Agree with you but I also sympathise with OP... it’s easier said than done. If you’re not from a Big 4 firm/international firm and you’re not in a corporate practice, your chances are significantly lesser. If you’re looking to be paid big bucks ie USD205K- ish at a US firm in London, competition is even stiffer because you’re competing against candidates in the UK for limited positions. Also, not all US firms pay the £ equivalent of USD205K and those that do have limited roles available and tend to laterally recruit from MC firms.. Interview process is also way more gruelling than anything you’ll come across in Singapore. Think rapid fire interrogation style. For eg the final round for a lateral hire for Latham in London can be 2h 30 mins of back to back interviews where you meet 5 partners and 5 associates in five 30 min blocks of time..

That being said, if OP is interested I think no harm trying. After all, you never know if you don’t try, especially since the lateral market quite hot now.. I guess better than feeling miserable slogging it out everyday at a Big 4 firm? Be prepared though, US firms have billing requirements that range from 1800-2150. If you’re billing that much at a Big 4 firm already, then definitely start looking elsewhere.

Also note that in UK, these firms rarely ever hire 2:2. Minimum is 2:1 and AAB at A levels.
So bear in mind either fch/2:1 and be prepared to compete with native English speakers in uk.

Why should they even hire UK grads? They should not even consider any overseas or SMU grad, and solely take in NUS grads. Best is if they have a streamline recruitment process for 4 year NUS grads.

Yea US firms are notorious for being more picky on grades and prefer to hire fch (unless you’re from Oxbridge). I’ve also not seen a SG lateral hire to a US firm in London that studied at a local uni (but I could be wrong). MC firms are generally more amenable to hiring international candidates (they usually have great relocation packages), there’s less focus on grades and they also tend to hire more candidates than US firms.

One interesting thing I noticed is that US firms in SG tend to be quite strict with docking your PQE but that isn’t really the same in London. There seems to be a lot more flex. It can even be argued SG candidates have an advantage against UK candidates. For eg if you are a 1PQE funds associate who trained in funds during his RLT + TC (or just TC if he studied locally), you can raise the argument that you have 1.5+ or 2+ years of total experience in funds work, and you’d be way ahead of a UK NQ candidate who would probably only have 6 + months experience in funds work (as they rotate seats every couple months). It’s quite shiok to only be a 1PQE SG associate but go to London and be a 1PQE associate as well, especially as US firms don’t have a NQ concept and you jump straight into first year.

The primary reason why legal pay in SG has been stagnating in a stunted rate/increasing negligibly is because of the restrictions of foreign firms that can fully develop in the market. That’s why they have FLAs set up. Look at other common law jurisdictions (HK/AUS/UK), they have a liberalisation of foreign firms and hence local firms have to follow a certain pay grade as the salary market moves as a whole. There is nothing to entice SG local firms, which mainly dominate the SG legal market, to increase pay.

Out of curiosity, if you’re a local Uni student who has not interacted with HK/British/American lawyers as much unless you studied a year abroad for exchange, do you feel like you could confidently impress these partners in a lateral interview? In elite US firms like Latham, Milbank, Skadden, Kirkland, Sidley etc, you have to meet at the very minimum 4 partners and most likely the managing partner/chair of the London office, and cultural fit with the team is quite important to these partners.

Which is why there should be full liberalisation here. More than half of the unprofitable local firms will collapse or merge in an instant, and salaries will be pushed up across the board.

Law is one of the few sectors that would benefit from more liberalisation, not less. Due to the high barriers to entry in terms of language and cultural fit, there's little threat of low wage ceca or other cheap third world lawyers coming in to replace locals. Conversely, the entry of angmoh firms will create more jobs for locals

Join politics, so you can make a difference (to your pay).

It really depends on the type of person you are and whether you can absorb knowledge from the work you do.

Do the B4 do top notch corporate work? Yes. No one can dispute this. From my experience working with them, the B4 partners are on top of things and know their job very well.

But this subject mater expertise rarely trickles down to the junior associates. You see a lot of them able to do their work very efficiently when the deal follows a conventional pathway, but the moment things get a little haywire or some loose bolt flies at them they get very panicked, cant bring out good ideas and have to check everything with their partners.

The ones that have solid legal knowledge, good client management and can handle things on the fly - we usually comment internally that they wont be there long, and we are usually right. Those are the ones that make the jump to a US/UK firm 1 or 2 PQE in, and those are the ones that do well in the interview. But they are 1 out of 10 associates in the B4.

Why not. Don’t give in to your Pinkerton syndrome lah. Law students here are how ang moh pai. Unless you’re some chao ah beng or xenophobic dick, just be authentic and speak your mind to let them know you more.

Someone earlier already posted about Latham hiring more Singapore lawyers.