Lawyer Salary

Salary tip in a nutshell: question is whether at NQ-Junior/Mid level to join international firm for increase in $$$ (10-12k at 2pqe for < MC, 15-16 for MC, 21-22 for US) or slog it out to partnership at local firm and earn what you can bring in.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Salary tip in a nutshell: question is whether at NQ-Junior/Mid level to join international firm for increase in $$$ (10-12k at 2pqe for < MC, 15-16 for MC, 21-22 for US) or slog it out to partnership at local firm and earn what you can bring in.

how much do partners make at local firms - what kind of range are we looking at?

also, I've heard of people not wanting to make partner, so maybe in those situations the answer to your question is more clear cut?

Notwithstanding the terms of any employment or partnership agreement, my feel is that in the international firm context, as you may be advising only on one aspect of a multi-jurisdictional matter, client loyalty may be more towards the firm than to you (if they like keeping the entire matter within the one firm across the globe), so it's harder to build a big book of clients. is that a fair statement?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

how much do partners make at local firms - what kind of range are we looking at?

also, I've heard of people not wanting to make partner, so maybe in those situations the answer to your question is more clear cut?

Notwithstanding the terms of any employment or partnership agreement, my feel is that in the international firm context, as you may be advising only on one aspect of a multi-jurisdictional matter, client loyalty may be more towards the firm than to you (if they like keeping the entire matter within the one firm across the globe), so it's harder to build a big book of clients. is that a fair statement?

Not a partner so can’t say for sure. But if you’re those with partnership material, eg go getter BD god, I’m sure you can out earn earn a counsel/SA in an international firm.

For those with no partnership interest or chops like myself naturally being a wage slave in a international firm can be comfortable.

Not sure what you mean by your third question. Why only one aspect? Even QFLPs frequently act as lead international counsel. Sure big corporates have panels but there are other types of clients.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not a partner so can’t say for sure. But if you’re those with partnership material, eg go getter BD god, I’m sure you can out earn earn a counsel/SA in an international firm.

For those with no partnership interest or chops like myself naturally being a wage slave in a international firm can be comfortable.

Not sure what you mean by your third question. Why only one aspect? Even QFLPs frequently act as lead international counsel. Sure big corporates have panels but there are other types of clients.

Thanks for the reply. ok your last para makes it clear now. I always thought it hard for any single Singapore lawyer to advise on a big transnational matter. So I thought they'd be limited to advising only on the 'one aspect' they're qualified to do so (i.e. Singapore law). and since most big corporates are from other parts of the world, I thought the Singapore lawyers would be involved only when the matter touches on Singapore law. e.g. big US corporate hires big US law firm to advise on some big matter then the Singapore office of big US law firm advise on SG law part only. Point is that the Singapore office gets the work because its part of the same firm, and not so much because of any individual partner in the Singapore office.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thanks for the reply. ok your last para makes it clear now. I always thought it hard for any single Singapore lawyer to advise on a big transnational matter. So I thought they'd be limited to advising only on the 'one aspect' they're qualified to do so (i.e. Singapore law). and since most big corporates are from other parts of the world, I thought the Singapore lawyers would be involved only when the matter touches on Singapore law. e.g. big US corporate hires big US law firm to advise on some big matter then the Singapore office of big US law firm advise on SG law part only. Point is that the Singapore office gets the work because its part of the same firm, and not so much because of any individual partner in the Singapore office.

Singapore is a financial / professional services hub for the region after all. SG offices of international firms are staffed with internationally qualified lawyers. There are many EW or US qualified Singaporean lawyers too. These lawyers work out of Singapore and can command international rates on international deals. No doubt the scenario you mentioned is also part of what these SG international offices do but that hardly justifies opening an office here - they would just hire A&G. They are here to lead on international deals, e.g. target or borrower is regional (think India, Indonesia, Thailand, etc.) or some Singapore nexus (think FMCs being based in SG). You need to think more than just being a "SG law" lawyer.

Coming from a smaller firm, I can say that the firms around my area are facing a massive shortage of junior lawyers/trainees. There are too many partners and too little juniors here.

Why aren't more people moving in-house? The pay cut isn't even that bad

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Coming from a smaller firm, I can say that the firms around my area are facing a massive shortage of junior lawyers/trainees. There are too many partners and too little juniors here.

Who wants to be abused in the lawyer culture?
Partner do the junior lawyer job lo.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why aren't more people moving in-house? The pay cut isn't even that bad

Depends on where you move from?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Coming from a smaller firm, I can say that the firms around my area are facing a massive shortage of junior lawyers/trainees. There are too many partners and too little juniors here.

That's because these firms probably pay like crap, the partners are stingy and the work is the unsophisticated and low-level Chinatown kind (conveyancing, wills, PI, blue collar crime, low value lame disputes etc)

You can generally draw fairly accurate assumptions about what kind of legal work a firm does by looking at the partner-associate ratio (or leverage).

Firms with a low associate-to-partner ratio generally do s*it-tier work - e.g. in your average Chinatown mid-size firms, there may be 10 (ageing) partners/consultants in the firm and only 2 or 3 associates. There's a reason why the big 4 firms doing high level work follow a more pyramidal structure and have 2 to 3 associates for each partner.

Read articles like this to learn more about law firm economics:
://ukgraduates.shearman.com/2018/07/10/6-law-firm-financial-metrics-whiteboard-wednesday/