Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

full integration means what exactly? their associates still paid less than the b4?

Exactly. They say KW is now “full integration”.

But the pay not integrated w London/int’ll rates? But the nature of work not integrated with int’ll work?

What gives.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you're talking about people paying >big4, quite a few smaller FLA/JLVs do indeed pay above big4, like my firm. However, the work that we do is (admittedly) not at the level you expect from int firms.

Mostly, the int firm have their own payscale/track, and the local firm pays based on their size. For example, Ashurst pays int rates but ADT law does not pay anything close.

There are only a few "pay int, do int work" firms, such as CC/Cavenagh Law, and "pay half-way int rates" firms like BM.

Most of the truly international firms in SG just do not bother with a local partner and get a foreign law license instead or just use the local partner to get the appropriate FLA/JLV license.

Thanks for this post. What about firms like CMS Holborn Asia, Pinsent Masons Mpillay, NRF Ascendant? And is Bird & Bird ATMD in this fla/jlv category?

Question still not answered. Which are the 4 allegedly sinking ships?

WKW
L&L
HEP?
what else? Stamford? CNP? TSMP? or RHT?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Question still not answered. Which are the 4 allegedly sinking ships?

WKW
L&L
HEP?
what else? Stamford? CNP? TSMP? or RHT?

What does OP mean by sinking ship?

You mean FLAs right?

The reality is every firm will go through it's phases eg Rodyk after PJ left but now seems to be on a rebound

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you're talking about people paying >big4, quite a few smaller FLA/JLVs do indeed pay above big4, like my firm. However, the work that we do is (admittedly) not at the level you expect from int firms.

Mostly, the int firm have their own payscale/track, and the local firm pays based on their size. For example, Ashurst pays int rates but ADT law does not pay anything close.

There are only a few "pay int, do int work" firms, such as CC/Cavenagh Law, and "pay half-way int rates" firms like BM.

Most of the truly international firms in SG just do not bother with a local partner and get a foreign law license instead or just use the local partner to get the appropriate FLA/JLV license.

Correct. Only true international tie ups are CC and BM - BM also had a recent pay hike so fairly near SC/MC rates now.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This is true. If you're in the know, you'd know that Withers has done serious house cleaning in the past few years, ruthlessly dropping the less profitable practice groups and many local partners. Most of the old birds that formed the core KW aren't there any longer.

In fact, I would say WKW is probably more "international" than many of the other JLVs and FLAs around, by virtue of the massive house cleaning. Just that Withers has always been a niche private client and tax London law firm so their peers obviously aren't MC or Silver Circle

Its kinda ironic because what occasioned the KW-RHT split almost 1 decade ago was, to my understanding, a difference in direction of how the firm should internationalize. Both firms are in vastly different places now.

based on what I hear the OP is more or less correct. Withers purged an entire KW team I heard.

Withers is an established legit firm in the private client area, and the work spills over to the other practice areas, including disputes. Firm wide stuff once in a while etc (e.g. firm wide events / training for everyone, regardless if you're USA / UK / HK / SG etc.) and operationally you feel like they try to standardise practices across firms (e.g. ironically sometimes the practices of our colonial masters are better for our well being than the way some local firms are run), so you don't get that apartheid feeling like in other local-foreign tie ups here.

Locally, I heard WKW salaries are quite ok now. For UK, they're not competitive against the other firms that people in this forum like but it appears that it suits some (s://.chambersstudent.co.uk/withers/true-picture/463/1).

So I don't think it's accurate to say that WKW is a sinking ship.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Correct. Only true international tie ups are CC and BM - BM also had a recent pay hike so fairly near SC/MC rates now.

Nah, BM is nowhere near SC/MC rates lol, it's not even halfway to SC/MC rates. It's far closer to b4 rates than even SC rates in SG.

BM is not an SC/MC firm in the first place, it's the Macdonalds of the "int firms" in UK/US, and unapologetically so. It's not competing with the true internationals at all in terms of pay or work.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What does OP mean by sinking ship?

You mean FLAs right?

No, there are 4 local firms in SG that were/are thought to be dying out from their glory days:

Withers Khattarwong
Lee&Lee

seem to be two of them, there are two more. It has nothing to do with FLA or local firms.

Definitely don’t join the FLA part of a tie up if you are going to be treated as a second class citizen. Can’t imagine how it feels to be in ADT / Ascendent looking over at other Sg lawyers who get hired by Ashurst / NRF.

Disclaimer: not sure if they equalised the pay yet.