Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
The infiltration of Pinoys, and Indian nationals is already happening. In the firms I have worked at, the lawyers/partners will sign off the work that these legally-trained FTs do. The FTs may or may not be Registered Foreign Lawyer. The Managing Partner of one of the mid-tier firms acknowledged that he would rather employ such persons than a Singapore-qualified lawyer. Although the standard of work may be affected (and I have experienced the laziness and the work of such FTs), most clients accept such standards of work. Especially since clients are paying the same amount anyway (with fee caps, fix fees, etc), it makes business sense to hire one lawyer/partner to oversee many such FTs.
Regarding retention, some of the firms I have worked with have 0 to 20% retention rates, which is pathetic. I know that the IP department of one of the larger firms employed new associates with some experience, but none of the trainees were retained.
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These firms you speak about are probably doing low end work.
Law, like many other industries, is a stratified sector which is divided into firms doing top tier work (funds, M&A, equity / debt capital markets, asset financing, international disputes etc) and those doing the low end work (personal injury, conveyancing, debt collection etc).
Top tier firms will never employ pinoys or indians fresh out of the Subcontinent. Those bottom tier ones will, but then again the client gets what he pays for.
The difference is that the legal profession is still very much a closed fraternity of local Singaporeans. Unlike say a an Indian national who is in the middle to top level management in a bank who will pull in his own kind, the top lawyers in the top law firms will not induct someone other than a Singaporean into the ranks of the partnership.
Retention is bad, but is no worse than other years. The bottle neck is the law students getting a TC.
Assuming an aspiring young lawyer successfully crosses the hurdles of TC and retention and slog it out for a couple of years, their career options increase dramatically (international firms, banks, in house, other big firms or even non-legal posiitions like in civil service).