bruh just ignore the idiot he clearly talking out of his ass lmfao.

8PQE here

Seeing so many posts on practising vs in house superiority, I feel ashamed that this is even a topic of discussion.

Indeed, in house is not as draining as private practise. (one client vs many clients)

But my learned seniors who went in house were all incredibly talented in their fields, in fact as a NUS law grad who scored 2.1, I feel like I am but a frog in the well when I compare myself to them.

I often have to call up my seniors who left for in house jobs on academic/ROC related questions. Funnily enough, they know it better than my peers who are practising alongside me. (ROC2021 lol)

Calling them failures.. would make me less than a failure and that is disheartening and bad taste at the very least.

I think the reason why they moved in house, at least from what I gathered during our meet ups, is that their lives changed after they got married and have different life goals. They do not want to spend time in the office slugging their guts out till the morning for a firm that will replace them in a heartbeat.

If they came back to practise I would want them on my side rather than having to go against them.

damn I really miss them. guess I should hit up the whatsapp chat group again to catch up with them.

lol this guy confirm not a lawyer if he thinks going in house gets you a pay bump.

confirm some troll who talking **** he has no clue about. no wonder everything he says all complete BS

Guys I think you all have been misled
This was my original post
Nowhere did I say he was a failure - all I asked was whether he studied local or overseas and later on, what type of in-house gig he found

I’m not being facetious, they’re really are a lot of in house work, and some are borderline paralegal work; liaise with external counsel to help pay for trademark registration etc, you know?

See here too, who says in house is failure? Some of the best paying legally trained jobs are GCs, no one doubts that in house folks are full of success

I’m talking about OP’s gig and am concerned for him
And to be clear, OP seems very nice from his replies

I wish him all the best too

How much does a conveyancing lawyer gets paid

Say i open my own chinatown firm

you did imply that OP, changing from private practise to in house fell under your category of "did not get a good job and made parents worry about his/her future" did you not? Is that not what a definition of failure is according to your metric?

you misled them.

Also, FYI, you are implying that paralegals earn 4k+ as well. Do you have any idea how many years of experience a paralegal must have before they earn that amount? You are comparing a year 5-7 paralegal to a 0PQE-1PQE lawyer. Of course you would have the idea that a freshly called lawyer is a "failure".

Come back to reality. Stop watching Suits.

yo im working corporate so I guess I am considered in house too. My parents are worried for me because I earn too much money and I am constantly depressed over what to do with it.

im such a failure for making my parents worry. funny thing is im not even full fletched yet because my pay can increase more if i have more experience.

Please.. for the love of God.. please tell me you are not working in a law firm and talking like that to your colleagues.

Please do not say anything out loud if this is how your brain works. For your own benefit, it is better to just keep quiet than gain enemies at your workplace.

That gravy train has passed with the race to the bottom by the Toa Payoh conveyancing firms. Plus, the established ones have all the connections with the the property agencies. Please don't bother unless you can stand dealing with haolian property agents driving their Merc C Class who look down on you while you take MRT from Toa Payoh station everyday.

Unironically, do family law. Steady stream of income and easy work apart from the occasional contentious cases.

Is Corp business booming or not?
Some friends say super booming, some say barely scraping by

Anyone any good thoughts? Thanks

Some companies are booming while others are down-sizing.
Just be positive and avoid negative thoughts.

If you are employed, try not to resign till you got another job offer.

Thanks for the exceedingly helpful response mate

Anyone from big 4 had the retention talk yet?

How common is it to jump to another firm to continue tc?

Every year got ppl ask same qns. If you didn’t bother scrolling through and do your DD before asking (I don’t think it’s too far down the thread), maybe that’s why you got cut!

Sad!

Ok then just focusing on the first question - anyone had the retention talk yet?

Thoughts on the "consultation paper" SILE posted regarding the new training period?

I personally feel like they addressed everything except the main issue, i.e. the salary/remuneration of practice trainees.

Still exploiting them as cheap labour smh

bunch of nonsense. decided to lengthen the training period and now scrambling to actually fill in the framework. shows how much thought was put into the whole reform

What would be your ideal approach then?

Not the person you quoted but my suggestion would be to keep the current TC programme of 6 months. Increasing it to 1 year is not going to make a difference. Experience is also gained after getting called to the bar. Increasing the TC by another 6 months is just making the law graduates' lives miserable with no added value.

No one honestly thinks a freshly called to the bar lawyer knows much anyways. The problem is when these newly called to the bar lawyers try their best in court, the Judges are less than empathetic to them and demand perfection as though they are not newly minted lawyers and have no idea how Judges expect the trial to be run.

I foresee the quantity and quality of lawyers in the future dropping even more if this kind of effort persists. This industry is filled with misinformed, out of touch boomers who cannot keep up with the trends of society.

