So in 2008 you were in primary school. How young and innocent.
That’s besides the point.
Your chinatown lawyers will continue to have a job bcos there will still be divorce and conveyancing transactions, albeit in lesser volume.
What makes you think that a small-mid size local firm will want to employ an international firm lawyer in an economic crisis. People in the small-mid size will be looking at keeping their own jobs, not splitting the pot with others.
International firm lawyers and the nature of international law firm work depends on the financial markets. They do not do your personal law stuff, bankruptcy, probate, divorce, crime.
In a crisis, nothing can sustain the lawyer’s $20k salary in an international law firm when you cannot even collect/bill your client US rates.
Granted 1-2 out of 10 lawyers will survive. But it’s hunger games all over again.
An international firm lawyer is not attractive to the small-mid size firms doing your personal law work such as POHA. Don’t believe go ask around.

To add on:

In an economic crisis, if you had a choice of medicine with no insurance coverage, would you choose generic medicine or branded medicine?
Say the generic medicine cost $0.10 per pill but the branded medicine cost $3 per pill?
Obvious answer.
Scaled legal fees for litigation will help to recession-proof law firms somewhat, but that means salary has to come down.
Salaries have to be sustainable. Draw an excessive amount and you’ll be first few to go in a recession. Unless you say that there will be no recession for the next 2 decade which is essentially the span of your working life, then yes, ignore everything said here.

SG Offices of International Firms:

1) Cravath Scale: 20-24k (MoFo, Milbank, L&W)

2) Mid Atlantic : ?

3) Magic Circle: 12-15k (a&o, CC, LL)

Do feel free to add info.

The pith of your argument is essentially this - be a frog in the well and not venture out into the wider world, because you'll be safest hiding from predators in the well.

Or to use my earlier analogy, be a PHV driver rather than an SIA pilot because Grab drivers can weather the effects of a downturn better.

Not everybody is content to constrict their career potential with the mindset of a doomsday prepper. Rational people seize the opportunities they are capable of obtaining, and adjust accordingly in response to vagaries of life / the economy.

I cannot agree with your mindset and that's the end of it.

Ignore OP. He wants to stay Chinatown while we earn big bucks in international firms.

The flaw in your argument is that you're assuming there's (1) international firm work, and (2) everybody else does personal law stuff like divorce, conveyancing, small claims liti, POHA, crim etc.

(2) is untrue. The majority of lawyers not doing small-time personal law, are working in midsize firms (or even local Big 4) doing the same work as (1), except that their clients are not Goldman Sachs or BlackRock but local corporates, OCBC or DBS. Let's call this category of mid-tier corp lawyers category (3).

It is lawyers in this category of (3) who are drawing your so-called idea of "sustainable salary" i.e. grinding 90+ hour weeks for $9.5-10k per month as 4PQE.

A major economic downturn will affect (3) as much as (1). All the run-on effects which you claim of corporate lawyers being shut out from "man-in-the-street" work in a crisis, will equally apply to category (3).

Given the above, why the heck would I not chose (1) over a "sustainable salary" in (3).

It seems what you're really saying is that we should all quit servicing corporate clients and do work only for HDB auntie and uncles.

I think it’s safe to say from the posts recently that this forum has gone down the gutter. Bravo!

When Michael Burry, Steve Eisman and Gregg Lippmann said there was going to be a housing bubble way back before the 2008 GFC, everyone thought it was absurd or incredulous.
Exactly how you folks are dissing the OP.
Nuff said on this. Junior lawyers think that everything they key in in their time sheets can be billed, but they are not aware at the partnership level how much of these time costs get written off before the final bill goes to client.

What's happening lol? This is a stupid debate, stupider than delisted vs NUS

Can you guys just lay it off thx

When lawyers try to be economists with a crystal ball ^

Who cares about which job is "recession proof". We are all hit, recessions suck. Clients have no money to pay. All levels and all firms will be impacted. We're service providers, slaves to our clients.

That being said, disputes will always have a steady pipeline (in general).