with ₹2,000 Cr+ books earn ₹3–₹6 Cr.

Senior: N/A

JEE / NEET Coaches teach Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Biology to Class 11-12 students preparing for JEE Main, JEE Advanced, and NEET-UG — India's most high-stakes undergraduate entrance exams. The Kota ecosystem (Allen Career Institute, Resonance, Vibrant Academy, Bansal Classes, Career Point) anchors the offline segment, producing batches of 50-300 students with coaching institutes that turn over ₹100-500Cr annually; online platforms (Vedantu, Unacademy, Physics Wallah, Aakash-BYJU's) have restructured distribution without changing the core product: expert subject teaching, curated problem sets, and performance analytics. Top faculty at Allen or FIITJEE with a following of AIR Top-100 alumni earn ₹25-75L and above; star YouTube teachers like Alakh Pandey (Physics Wallah) operate at the ₹100Cr+ revenue scale. Regular faculty at mid-tier institutes earn ₹6-20L — still the highest-paid teaching segment in India outside management education.

Senior: ₹75.0L

A sell-side Research Analyst publishes equity research — initiation reports, earnings updates, and sector thematic notes — on listed companies for institutional clients (FIIs, domestic mutual funds, insurance AMCs, and hedge funds) via their brokerage's distribution network. In India the role lives at three tiers: domestic brokers with full-service research desks (Kotak Institutional Equities, Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities, JM Financial, Axis Capital, Nuvama Institutional, ICICI Securities Institutional Equities); regional desks of foreign brokerages (Jefferies India, Macquarie India, Morgan Stanley India, JP Morgan India, CLSA, Bernstein); and KPO research-support arms that feed onshore desks. Compensation is procyclical — base is a fraction of total; bonus ties directly to broker-commission revenue generated by the analyst's coverage and to their ranking in the Institutional Investor (II) Asia / Asiamoney sell-side polls, which are voted on annually by buy-side PMs. SEBI Research Analyst Regulations 2014 require all Indian sell-side analysts to register as NISM Series-XV certified Research Analysts before publishing or co-signing any report.

Senior: N/A

Pediatricians in India look after infants, children, and adolescents from birth through age 18 — running OPD clinics for fevers and rashes, managing newborns in NICU, treating community infections like dengue, typhoid, and pneumonia, supervising vaccination schedules per the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) guidelines, and being the first call when a parent panics at 2 AM about a febrile child. The path is MBBS (5.5 years including 1-year rotating internship) entered through NEET-UG, then MD Pediatrics or DNB Pediatrics (3 years) entered through NEET-PG / INI-CET — a high-demand PG branch but easier to crack than Radiology / Dermatology / Medicine, with a structured ₹15-50L mid-career income window. Workplaces split four ways: large multi-specialty private hospitals (Apollo, Fortis, Manipal, Max, Medanta) running paediatric and NICU departments, dedicated paediatric chains (Rainbow Children's Hospitals, Cloudnine Hospitals, Motherhood, Surya Hospitals) which have been one of the fastest-growing healthcare verticals in metro India for the last five years, government / teaching hospitals (AIIMS, PGIMER, JIPMER, KEM Mumbai, Sir JJ Mumbai, IGICH Bangalore), and private OPD practice — usually a 1-2 doctor clinic in a residential neighbourhood with a 200-300 family panel, where established paediatricians clear ₹25-80L through OPD volume, vaccination revenue, and hospital visiting consultancy. The defining 2026 reality: parental anxiety has gone up sharply post-COVID, parents Google every symptom before the visit, and the paediatrician's role is increasingly equal parts clinical judgment and parent-communication — being the calm, evidence-based voice that pulls the family back from a WhatsApp-forward panic spiral.

Senior: ₹50.0L