Well. people are still hiring..... it's just that pay is pretty shitty now.

The insolvency market is saturated in Singapore.
Even if the no of insolvency cases go up, there’s a finite no of lawyers the market can absorb or support. In the 2008 GFC, lawyers from magic circles were let off in large troves.

Things like debt collection, the paralegals can already handle.

Let’s just confine the discussion to prospect for NQ-3 PQE associates.
This group do not have a book of business and are extremely susceptible to market fluctuations.

OP here again. I agree with your sentiment on big firms. I do not have experience working in a big firm and my friends that are have mentioned the 2008 retrenchment to me as well in our recent conversations. I do not doubt the voracity of your claims.

I think the small/med firm perspective is slightly different. While i agree that the insolvency market is saturated, i also feel that a lot of that saturation comes from high-priced lawyers (whether still in big firms or those who have broken off from bigger firms and now fall under the small/med category). The point being, they are high-priced.

Small/med firms have the benefit of being able to offer lower fees and we usually see an influx of cases during times like these. We get these cases because companies simply can't afford to pay these lawyers their high-fees.

As for debt collection... paralegals ask for a lot of money these days. The cost of an experience paralegal is about the same as the cost of an NQ-1 yr PQE lawyer, maybe even more. All things being equal, my preference would still be to have someone who can do the weekly court runs.

My position remains unchanged. No files - no work - no jobs. But if junior assocs are willing to bite the bullet (take a lot lower pay and handle cases they generally wouldn't handle), i think there may still be space for them in the industry.

Hi OP - can you share more about what you have heard about the 2008 retrenchments, in particular the big 4 local firms?

Is 100k pa all-in too much to ask to exit at 3PQE?

Nothing is too much. Just ask. Can get is another thing. Aim high because increments will be much lower in house. Push for 120k at least I feel.

A lot of the junior associates were retrenched. Most who were retrenched became too disillusioned to restart a career in law again. They did other things, and never mentioned that they were lawyers.

In this economic climate, the higher the pay, the quicker you’ll be let go.
If you’re 3pqe and draw $6k compared to a NQ drawing $10k-$14k in the magic circle, who will be asked to go first?

Simple logic. If even govt ministers are not taking any salary for an entire financial quarter, why is the 3pqe lawyer so special?

The disputes folks are safe. They had so much disputes/rni work in my firm during the GFC that they had to start conscripting the corp folks (who had no work).

This is unprecedented. It’ll be worse than GFC in magnitude.
As an employment lawyer, I can tell you that firms will use the probationary period to let newly hired associates go.
There’s also standard clauses in employment contracts to say that the firm is not required to provide you any work.