WP only teach you how to torpedo deals by overlawyering - pick A&G instead.

BMWL better. The partners are very hands on and give alot of guidance and attention even though you are a trainee. And great work culture. Seniors all helpful and zero politics. Thats why most trainees stay there for years till made partner.

Op here. I meant bmwl mna. The other departments errr

waiting time for BTOs is ridiculous not to mention so difficult to ballot successfully.

even resale HDB prices are becoming out of reach.

This person is in the know.

Replying to original OP -

Yes, but a lot of it is also triggered by the pandemic. It's not just Singapore. The world is in decline.

Housing prices are just the byproduct of scarcity. Happens when we have too many people and too little space.

E.g. Hong Kong, Shenzhen, London, Sydney or Melbourne vs suburbs

The Axeman part though makes me thing we're going to the s hitters. How even did that happen? Poor schoolmate.

You could always migrate and let a ceca take your place. Or you could vote for change. Otherwise shut up and get back to the grind!

I'm somewhat persuaded by your argument even if its said in jest, the government negotiators really got blindsided by their Indian counterparts. They got the professional jobs here and we get, nada. For all you know CECA may be expanded to include lawyers too if our population keeps decreasing.

://.singaporelawwatch.sg/Headlines/legal-service-may-be-restructured-for-greater-specialisation

Shan seems to suggest there's a shortage of lawyers. 6000 for a resident pop of 6million (actually about 5.6m), 0.1%. I guess that's quite underlawyered compared to other advanced economies

Then how come our pay so shi tty and grads cannot find TCs? Will law become like medicine where residents can't get jobs as consultants but they keep importing indian and FT doctors year after year?

Hundreds of billions spent (wasted?) on support packages funded by increasing GST to 9% and sky-high HDB prices. Using taxpayer money to sustain dying or zombie businesses to meet KPIs because of lockdown directly related to lax immigration policies.

Big brother watches this forum and will investigate you for such fantasies and misleading comments

[QUOTE=Unregistered;178789]://.singaporelawwatch.sg/Headlines/legal-service-may-be-restructured-for-greater-specialisation

Shan seems to suggest there's a shortage of lawyers. 6000 for a resident pop of 6million (actually about 5.6m), 0.1%. I guess that's quite underlawyered compared to other advanced economies

Then how come our pay so shi tty and grads cannot find TCs?

My firm started out a few years back and we have been having major difficulties finding people for our TC spots. I am not sure how come you are suggesting that grads cannot find TCs. There are opportunities out there definitely.

[QUOTE=Unregistered;178796]maybe your firm is just trash bro gg ez wooooooooo

anyone heard of wmh law? Is it a good corp boutique to join?

Lmao are we supposed to be afraid of this? Are we now North Korea?

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

-George Orwell

Nope and nope

I would like a female lawyer, preferably, geeky, graduated with a first, unshaven, to pee on me wearing her court attire

What did I just read? What is this forum turning into?

It's a small-midsize boutique firm formed from past big4 associates. They caused a hoo-ha when they started because the partners started the firm at 3PQE (the minimum required without Minlaw approval). They expanded quite fast at the start.

However, recently I think some of the corp dept (their head at least) had some dispute (or maybe just decided to leave).

How about RHTlaw? Is it a good place for associates to join in the long run?

Can share more? Is it the fintech focused lawyer that left? What do the rest of the corp partners do, and more importantly what kind of deals to they do/clients do they have? Vanilla corp or specialised?

Lol you asking to join or asking for gossip.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about this, so keep calm and carry on.

not OP. i'd like the gossip.

what's the culture at qwp like for liti? and also the starting salary and progression? thanks!

s://.rollonfriday.com/news-content/ad-week-glamorous-wmh

Lmao this is gold, especially the comments. Thanks for the lols

hahahaha. Dun play play later the owner of the article kenna defamation

ft.com/content/071c6656-8b3f-4475-9b3d-db0e4918baaf
Golden handcuffs: dealmaking lawyers weigh up their own Faustian bargains

Anyone else feel emo reading this kind of articles? FT, Bloomberg, legal cheek and all that have recently been writing incessantly about mad salary wars for US and UK law firms, and it's like this whole thing is just passing us by in Singapore.

Like bro, even if I wanted to sell my soul for money, the only Faustian bargain to be struck in Singapore is selling your soul for 2am days, 6 days a week for S$5.5k per mobth at a big4 . Lmao

Working in a local law firm is really a scam job

Why don’t you move then? So many have done it already.

