I am not a law student nor a lawyer, but I know people in both local and foreign firms, and also JLCs, so I speak with facts as I know it.
By magic circle, I meant the UK firms operating in Singapore like Links, A&O etc. Obviously A&G and WP will not pay freshies $9+ - their salary scale is quite transparent at about $5k.
And I am not saying that JLCs cannot find a job in private sector, but empirically, many stay back in civil service, and many who leave start off as a senior associate or as a junior partner in local firms. One high profile example is Chris De Souza, the
PAP MP. I am not saying they cannot end up as equity partner, but that's what most start off as.
I make no value judgement, but as I have clearly set out above, all I am saying is: from a salary perspective, a JLC route seems to be less lucrative than joining a Linklaters (for example) or A&O. So, given that this is a salary forum, my question is why the author of the post has chosen this route rather than the more lucrative route.
For your response to be of any value to the forum, please stay away from generic answers on the job scope of JLCs and generic statements in regards to industry reputations of JLCs. It is well established that JLCs are highly regarded.
What is of value instead is (i) empirical examples of where most have ended up and (ii) empirical examples of the paths they have chosen to get there (i.e. stay as JLC for 3 years, then go join local/foreign house as senior associate/junior partner, then make senior/equity partner in [ ] years).
Only then, can we make an educated appraisal as to whether the private sector route or the JLC route is more appropriate for a top law student, if he is looking at things purely from a lifetime monetary perspective.