Salary.sg Forums - View Single Post - Lawyer Salary
Thread: Lawyer Salary
View Single Post
  #15 (permalink)  
Old 31-08-2010, 12:07 PM
Unregistered
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
To be a lawyer or a doctor, you need above average grades so its not really about choosing your career, but your inate ability. Lawyers and doctors are not poor, but most are not rich either.

I think its more about how much risk you want to take. The doctors and lawyers that I observed becoming rich have largely been successful businessmen. They have taken the risk to go out on their own to start their own firms or clinics. Equivalently smart colleagues who stayed in hospitals or established law firms, have not become anywhere as rich. However, starting your own business involves risk, worry and affects your quality of life, particularly family life. So, its back to square one. If you want to sacrifice your quality of life for money, then head in that direction. Doesn't matter if you are lawyer, doctor, financier or hawker.

In fact, in finance, many become quite wealthy (like the wealthiest doctors and lawyers) without taking risk in starting their own business. They just work for global banks. Doctors and lawyers usually have to risk their own capital. Those in finance that take the risk to break away and start their own hedge funds often fail, but those who succeed like Tan Chong Koay of Phiem, can be worth hundreds of millions to billions, which is far greater than any doctor or lawyer that I know of.
Thanks for this! Do you have hard salary figures? Its difficult to find these without contacts in the industry (fyi I did try asking during my hospital attachments and the med student scolded me ) and the previous-lawyer poster guy was very vague on this.
Reply With Quote