What are some of the interesting practice areas out there in the legal industry in SG?

I don't mean interesting academic law subjects that you learn in school.

I mean interesting or niche practice groups / departments in law firms like crypto/fintech, aviation, competition law or international trade. How does one get into these departments? Any insights on how you got in there?

I noticed that the legal market here has far narrower range of niche specialties than say, HK or London. Everybody here either seems to do general corp stuff (M&A IPO etc) or general liti stuff (civil and comm lit).

Rare tbh. I've done some fintech stuff but these are by and large rare.

are there cases of trainees getting sacked during their RLT or TC period? a friend of mine is doing TC but his boss isn't very happy with him and he worries about his TC being terminated

Yes, I had a great RLT with a small firm A but itchy backside wanted some corporate experience, so jumped at the chance to join small firm B who promised me Corp work experience.

Joined small firm B for TC. Boss was terrible, came in at 11 and left at 4, expecting you to stay late, do work, and be generally responsive to her even at 10 PM, and subsequently berating you for the quality of your work when there was little to no instructions. The worst aspect of my TC was that corp work was maybe 1 per cent of what I did. One month in, I decided to speak to her about my unhappiness, vis a vis mentoring and work assigned. Talk was unconclusive so imagine my surprise when she came early (9am) to work the next day and invited me to handover everything and even got external IT pax to ensure my personal laptop used for work (firm did not provide laptop for trainee to use) did not contain any work.

So yes, you can get fired during TC. Not all lawyers or firms are as scrupulous or hold themselves to the high standards that lawyers purport to have.

Trainees don't usually get sacked unless the person is intolerable or committed a grave infraction. In that case, he's going to have a hard time being a working adult in general, let alone a lawyer.

Most of the time, even if an SS doesn't like a trainee, he'll just ostracise the trainee, dump him in one corner and forget about him and he f**ks off after 6 months.

How much more?

Offered retention with my firm, 2 months’ notice period in my employment contract.

Heard that there are people with 3 months’ notice. Can some seniors please advise on what is the industry average?

3 mths is standard in Big4. 2 mths is super lucky. You got a great deal.

How many percent of people burn out after 1-2 years in practice? What about 3-4 years?

Anyone moved to HK to work?

how is the working hours and culture there?

and salary ?