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Old 16-09-2021, 07:13 PM
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%Hello everyone. My nephew is looking to borrow money, approximately 50k, to fund his local education in law in Singapore. I have been browsing through these forums about studying law and working as one and it seems like the ROI for this degree in its initial years is uncertain with a long, bumpy road ahead.

Can I confirm this view of mine? Do you people in the industry recommend to go for the law degree in Singapore? 50k is not a small sum.

Thank you.


%Hey there,

I'm a law graduate from NUS, obtained a FCH and graduated July 2020. Completed TC with a boutique litigation firm that's an Asian Legal Business finalist/other awards in Benchmark Litigation/Chambers/Straits Times Survey on Singapore's best law firms, and got retained for a TC midway through my TC. I sat for and passed Part B of the bar exams in June 2021.

I applied for TCs in October 2019. Might have been a tad late, but I did apply for 3 out of the international firms. I got rejected by all of them. Maybe it might have something to do with my late application, or maybe the 'impression' that firms have of NUS graduates in general aren't too good. I can't give you a definite answer on that.

However, having a sense of friends who've interned at places like TSMP Law, they've heard partners make comments in passing about the purported 'high quality' of NUS graduates. This spurred many of my friends to want to stay in Singapore for as long as possible to seek out graduate roles because of the perceived non-discrimination against NUS grads vis-a-vis SMU or overseas grads.

I think it's not healthy to think of a law degree as a object with a 'ROI'. My family is pretty poor, we're not well-to-do, live in a oneroom rental flat in the North. But I'm eternally grateful to my toilet cleaner parents for giving me the uni experience notwithstanding that the total costs of my education did rise to the 50k figure thereabouts.

What's important is that your nephew truly has a passion for the law. Perhaps start out with doing legal internships at the various government ministries/private law firms. That can give him a taste of what legal practice is like. If your nephew is also someone keen on current affairs and public policy, I think law is a perfect degree to nurture those interests. Granted, one can do a degree in Political Science or Sociology at the local universities, but hey with a law degree you can effectively do similar jobs, if not more. I know that's what spurred me to do law in the first place.

I enjoyed my 4 years at NUS and will look back on that period as the best time of my life. I found the motivation to study, and yet found time to balance it out with keyboard warrioring on salary forums, lusting over female assocs i worked with, and attacking other SMU and overseas graduates to make up for my inferiority complex etc. I took interest in my subjects because of engaging tutors and how the modules spoke to my inner interests.

Don't let anyone tell your nephew what he is or isn't capable of. But tell him to follow his heart. I can't say I'm a success per se, and am still finding my feet and place in the legal industry here in Singapore. But I'll try to keep the flame that spurred me to do well in uni alive, and carry on that passion in practice. Hopefully I'll survive long enough.


I hope this answers your question with some personal experiences of my own.
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