Anybody moved from litigation to corp?
Was it difficult to adapt?
Did you switch in the same firm or went to a different firm? Why



I notice seldom people moved from corp to litigation. Any reasons?

I pity whoever is the new NUS dean. Tiagong from inside politics very jialat. The current dean announce so many new stuff but the poor fellow who has to implement is the next dean.

Bump. Any insights as to the first question? Looking to make the jump too.

To answer the second question, I think the main reason is the rigour in terms of hard law required. Atleast that’s my opinion. Of course there is also the toll of the adversarial nature/court procedure that invariably comes with litigation but that can also be said of corp imo. Just of a slightly different form. Please critique and share your thoughts on this too, if any.

I'm the person you quoted and I concur with your post absolutely. The pie is already shrinking in late 2000s and with the judiciary introducing measures that essentially remove lawyers from the disputes, there will be many casualties in the coming years. I am guessing the first few to go will be you "specialist" family law firms that rely on volume (at the expense of billing lower fees). Future divorcing millennials will be savvy enough to Google all the court procedures that are easily available on the website and proceed on an uncontested basis to save costs.

Only criminal litigation will still be "alive" because most Accuseds will prefer a lawyer to defend them, rather than defend themselves as they may be intimidated by adversarial criminal proceedings.

That said, I think corporate is looking bleak too with advancement of AI being intelligent enough to draft simple SPAs, STAs, etc. Oh well, boomers and Gen X practitioners have already taken generous chunks of the pie and only the crumbs are left for millennial and zoomer practitioners.

I don’t you’re in this industry or even if you are, probably one of the slacking ones in a sh*t town. Any lawyers who simply uses an AI/Practical Law-drafted document will get fired anytime soon. None of these transactions are the same and that is why lawyers are hired to review and to flag out the issues. I suggest you go read more in-depth, rather than just relying only headlines of those paid subscriptions that go “will corporate lawyers be replaced by AIs soon?”

I moved from liti to corp quite early on (during TC) so not difficult to adapt.

The nature of work is quite different - far less research, more about finding the right precedent documents. The type of 'drafting' is also quite different. Both, however, require good high-level oversight as well as attention to detail.

You should always try and switch within the firm, before looking elsewhere. Due to firm politics it might not be possible, but you'll never know if you don't ask.

Corp is more generalist, while liti is specialised, so it's easier to switch from a specialised field into a general field. It's difficult to switch the other way round.

Having said that, there are far more opportunities as a corp lawyer (international firms, in house roles, and even roles outside the law). The skills you pick up as a litigator are not very transferable.

The only reasons you'd choose liti over corp is if you truly love the nature of work, or if you are gunning for equity partnership at a local/B4 firm (it's arguably easier than corp departments). Liti is also probably also more recession-proof.

You must be from a Chinatown law firm since your view of litigation consists only of family and criminal law. There is a still a big demand for commercial litigators who deal with complex multi-million-dollar disputes for corporate clients.

I guess if you are doing brainless low-level work that can be easily Googled or automated away, then yes, you better start looking for other career options.

Am I the only one sickened and nauseated by the many humble-brag and false modesty posts lawyers and law firms have put up over the past day from being nominated or winning awards that in all likelihood they had their clients put them up for? Geez.

PSC vs Commercial practice
 

Any opinions on PSC (Legal), studying locally, versus commercial practice in a law firm? Which should I take up? In terms of remuneration, working hours, work life balance etc.

Any idea if Legal Service would be upping their salaries to compete with the law firms?

Sorry to burst your head-in-the-clouds bubble, but the bulk of local litigation is made up of cases *other* than complex multi-million dollar disputes. Even commercial litigation. We are looking at sub-SGD $10M disputes between local corporates and SMEs, or between HNWs. That's the 'middle and working class strata' of the litigation world. If that pie shrinks to unviability, the litigation sector in Singapore is pretty much finished.

The Big4 and DSC teams have their own problems being squeezed from int'l arbi by the foreign firms.

If you can't see a problem with hollowing out of the existing pool of local litigators and inability to replenish the next gen of litigators because there's no market for it, then you need to come down from your ivory tower. Access to justice is very important not only to the common man, but the typical Singapore local corporate.

I have no skin in this as I'm in-house counsel and we regularly instruct a variety of firms on the corporate panel. Cost control is my priority. Most of our disputes are not bet the company type, and even if we instruct B4, we push their rates down to mid-tier levels because we're not paying SC rates to deal with a simple $2M performance bond case.