Oxbridge, snoxbridge.

Gunderson SG award winning top dawg US firm hiring Singapore lawyers.

Sidley Austin SG growing like no tomorrow.

Not to forget incumbents like Latham, W&C and GDC, and phat whack paying MC firms here that routinely hire SG lawyers.

Want to distinguish yourself, take SQE in your spare time. Doesn’t kill a year. US state bars not as useful as they will mostly still discriminate against you if you don’t have a JD.

Are you in an international firm? Not pseudo international like one of the firms in the big 5.
If you inside then you know. If you outside then hearsay is not enough.
But I’m advising the Nus fch. So I’ll let this slide.

Hence the advise for him/her to go Harvard, Oxbridge for the LLM to help compete against the Oxbridge u/g which firms like Quinn Emanuel hire from.
You can also do a quick search of Singaporeans who did LLM in Oxbridge and see their career paths now.

Back to your conveyancing matter la. What a crock of shiet.

US LLM vs UK SQE + Bar?

You upset at?
Not getting your fch?

LLMs are only useful for getting a work visa in the country you did an LLM in. The knowledge is totally useless in practice. I’m working opposite a NY firm associate now from Slovenia - she did an LLM so she could get a work visa in USA and switch to a law firm there. She’s the first to admit the knowledge has 0 relevance to her work (capital markets).

LLMs have a time and a place but it’s not generally wise to throw a huge sum of money + opportunity cost of not working a year and building more PQE unless you really want to switch countries.

Taking a foreign LLM and then coming back to Singapore with it is just… an absolute waste of money.

Taking an LLM and using the time to apply for UL barrister’s chambers, or for US litigation firms is a much better value proposition .

UK BPTC isn’t useful unless you want to be a UK barrister (which you should try for if that’s what you’re interested in.

Assuming you have so much cash to spend on these qualifications (which are not that helpful in Singapore), the question is more: do you want to work in the US or UK?

Isn't staying in a big 4 firm more lucrative in the long run since international firms in sg have glass ceilings?

You might not know the exact reasons, but it's clear that staying intl long time is better than staying B4 long time because attrition only goes in one direction.

B4 is losing people to international firms at ALL levels. Been happening for many years. And it does not happen the other way around. I don't know a single senior assoc in a top tier B4 corp team who lateralled in from an international firm.