What's work/life balance and salary at Min law like?

Getting kinda sick of my big 4 life. I don't mind a paycut if i get some sanity and some semblance of my weekends back.

Min law janitor about 2k but may increase soon

Omg I’m in the exact same situation. Junior assoc in a small firm corp dept, no other assocs, no support staff, no trainees. I was hesitant to leave at first but it’s not an associate’s job to worry about staffing problems.

Just start applying now. It’ll take longer than you think to get a decent position, especially with mediocre results and coming from an unknown firm. Took me about 2.5 months to find a place I liked, now serving my one month’s notice.

Appreciate for the people who are serious about discussions toj ust direct your queries to the tele chat from now on! Too many trolls here and we will have better discussions with controlled anonymity :) Thanks so much!

Why not go NUS and apply for Sheridan fellowship?
Hours better than big four and you need minimum 2:1
As prestigious as your big 4 gig too.

Tele chat, controlled anonymity?
Boss is that you? Don’t sack me and replace me with a cheaper assoc pls

Best not to buy house first in case no job.
Just stay with parents

whats the tele chat link?

Guess you're a recent trainee paid janitor rates. My delivery driver gets paid more than you. Renting is a good option.

Could you please check again on mine? 24146 - thanks!

Done

Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks!

thanks! is it expected from small / mid / big sized firms to bring files in as someone who just passed the bar?

or are juniors doing legwork mostly?

All correct except for this - I've heard of chinatown lawyers under 3PQE earning 10-15k from chinatown firms, as they have deals where they get 10-20% of fees generated.

Maybe 6-8 PQE might be this.

Should I train at CC L&DR? Any upside to doing 1.5 years of corporate work during the 2-year training stint?

Anyone else finds it cringeworthy that a fellow assoc is liking MPs Facebook posts and posting inane comments such as Thank you for your effort to support (whatever cause)? Literally that's their only Facebook activity. Feels like brown nosing to a new level. Or should I bow now before a future Pap candidate?

Or should I bow now before a future Pap candidate? <- this.

Are you at WMH

Not in Chinatown or Toa Payoh

Can I assume that lawyers salary has unlimited upside potential in small firms as time passes ? Or it depends on the amount of business a person can get from their connections? Looking at longer time frame.

A regular corp employee may not get pay increment or bonus or may end up getting retrenched/ fired. Truck load of office politics to deal with within and across depts. Also dunno where the arrow come from.

Do people get fired from law firms?

I can't speak for most of this post but it also seems that corp has higher barriers to entry in being a partner. Correct me if I'm wrong - I don't think it's possible to get big corporate clients at a senior level easily, unless you're from a brand name firm. Harder to survive as a partner doing transactional work.

Seems like a lot of them move inhouse.

Whereas for litigation there is a constant flow of work.

Can someone elaborate? I am not sure which area is better

Inhouse / international firm opportunities are higher in corp?

But it seems to me that in the long run, you'll have more trouble getting corp clients on a regular basis than liti ones unless you are very well connected. Will this be a problem a few years down the road?

Parti Liyani
 

Definitely. For liti, you can still make friends with your maid and benefit from their connections to other maids. When your boi boi grow up, study law and become a trainee at your firm, he can also chill with your maid too. Same purchasing power.

At a senior level, litigation is very person-focused, people are far more likely to follow the person to their new firm (or hire good litigators who set up their own small/mid-size firms). This makes sense, as litigation is more "let's find the best guy to fight the case". If you're a good litigator, you should have a consistent flow of work. Unlike corp, where the law firm's branding is more important, litigation depends on the person.

On the other hand, you won't have large firms using small firms to perform corporate work. This is for two reasons, 1. alot of corporate work is spread between all the biglaw firms just to make sure they are conflicted from (or refuse to) pursuing litigation against the firm, that's why banks essentially hire all the big4 and most international firms in SG. 2. Firms generally prefer to have biglaw corp firms to do their admin/corp work because they know that corporate work is generally quite stale/similar to prior work, so biglaw firms are seen as having more precedents to draw from. To be honest, there isn't much difference between the top corporate lawyers and the middling lawyers.

So honestly, unless you are from a brand name firm and worked for large corporate clients for many years, you're likely not to have people cold-calling you for your amazing corp skills. You have to draw on previously made connections.

However, it is not that corporate lawyers move inhouse because they cannot get clients or cannot cut it in smaller firms. In fact, corp work is usually easier to bill than litigation. Big firms who want an M&A agreement done "right" are far more willing to pay than disputing parties who suddenly start wondering why 30% of the disputed sum has already gone to fees.

Instead, it's just that its harder to move inhouse as a litigation lawyer, because your skillset is primarily disputes, which is not what companies do day to day. For a corp lawyer, you can do contract reviews etc for the firm or just give general corporate advice. For a liti lawyer, unless you're in maybe construction or industries like shipping (where litigation is essentially the bread and butter duty for the lawyer), you can't really move inhouse.

If you realise you end up disliking litigation work (which many do), it's easier to choose to qualify into a corporate practice at the end of the 26 month training contract.

Liti can consider transiting to politics, moderate risk high reward for a iron rice bowl high paying job if you can take the spotlight (arguably favourable anyway with SPH being the government mouthpiece).

For a liti lawyer, if you're in maybe construction, you may out of a sudden find your maid's boyfriend on the opposing side. You may kick yourself for not finding out earlier, after slogging hard in the office.

dun have goalie where got fun

LOL nice troll.

Sama sama. This whole qna thing is probably pre-written by a professor-troll with too much time on his hands. When someone doesn't answer his questions with his train of thought, he replies with even longer answers to explain.

Thanks, this is helpful

No it isn't. I'm the original OP. Asking because I'm thinking it might be better in corp than liti.

The answer came from someone else. It is well written, thoughtful and insightful. I'd give it an award but it's not reddit.

Did you ask about office politics? Go be a professor. There’s only goondu students there who ask questions like you. No arrows, only Thanks! Thanks so much!

You're delusional and I hope you are trolling. For your sake.

1. I am not a student.

2. I don't see how office politics is relevant to either the question or the answer.

3. Yes, "Thanks!" annoys me.

1. Prof read carefully. It says there are students, not that you are a student.
2. Yes, it’s irrelevant to your job as a professor.
3. Too many students say that, don’t they? It’s annoying.


Prof I know you have tons of script to mark, but please spend more time reading mine. I’m smarter than you think.

I mentioned office politics but I didnt ask about it. I alr stated that there r politics.

U r the kind of pain that people have to face in group settings while others r trying to ask for information.

Such a poor and pathetic personality . Are u unable to show this side of u in public setting and have to suck all of this up inside u then to lash out on an anonymous forum?

While in real life u r actually the one to be always saying 'thanks , thanks so much! '

My English not good. Should I use the word 'Wimp'?

Ask questions then ask questions la
Write hypotheticals for what
U work in law firm still ask stupid questions about whether law firm fire ppl

Thanks for replying to yourself.

Not a prof.

This forum gives me a bad headache everytime I visit in hopes to gain some important information about legal salaries. So long, farewell.

Back to script marking?
Prof, how much do law profs make?
Are u NUS? Do you think your students are the best?
Why you give so many 2:2? Is it you never read properly, get headache then anyhow mark?