Im still waiting for my paperwork
-buyside

Please be a bit more specific thanks.

"Paperwork"

The Generic Big4 front loading formula (for those which still use it) works like this:

Average associate gets 18 to 19.5 months of base pay in a year. Following figures set out base pay / front load inclusive pay.

Yr 1: 4K / 5.5K
Yr 2: 5k / 6.4K
Yr 3: 6k / 7.6k
Yr 4: 7k / 9k
Yr 5: 8k / 10.3k
Yr 6: 9k / 11.3k
Yr 7: 10k / 12.3k

The maths is easy to do. On an assumption of average performance, residual bonus can be calculated by taking (18 * base pay) - (12 * front load inclusive pay). This generally works out to 2-3 months base pay worth of residual bonus. Then comes the CPF contribution, which eats into your take home sum. At the end of the day, an average associate will take home about 15k over and above the December pay.

MCs pay between 0 and 20% bonuses. If you miss the annual billables by more than 10% there should be no bonus or a small bonus at best. If you meet or just miss it, the bonus is about 10-20%.

I've now got some data on the silver circle international firms. They pay about 20-30k p.a. below MCs in terms of base pay. Still considerably more than the local firms though. It's not just Baker that's available. Many readers here seem to think that only CC and baker are hiring. True that only CC and Baker take in trainees, but once you reach NQL, openings pop up all over, in Watson Farley, Stephenson Harwood, Norton Rose, Ince, BLP, HFW etc. MCs-wise, A&O is also an aggressive hirer. The US white shoe firms take a few as well, and pretty much pay top dollar (prob 10% p.a higher than the MCs), but tend to only hire 4PQEs and above.

There are options abound for senior associates in Big4, but more junior lawyers and NQLs are less lucky. Just gotta tough it out for a few years and clock that PQE!

Btw, I'm hoping more pple could stick to the spirit of this thread. We hope to see more information about bread and butter issues like salary, retention, partnership prospects, practice group mobility, working hours, attrition etc. stuff that matters to the greenhorns. Let's share useful info that the juniors can use!

Basically your entire job?

Can you just shut up and get a f ucking life, paperwork, paper work, buyside, buyside

Its damn difficult to have to scroll through all your drivel to find the useful posts in this thread

If you're not even in this industry just bugger off. Go hop over to the SIM-UOL forum or something where you can lord it over the finance wannabe kids. I'm sure more people there will comprehend and appreciate your superiority.

Obviously a quack. Anyone from the buyside worth his salt knows that transactional Lawyers play a critical part in structuring a transaction. A worthy buyside guy would know better than to slight his Lawyers. He knows that haggling over a few margin bips won't do much good unless the lawyer signs off on elephant-in-the room issues such as cross border withholding taxes, ad valorem taxes, FATCA and other deal breakers. Lawyers invariably sit with clients at the negotiating table and help secure favourable positions through skilfully conducted, painstaking negotiations.

Someone who claims to be from the buyside, yet claims that paperwork is all to a transactional lawyer's job, simply reeks of ignorance. An obvious fake/quack/poorly informed delusional wannabe. A true blue buyside guy wouldn't squander valuable time trolling a forum for professionals which he has no nexus or membership to.

Just ignore him.

Thanks once again! Very useful stuff to know in general.

Although I've never really heard of local qualified lawyers being hired by US firms. In general there aren't many US firms in Singapore at all, and next to no white shoe firms.

I know Squire Patton Boggs, OMelveny, and King & Spalding have offices here. But the vast majority seem to bypass setting up shop in Singapore entirely in favour of Hong Kong.

I don;t personally know of anyone who has been picked up by a US firm, so compensation info is naturally a black box. Vast majority of people I know who've jumped to internationals are to UK firms or alliances.

u mad bro??

Milbank and LW are here. They have precious few SG associates though, and they pay top dollar. An NQ starts at a salary level higher than a Big4 junior partner. Spalding pays less than MCs.

Jesus LW and Milbank pay full NY rates? That's what, 250k a year NQ? That's ****ing insane...