I am a CS from ICSI and LLB graduate from India and have been working in corporate compliance for 2 years. I will be coming to USA next year for personal reasons and hence i am planning for an LLM preferably in California. I wanted to know the job opportunities in the country as I would want to work in the US post completion of LLM. Further, I will definitely apply for Bar council exam but will I be able to work in house in a corporate compliance team of any company or firm before i get my license from the bar council. Also could anyone please let me know if companies do apply for visa sponsorships.

It is very, very hard to get a job as a foreign lawyer in the US. Do you have a professional network in California? Do you have specials skills to motivate why they would choose you over a domestic applicant? Qualified jobs are hard enough to find for JD graduates with US citizenships, and the LLM employment rate for qualified jobs in the US is terribly low, I'm guessing between 2-4% depending on the school (keep in mind that includes a lot of people that already have work visas/citizenship due to family/spouses). Although you have a one year OPT visa, you won't get licensed until after the limit for you to get a job has expired. Furthermore, the H-1B visa is getting harder to get under the new administration (and involves a lottery component).

Companies may apply for sponsorships for a foreign lawyer in extraordinary situations, but it is not the norm from my experience.

If you are still adamant on risking a large amount of money (without scholarship, we are talking roughly $100,000 with tuition, living costs, and bar exam costs) for a potentially low ROI, I believe your best shot to get a qualified job is if you get into Stanford or Berkeley. They have the right prestige, they are in the area that has the highest rate of corporate compliance jobs (many Bay area companies are going through IPOs right now so demand is up slightly), there are many Indians working in the Bay (i.e. better networking opportunities for you), and the tech companies there are more used to sponsoring work visas compared to other parts of the country.

Good luck!