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Using billing data from 62 Indian law firms, the index tracks shifts in rates and pricing practices across a rapidly maturing market

India Business Law Journal¡¯²õ billing rates survey, which has been published annually since 2008, receives a significant makeover this year and has been relaunched as the IBLJ Legal Fees Index. Based on the billing data of 62 participating law firms, the index tracks hourly billing rates across firms by size, location and seniority level.

The index uses a baseline value of 100, which is arbitrarily based on the average fees from 2016. All subsequent figures are expressed relative to the baseline value. So, for example, if the index reads 120 in a certain year, it implies that legal fees across the board have risen by 20% since the baseline date. From 2016, fees saw an initial increase, hitting a peak index value of 104 in 2017, before declining in the pandemic years to a low point of 83.5 in 2023. Since then, there has been a steady recovery to an index value of 97 in 2025.

The results

The numbers would appear to confirm what many in-house teams and managing partners already sense: double-digit annual increases in headline hourly rates are becoming rare and highly specific.

Across the market, most categories of legal fees rose only slightly in the past year. In some segments, and certain seniority bands, they barely moved at all. In-house teams have accepted a decade of fluctuations, but they have also become far more sophisticated in the way they interrogate rate cards, compare firms and push back on outliers. For clients, the index offers reassurance that, on average, they are not seeing sudden jumps out of line with the broader market, while highlighting the categories where real upward pressure remains.

Mumbai, New Delhi, ¡®Other Cities¡¯

The index divides the market into three main geographic buckets: Mumbai, the New Delhi area, and the catch-all ¡°Other Cities¡±, which includes major centres such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune, along with a growing list of tier-two cities. As expected, Mumbai and the New Delhi area maintain their familiar position at the top of the fee spectrum, especially at the partner level. Their average rates remain higher than those seen in the rest of the country. The more interesting story lies in how these three regions have moved in the past decade.

In Mumbai, partner and associate fees have risen in a relatively steady pattern since 2017 reflecting the city¡¯²õ concentration of banking, capital markets and corporate work. The New Delhi area has seen a different shape of growth, with more gradual movements in some years tied to regulatory, disputes and policy-heavy mandates. But the overall direction in both cities has been up.