Current generation of young adults do not care about progressing to partner or MD etc. They want work life balance and would give up the "prestige" in a heartbeat, not that the current law progression has any in the first place. Its all a facade. My point being the current generation will choose to do something more worthwhile and meaningful than slog their 5-6 years in law school and bar exams only to be given a wage lower than computer science by 1-2k with worse working hours and being treated like a slave, exploited and verbally abused daily.

I think its pretty easy to tell that this industry is failing considering how 10 years ago the boomers were saying there was a shortage of lawyers, and then 5-6 years later changing that narrative to "oh there's a glut of lawyers now" so we need to gatekeep. Look where we are now, we are in a shortage again of 3-5 pqe lawyers because lesser people are looking to join this industry and the numbers of people being burnt out and leaving before 5 pqe increases. Even 0-2 pqe lawyers cant take it anymore and firms are finding it harder and harder to find new associates.

One of my juniors went for an interview in early 2023 and the interviewer asked him "by any chance do you know if there is still a glut of lawyers?" and my junior instantly knew that that law firm was having trouble finding a new associate. It was a mid sized firm of 30 lawyers iirc.

When I asked my interns what A level score they got to get accepted into SMU Law or NUS Law, they told me they only required 82-83/90 which I believe.. says a lot about how the industry has fallen since back in my time we all required AAA/AAA and had a competitive interview looking into our achievements bullcrap etc.

But I mean these are just tell tale signs that it is failing, the boomers probably dont give a **** because they are living in their ivory tower ass world and they know they wont be the one suffering when everything goes to ****.

Ask anyone if they would want to pay 50k-100k for 4 years of depression in law school and to spend another 6-7k for another 2 years of bar exam (Part B and TC) only to get a starting pay lower than their peers and be verbally abused and exploited for 14-16 hours a day. I thought so.

"Law is a calling" my ass

I overheard my managing partner talk to a SC once on hiring trainees and then he said something along the lines of "just hire la so cheap only make them do lawyer work but only need give allowance".

Maybe that's why the boomers want to increase the TC period to 1 year. They find it too difficult to hire associates so they outsource the paperwork to trainees at a lower cost.

Is your junior within the 0-3 PQE range? I am asking because I was also called recently (2years ago) and when I just got called to the bar, I was looking for a job so I sent in my resume to firms who specialised in areas I wanted to in the future.

I received an offer from WongP, a few mid sized firms and some small firms. At that point I just wanted a job that could offer me guidance so I can stand on my own two feet in future you know, so pay was not that big of a dealbreaker for me albeit it has some pull factor.

tldr: was offered 6.8k, 6k, 5.5k and this mid sized firm was the last interview I had. When I went for the interview, I am pretty damn sure I would get the job if I wanted because everything they were asking for, I could do easily i.e. billables etc.

The interviewer asked me if I have received any offers and I told her the truth, the names of the law firms that offered me a position and the pay offered. She then had the cheek to say we can offer you around 4k and working hours are until 11pm or so. It would be a great opportunity for you if you want to learn from us.

Honestly I chuckled to myself a little bit but I kept my composure because I did not want to come off as rude. But the arrogance of the law firm to think they can offer 40-50% of what is already being offered to me without the promise of ensuring better guidance than what a up and coming big4 could give.

If I was going to choose a job and slog it out till past midnight everyday, surely anyone in their right mind would pick a 7k salary over a 4k one if all other conditions are the same (big assumption to begin with).

This industry is going down fast.

any big 4 JPs here can share what your compensation package is like? How much is base? How much is variable?

Don’t keep us in suspense! Where did you accept in the end?

In-house TC/Internships?
 

Thoughts on in-house stints or internships? Particularly interested, seeing as in-house experience may now be counted towards PTCs

1. How useful would they be (to you/the law firm when you return to pp)?

2. Is it even possible to get such experiences? Through which avenues?

I think you should start out at a law practice and get some PQE first

You can try out in house internships during Uni if you’d like

OP here, I appreciate that you tried to help. I understand that the "tried and tested" way of going in-house is to get a few years of experience in practice and then moving in-house.

My premise is, however, different in that I think of such in-house experiences as a way to understand legal/operations from the client's perspective (where they focus on the commercial drivers and deal with stakeholders coming from different backgrounds- e.g. management, commercial teams, technicians such as engineers, etc.) which is contrasted from the regular trainee/assoc-partner relationship and dynamic.

My thinking is that gaining experience in such a setting (as well as developing a working relationship with the in-house team there which you could hopefully bring back to your firm) will stand you in good stead for private practice in which you can be distinguished from your pure pp peers who have no such experience, or alternatively give you the chance to move in-house from then on.

My questions (1) and (2), and particularly (2), therefore relate to the above premise which would be helpful to all involved.

