Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ranking for law schools (Singapore hiring context)

First tier: Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard
Second tier: NUS, LSE, UCL
Third tier: Melbourne, Bristol, Durham
Fourth tier: SMU, KCL, Exeter, Queen Mary, Warwick, Nottingham, Sheffield
Fifth tier: Birmingham, Leicester
Sixth tier: UWA, Sydney, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, SOAS, Southampton
(Non-exhaustive)

Move smu to 2nd tier.
Durham Bristol Melbourne to fourth.
Harvard post grad no basis for comparison.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Ranking for law schools (Singapore hiring context)

First tier: Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard
Second tier: NUS, LSE, UCL
Third tier: Melbourne, Bristol, Durham
Fourth tier: SMU, KCL, Exeter, Queen Mary, Warwick, Nottingham, Sheffield
Fifth tier: Birmingham, Leicester
Sixth tier: UWA, Sydney, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, SOAS, Southampton
(Non-exhaustive)

First tier: Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard (irrelevant: JD only)
Second tier: NUS, SMU, LSE, UCL
Third tier: KCL, Melbourne (now JD only)
Fourth tier: Bristol, Warwick, Durham, USYD
Everything else: Queen Mary, Nottingham, Birmingham, UWA, UTAS,
Delisted: Exeter, Leicester, Liverpool, Leeds, SOAS, Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton

Fixed that for you.

Don't understand how SMU is ranked on the same level as NUS. NUS is top 20 in the world based on QS and THE rankings.
SMU is not even ranked. Obv, the top students for each cohort don't need to worry much, but for those out of the 10%, I don't see how they are comparable to NUS grads.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Don't understand how SMU is ranked on the same level as NUS. NUS is top 20 in the world based on QS and THE rankings.
SMU is not even ranked. Obv, the top students for each cohort don't need to worry much, but for those out of the 10%, I don't see how they are comparable to NUS grads.

You're conflating school rankings with the quality of their graduates. While often school rankings indicate quality in that the ranking of a school corresponds to its selectiveness, it can hardly be said that SMU is any less selective than NUS, bearing in mind the fact that it recruits a smaller cohort of students each year.

In terms of the actual quality of its graduates, do you have any data to prove that SMU grads are in any way inferior to NUS grads? If you consider the 2017 JLC cohort, 60% of the local JLCs came from SMU (despite SMU having a smaller pool of students). Also, in terms of mooting achievements in "grand-slam" moots, NUS's performance doesn't even come close.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Don't understand how SMU is ranked on the same level as NUS. NUS is top 20 in the world based on QS and THE rankings.
SMU is not even ranked. Obv, the top students for each cohort don't need to worry much, but for those out of the 10%, I don't see how they are comparable to NUS grads.

Yeah its only right to bump SMU down. NUS is undisputably the number one law school in Singapore

Who says rankings doesn’t matter? I quote from an article in Today newspaper: The high-powered panel proposed that the list of approved UK law schools be “reviewed and updated to better reflect the current rankings of UK law schools”.
Let’s give an example, China and India are two biggest countries in the world. They have countless law schools, but you don’t see a lot of these appearing in the rankings. Are their home countries going to delist them by virtue of not being ranked? Same for the British universities delisted or other non ranked law schools in UK - they are widely recognized for purpose of admission in the UK. Being recognized by a regulator is just one part of the equation. It also depends a lot on international visibility, recognition by multiple jurisdictions (and the best way for that is to look at international rankings). When NUS broke the top 20 rankings in the world, it was highly publicized. Same for NTU. When LSE/UCL graduates choose to go over to London to study (over their NUS/SMU counterparts), they make a choice despite being offered a place at NUS/SMU because of prestige and exposure as well as international standing. Otherwise, there is no reason to study overseas.

Thank you Sherlock.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Who says rankings doesn’t matter? I quote from an article in Today newspaper: The high-powered panel proposed that the list of approved UK law schools be “reviewed and updated to better reflect the current rankings of UK law schools”.
Let’s give an example, China and India are two biggest countries in the world. They have countless law schools, but you don’t see a lot of these appearing in the rankings. Are their home countries going to delist them by virtue of not being ranked? Same for the British universities delisted or other non ranked law schools in UK - they are widely recognized for purpose of admission in the UK. Being recognized by a regulator is just one part of the equation. It also depends a lot on international visibility, recognition by multiple jurisdictions (and the best way for that is to look at international rankings). When NUS broke the top 20 rankings in the world, it was highly publicized. Same for NTU. When LSE/UCL graduates choose to go over to London to study (over their NUS/SMU counterparts), they make a choice despite being offered a place at NUS/SMU because of prestige and exposure as well as international standing. Otherwise, there is no reason to study overseas.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You're conflating school rankings with the quality of their graduates. While often school rankings indicate quality in that the ranking of a school corresponds to its selectiveness, it can hardly be said that SMU is any less selective than NUS, bearing in mind the fact that it recruits a smaller cohort of students each year.

In terms of the actual quality of its graduates, do you have any data to prove that SMU grads are in any way inferior to NUS grads? If you consider the 2017 JLC cohort, 60% of the local JLCs came from SMU (despite SMU having a smaller pool of students). Also, in terms of mooting achievements in "grand-slam" moots, NUS's performance doesn't even come close.

Note that the earlier poster said top 10% of cohort don’t need to worry. I would assume JLCs fall within the top 10% of SMU’s cohort.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Don't understand how SMU is ranked on the same level as NUS. NUS is top 20 in the world based on QS and THE rankings.
SMU is not even ranked. Obv, the top students for each cohort don't need to worry much, but for those out of the 10%, I don't see how they are comparable to NUS grads.

Rankings are subjective and are, to a large extent, not representative of the capability of the students.

University rankings, in particular QS, are composed of various criteria with varying weightage accorded to each, such as Academic reputation, Employer reputation etc. QS attributes a higher weightage (40%) to Academic reputation. Given that SMU's law faculty has only been around for 10 years or so, as opposed to NUS's long standing legacy, it is of little wonder why SMU's law faculty has failed to make it into the world rankings. I may be mistaken, but another reason could be the fact that SMU is not considered to be a full fledged university incorporating all disciplines; there is a heavy focus on the social sciences and business at SMU. This might explain the exclusion from the list as well.

Also, many of the faculty members at SMU have taught at NUS in the past. Others have equally strong backgrounds such as being JLCs etc.

At the end of the day, a prospective student attending one of the two local universities ought not to spend too much time worrying about the rankings; but rather how well he/ she can cope with the differing pedagogies offered by each school, as well as his/her attitude and ability to contribute during internships.

The QS rankings speak for themselves. Apparently the results of the 2018 QS rankings are as follows:
NTU - ranked 11th
NUS - ranked 15th
SMU - ranked 441st-450th

2018 THE rankings
NUS - ranked 22nd
NTU - ranked 52nd
SMU - not ranked

Rankings matter insofar the prospects an average 2:1 graduate from a university has. If you belong to a higher ranked university, e.g. LSE/UCL (and probably NUS given how highly it is ranked recently), a 2:1 from there could potentially reap a lot more. If you come from a lower ranked university, a 2:1 from that particular university could potentially limit your career at the outset. Notice the word “potentially”. Every university (top ranked or bottom ranked) has success stories of sorts.