Originally Posted by Unregistered

Wild guess here, but did you go to CityU PCLL in 2012-2013 and if so, did you have a female classmate with the surname Tai? My associate buddy told me about a Singaporean in her PCLL cohort who recently got married to a same-sex partner and is probably about NQ/ PQE1 now.

You're so lucky to get COLA - I'm not entitled to it at my firm because they count me as a Hong Kong staff ): Are all international staff members automatically entitled to COLA at US law firms, even if you trained in HK?

Your reasons definitely make sense (also, very jealous that you got a secondment to New York). COL is indeed higher, but the pay makes up for it I think. Quality of training is also pretty good here.

To be very honest, I'm not really sure a local firm (eg Woo Kwan Lee & Lo, maybe even Deacons or Mayer Brown JSM) would be all that keen on Singaporean trainees or associates. My suspicion is that you probably need Cantonese fluency to deal with local clients. All the other Singaporeans I know of are at US or UK law firms.

More generally, any advice for a first seat trainee, especially given that I'm currently in Corporate?