This is especially prevalent in that future PTC trainees can now seek in-house stints as part of the PTC requirement. So, as someone interested in potentially taking up that path, I was curious if anyone has heard of how law students/trainees in particular have managed to land such roles (in contrast to young assocs who have worked with such in-house teams in their capacity as external counsel, and thereafter move to join them).

I would suggest only doing so if you're going into a niche in-house role that can make you stand out when trying to pivot back to PP. If you're going gencorp in-house, PP first puts your career in better stead. Got to get your legal chops first before worrying about the client's legal/operations, but it's a great mentality to maintain even when starting out in PP.

In house lawyer here.

Good mentality.

But I would still recommend going PP first because there are skills you should learn as a freshly called lawyer at a PP where you still can have the "im new" card.

I was in PP for 3 years before moving in house and the first 2-3 months of moving in house, I could already see myself displaying skills/attributes I gained over the course of 3 years in PP in my new role. Things I learnt from my mentor in PP were put to good use, even in the mundane stuff like replying emails with precision, labelling attachments etc.

Some people scoff at such comments but a good lawyer knows that we as individuals, do not sell a physical product. We advertise and offer our skillset in knowing the law, how to explain it to laymen, how to apply it in situations.

I would bet my left testicle that any corporate company would appreciate an in house who is able to reply emails with qualitative feedback over someone who did not gain all those skills under mentorship at a PP and went straight in house after being called (in fact you may not even need to be called to go in house under the new regime).

All jokes aside, I regretted the nights I slogged away at PP but I never regretted going to PP first even though I knew my end goal was always to move in house. Given the same situation, knowing that I would have learnt what I know now only at PP, I would do the same thing again.

Made my life a lot easier in house with what I learnt at PP. I hope you go through the same path and have an excellent career ahead.

Depends on the department / firm.

If you are in a local firm, the runway to Partner is short, and inhouse stints may result in PQE cuts. Less so for intl firms. Generally, the mindset is most law firms is still that 100% practice is the way to make partner.

However, depending on practice area, from a substantive/work pov, inhouse exp is likely to be very useful for more "operational" and/or "specialised" fields, and less useful for more "project-based" fields. For instance:

Disputes - inhouse exp is not useful at all
M&A - limited use, unless you are inhouse in a company that does M&A on a regular basis
Funds - prob quite useful, as fund structuring is all about the underlying commercial considerations
Finreg - useful, as alot of Finreg is about understanding the business and how that relates to regulations
Projects - prob quite useful to understand the underlying commercial realities

You probably also can take max 2 yrs inhouse before firms consider that you are too detached from practice

Thanks for appreciating. The work done on the in house counsel side varies quite a bit from firm to firm - most in house counsels review, but a large part of the work is liaising and passing on important contracts to the engaged law firm’s Corp commercial team, and if there are disputes, to the dispute resolution team.

So the question really is - where are you looking to go?

Nothing beats learning as a trainee - you are literally paid to learn, and then try to stay till NQ and get a PQE or two

Views
 

Thoughts on A&G tax?

Are there any downsides to joining international firms compared to local big4? Say in terms of bonus or progression

Get your grounding in private practice first. It is a "tried and tested" route for a reason.

Speaking as a fairly senior in-house counsel, over the years we have hired very junior counsels who have joined after just 1 to 2 years of practice.

Many of them are not up to scratch and don't last during probation. The runway is short. We need people who can hit the ground running and communicate with externals, senior management, internal business teams and stakeholders with some confidence and authority.

Things move very fast commercially and Legal has to match the pace to deliver the advice and services that the business requires.

I don't have time to teach a new team member how to speak to a committee chairman or the deputy MD or a business unit head, let alone vet his or her emails to them. I need them to be able to do that and hold their own from day one.

The law firm environment will go some way towards giving you that grounding. I would say the sweet spot for the move inhouse is 4 to 5 PQE.

Shorter runway to make partner in Big4.
Remuneration in international firms is usually higher from assoc to SA level, but watch out for the fake internationals that pay their assocs based on local salary scales.

Lol bro I will be super honest, you probably absorbed the B.S. that has been used to justify reducing the bar pass rate and increasing the TC period.

In-house depts usually have no time to train you up (with the exception of super large firms with 10+ legal counsels which are rare). The reason why the "tried-and-tested" method of getting into in-house is to spend a few years in private is because no in-house team wants to take someone who can't hit the ground running.

Most in-house depts just don't have the structure to slowly train you up, since you are a cost center and not the profit-generating side of the company.

While spending one or two years in-house will not hurt your chances that much (of returning to private practice), I assure you that you will not be getting a leg-up on peers who spend the whole time in private practice. In most cases, you will be asked to show how your in-house experience is comparable to work done in that particular sector at law firms (which is difficult because it is usually not comparable). In other words, "understanding things from the stakeholder's perspective" is deemed to be far less useful than knowing how to do **** from the law firm side.