Agree with you but I also sympathise with OP... it’s easier said than done. If you’re not from a Big 4 firm/international firm and you’re not in a corporate practice, your chances are significantly lesser. If you’re looking to be paid big bucks ie USD205K- ish at a US firm in London, competition is even stiffer because you’re competing against candidates in the UK for limited positions. Also, not all US firms pay the £ equivalent of USD205K and those that do have limited roles available and tend to laterally recruit from MC firms.. Interview process is also way more gruelling than anything you’ll come across in Singapore. Think rapid fire interrogation style. For eg the final round for a lateral hire for Latham in London can be 2h 30 mins of back to back interviews where you meet 5 partners and 5 associates in five 30 min blocks of time..

That being said, if OP is interested I think no harm trying. After all, you never know if you don’t try, especially since the lateral market quite hot now.. I guess better than feeling miserable slogging it out everyday at a Big 4 firm? Be prepared though, US firms have billing requirements that range from 1800-2150. If you’re billing that much at a Big 4 firm already, then definitely start looking elsewhere.

Also note that in UK, these firms rarely ever hire 2:2. Minimum is 2:1 and AAB at A levels.
So bear in mind either fch/2:1 and be prepared to compete with native English speakers in uk.

Why should they even hire UK grads? They should not even consider any overseas or SMU grad, and solely take in NUS grads. Best is if they have a streamline recruitment process for 4 year NUS grads.

Yea US firms are notorious for being more picky on grades and prefer to hire fch (unless you’re from Oxbridge). I’ve also not seen a SG lateral hire to a US firm in London that studied at a local uni (but I could be wrong). MC firms are generally more amenable to hiring international candidates (they usually have great relocation packages), there’s less focus on grades and they also tend to hire more candidates than US firms.

One interesting thing I noticed is that US firms in SG tend to be quite strict with docking your PQE but that isn’t really the same in London. There seems to be a lot more flex. It can even be argued SG candidates have an advantage against UK candidates. For eg if you are a 1PQE funds associate who trained in funds during his RLT + TC (or just TC if he studied locally), you can raise the argument that you have 1.5+ or 2+ years of total experience in funds work, and you’d be way ahead of a UK NQ candidate who would probably only have 6 + months experience in funds work (as they rotate seats every couple months). It’s quite shiok to only be a 1PQE SG associate but go to London and be a 1PQE associate as well, especially as US firms don’t have a NQ concept and you jump straight into first year.

The primary reason why legal pay in SG has been stagnating in a stunted rate/increasing negligibly is because of the restrictions of foreign firms that can fully develop in the market. That’s why they have FLAs set up. Look at other common law jurisdictions (HK/AUS/UK), they have a liberalisation of foreign firms and hence local firms have to follow a certain pay grade as the salary market moves as a whole. There is nothing to entice SG local firms, which mainly dominate the SG legal market, to increase pay.

Out of curiosity, if you’re a local Uni student who has not interacted with HK/British/American lawyers as much unless you studied a year abroad for exchange, do you feel like you could confidently impress these partners in a lateral interview? In elite US firms like Latham, Milbank, Skadden, Kirkland, Sidley etc, you have to meet at the very minimum 4 partners and most likely the managing partner/chair of the London office, and cultural fit with the team is quite important to these partners.

Which is why there should be full liberalisation here. More than half of the unprofitable local firms will collapse or merge in an instant, and salaries will be pushed up across the board.

Law is one of the few sectors that would benefit from more liberalisation, not less. Due to the high barriers to entry in terms of language and cultural fit, there's little threat of low wage ceca or other cheap third world lawyers coming in to replace locals. Conversely, the entry of angmoh firms will create more jobs for locals

Join politics, so you can make a difference (to your pay).

It really depends on the type of person you are and whether you can absorb knowledge from the work you do.

Do the B4 do top notch corporate work? Yes. No one can dispute this. From my experience working with them, the B4 partners are on top of things and know their job very well.

But this subject mater expertise rarely trickles down to the junior associates. You see a lot of them able to do their work very efficiently when the deal follows a conventional pathway, but the moment things get a little haywire or some loose bolt flies at them they get very panicked, cant bring out good ideas and have to check everything with their partners.

The ones that have solid legal knowledge, good client management and can handle things on the fly - we usually comment internally that they wont be there long, and we are usually right. Those are the ones that make the jump to a US/UK firm 1 or 2 PQE in, and those are the ones that do well in the interview. But they are 1 out of 10 associates in the B4.

Why not. Don’t give in to your Pinkerton syndrome lah. Law students here are how ang moh pai. Unless you’re some chao ah beng or xenophobic dick, just be authentic and speak your mind to let them know you more.

Someone earlier already posted about Latham hiring more Singapore lawyers.