Hi all,
I’ve been reading through this thread and just want to say thank you to all who have contributed. I’m seriously considering applying for the PGDE in March this year, but first would like to hear everyone’s views (criticisms are welcomed too):
Current position
- Currently 28 y/o male, qualified lawyer doing contentious matrimonial law with 1.5 years in the legal industry. Not by choice. I wanted to do corporate work but supply/demand said otherwise.
- Graduated from UK university with a 2.1. My plan post-graduating was to give law a shot but was quite wary that in a glut market, things may not work out the way I wished they could.
- Reasons for leaving are that my current prospects aren’t good in terms of exposure, prospects, upward mobility and remuneration. I’m making S$54k p/a before
CPF in a small firm. Before anyone says how good I have it compared to my peers, please be aware that my juniors a year below me are making about S$42k p/a in SME hell where security and stability are not great.
- I feel that I’m in a position where if I leave my present law firm now, it’d be tough to convince any SME employer to not force me to take a paycut and risk facing the same above mentioned problems for the next few years.
- I’ve applied to bigger orgs, but so far it’s been fruitless because I’m too junior and coming from an SME.
Teaching
- I did a relief teaching stint (for about a month) in a secondary school before I went to law school. It was quite a nice experience and before I left, my students did tell me that they learnt a lot from me. That was quite fulfilling.
- I take pleasure in giving back what the mentors in my life gave to me. It’s become a personal characteristic at this point.
- I want security and stability more than anything else at the moment. As explained above, I find this absent in legal practice. Not sure if I’m a pessimist, but it seems to be the case for the foreseeable future.
- I’ve always been a huge history and literature geek, so it’s something I wouldn’t mind spending the rest of my life teaching (as far as I know anyway). Have always been good at English (exams) and didn’t really have to put too much effort in getting my As.
Questions
- What are my chances of even getting an interview?
- Are there any ex-lawyers or professionals around who would care to share their experiences? Was it a step you regretted taking? If yes/no, why?
- Is the paycut for me going to be quite big? I really don’t mind taking one step backwards to take two steps forward, but what would I be looking at 2-3 years down the road?