Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
The guy who posted the comment that you quoted is clearly an idiot. However, I disagree with you. The essence isn't the competition, it is the Singaporean mentality of trying to get everything at a cheaper price.
Look at the US, there is a glut of law graduates, yet top NYC law firms still start at USD$160k. Look at the UK, similar situation, but salaries have been rising. All these firms could all easily collude and cut salaries but they don't. The same cannot be said of the Sgrean firms.
Competition is good in any industry, it raises the standards of future batches of lawyers. The glut has made everyone more zealous in trying to better their CVs to stand out from the crowd. This is surely a good thing, as those that get in to the top firms (aside from connections, which is something we have to addressed) are those that are truly motivated to seek out opportunities.
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Hi, I'm the writer of #427 here. Perhaps I wasn't being too clear, as my reply was directed to #426. So I'll take this chance to explain myself further.
My point isn't that competition is bad per se, it's that the current state of affairs is perhaps going too far. Minister Shanmugam noted in 2014 that 650 graduates were competing for 490
TCs (://.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-is-facing-a-glut-of-lawyers-shanmugam). And this is only about
TCs, much less being retained as associates. Many firms don't retain their trainees, maybe for reasons of penny pinching as well (as trainees are paid less than half of what associates get). Where do those that fall through the cracks go then?
To make matters worse, this trend of increasing droves of students seems to be going up, with the current 2015 batch of Part B students being much larger than the one last year which our law minister referred to. Furthermore, with many trainees and fresh associates in the firms already, there is less of a need for these firms to hire more trainees in future batches, and some smaller firms simply do not have the capacity to do so, or retain them. Hence, to say that more competition is needed is really missing the point entirely. This was what I was getting at in my reply to #426.
Yes, I agree with you that competition in general helps to improve the industry, which would ensure that those who get into the big firms are those who are the truly passionate and zealous ones (leaving those getting in via connections aside). However, it might not really be a good thing like you said in the context of Singapore. Consider: if one works hard, beats the competition amongst fellow students, and gets into the big firms, and beats the competition to be retained, only to realise that pay has been decreasing, how does that help for one's motivation in the end? The good ones may end up jumping ship to work for foreign firms, which seems to be the case already.
So maybe you are right that the penny pinching mentality is perhaps a bigger problem, but both are contributory factors at the end of the day, mashed together with a slowing economy. This is also why I asked the writer of #426 to clarify the peers which he compared Singaporean lawyers to - is it the lawyers in say, Malaysia or the rest of SEA who earn much less than their Singaporean counterparts, or those in London/NY which you referred to, or those in HK... or perhaps the writer of #426 was having other unrelated industries in mind.
Hope I have clarified my position!