Wow, I feel the overwhelming SMU pride from the previous poster. My opinion:

Training Contracts with Big 4 are relatively easy to get, whether you are from NUS or SMU. I definitely do not think that the Big 4 are taking in SMU students and not NUS students after speaking to my juniors (current year 4s who grad with the 1st SMU batch). Most of my juniors have got spots in the Big 4 firms. Getting a TC in year 3 is pretty much standard; SMU or NUS. Nothing worth bragging about as when the economy is doing well, the firms will pretty much take anyone with a law degree. Unlike other degree programs where having graduates go on to illustrious companies is something to be proud of, there is no link between how well a law school does and where their students go.

Awards are another thing that do not reflect the quality of legal education one receives nor affect the majority of the law students (save for some school pride). Winning moots just reflects well on the winning individual, not the law school. Do we say that just because NUS produced a "legendary" Jessup Moot team that comprised of the legal stalwarts of today that NUS is a good school? Come on, we all know that those guys had immense talent to begin with and the law school and professors were mere facilitators. Ditto with the SMU pride at beating NUS. Good for the students involved, doesn't mean anything about the quality of education at SMU.

To answer TS, the starting salaries and salaries are holding up well. But we all know our A Level Econs. Supply and demand. Currently, lawyers leave the industry in droves, leaving supply somewhat short and driving salaries up. We need to see how the new supply changes the market. My take is that salaries will increase much slower than they used to.

Sam