Originally Posted by Unregistered

I don't necessarily think this is true. Speaking from experience, JLCs are more valued by Singapore firms than international firms. To put it bluntly, why the **** would an ang moh M&A partner care about an applicant's court experience?

JLC does provide some prestige, and beyond that it is a marker to prospective employers that the JLC is (1) very intelligent, and (2) very good at the law. As you can infer, these skillsets are more litigation focused. A transactional partner wouldn't necessarily be on the look out for these skillsets (where transactional experience counts as much as any legal expertise). If you were an M&A partner looking to hire, would you hire a JLC over someone who trained at a good M&A practice and has at least 1 year of practice under their belt? Trying to compare apples to apples here since I'm equating working at the courts as being as intellectually rigorous as working in a good M&A shop. I think that the JLC might find itself in an uphill battle - the partner would probably have a raw (but likely talented) product to work with, and that person might not necessarily catch on to transactional practice.

On the point about "top corporate and transactional partners in the international firms are ex-JLCs", my gut feel is that this is a bit overblown. The sample size is small. First, few JLCs go into corporate practice - most who leave the courts go into either AGC or a litigation practice. Second, many JLCs are hired into Singapore law firms (since it appears that Singapore law firms place more value on JLCs than international firms). So, taking that into account, the number of JLCs who both entered corporate practice and left to join international law firms is few to say the least. I'm happy to be corrected if more than 5 examples can be put forward - personally I've only ever seen one ex-JLC in an international firm as a corporate partner.