Debate over low compensation offered to young law graduates resurfaces routinely within early-career legal circles. Recently, while discussing differences between remuneration structures in Pakistan and the United States with a colleague, I realised that although many complaints are valid, understanding the incentives behind the system helps explain its persistence.

To begin, I readily acknowledge that new entrants face harsh realities. Fresh graduates, even exceptional ones, earn significantly less than their counterparts in other professions. Firms insist that young lawyers value experience over income and assess in-house work very differently from chamber experience.

Graduates of institutions such as UoL and LUMS often identify this early, leave the country and succeed in jurisdictions that command respect and pay accordingly. This discussion, however, concerns the majority of local graduates, often first-generation lawyers from modest institutions, who must navigate a profession still associated with the image of a "kala-coat" fraternity. For........

© The Express Tribune