If your end goal is private practice, the only TRUE benefit of going in-house (which you have identified already) is that you can build connections and hopefully bring a large client to your law firm. If you can't bring your old in-house firm to your law firm, then your value drops drastically.

However, if your end goal is to stay in-house, then going in-house from the start is a good idea and saves you the stress of entering private practice (not that in-house has no stress).

OP here again. Thanks for all the responses. I will start by saying while I appreciate all of your views, and that the following is generally the advice given to people intending to move in-house (yes, gain legal substantive skills, then move in-house; no one wants to train ppl in-house cos you are a cost centre; only law firms are invested to train you b/c you are an asset there).

However, my point was not that. My point was on doing a stint (e.g. 3 months/6 months in-house, akin to a client secondment seat in the E&W TC programme) to which you will pick up commercial skills and understanding beyond (or more fully integrated with) legal, and communication/process management with the other functions in the company, which you can then bring back with you when you return to private practice (yes, more likely with an int'l firm than local firm) and then proceed to being a solid associate/SA who can resonate better with clients.

This is already being done as part of 3 or 6 month client secondments in the E&W TCs. By the time people go on such secondments, they would already usually have at least say 6 months of practice (as a trainee). Also, in the Singapore context- there are clearly some current associates/SAs/even trainees who had done legal in-house internships (usually at least 3-6 months) and in a niche area such as tech/web3/crypto/VCs/project developers, which I am sure must have been hugely beneficial for them when they return to private practice.

I do appreciate this reply - as yes, it's true that as a trainee you get more chances to f up and improve, rather than as an associate.

I also appreciate this response - and I agree, that it is more useful for the practices you mentioned above, particularly areas where you would only be able to appreciate the work/motivations/drivers/painpoints beyond pure legal perspectives toward commercial ones, particularly in areas where it would not be easy to break in even as a NQ associate.

I would also add that in in-house teams (most of which are extremely lean, with many being 3-4 man shows, and some even 1-2 man shows) if you were able to break in as a legal intern/trainee/executive, you would do far more (in terms of responsibility, being able to take on certain tasks) in this role than you would as a trainee assisting a partner in a traditional law firm setting. All experiences are what you make of it, so if you are working in a lean transactions team, it would be very possible that you do take on higher-level work even at your lowly level just because the team is so lean.

I suppose, the post that resonates with me the most is the one where such experience would be most fruitful if: (1) the in-house team does much of their transactions in-house; (2) the in-house team works directly with their other corporate functions; (3) the nature of their work is in a niche area that you would not easily break into at a law firm as a junior; (4) the connections and working relationship matter (but while this would be a potential advantage to your law firm, I would say it is definite advantage to you in that you gain commercial/stakeholder perspectives, connections and knowledge of the sector you are working in).

Qualifier: I understand the above all requires you to have some basic fundamental experience (that trainees/junior assocs are expected to know)- so take this as an assumption that has been met.

OP again- So, now having addressed all of the above, my question (2) remains:

In light of the new admission regime (being pushed forward by SILE and SCCA), and to all you in-house folk lurking around the forums or those of you who have credible knowledge to such (not law students or junior assocs who echo what others say)- to you as decision makers in this new climate where future trainees have the opportunity to work under/with you as a warm body for 3-6 months (in the name of the new admission regime):

(a). If such a future trainee were to approach you to do a stint with you, how can they get you to say yes to such stint?

(b). If you know of any people who have done in-house internships/stints (outside of a firm-arranged secondment) that they have self-sourced, what avenues have they taken? e.g. applying on linkedin? personal connections? via the SCCA/ACC or other job portals? university programmes, such as NUS or SMU's programmes? Advisory.sg or some mentorship thing?

Hopefully, this discussion helps future trainees figure out how they can go about, in light of the new admission regime opening such possibilities.

OP here once again. To further prove my point above that it is well-settled that law students have had the chance of benefiting from an in-house internship (and that the only way in is NOT just to go in after years of practice), and to persist in progressing this discussion in answering of my question above - for the benefit of all law students interested:

NUS law school has facilitate in-house internships with (source: s://law.nus.edu.sg/cfglaw/students/i-want-to-find-internships-training-contracts-jobs/vi):

• Aberdeen Asset Management
• Accenture
• AEM Singapore Pte Ltd
• Align Technology
• Allfunds
• Amadeus GDS Singapore Pte Ltd
• Aramco Trading Singapore Pte Ltd
• ATT Systems (S’pore) Pte Ltd
• BBC Worldwide
• Bollore Logistics Asia Pacific Corporate Pte Ltd
• BP Singapore Pte Ltd
• Bunge Ltd
• ByteDance (Singapore)
• Canon Singapore Pte Ltd
• Capgemini Singapore
• Changi Airport Group
• Citibank N.A. Singapore
• Danone Asia Pte Ltd
• Dril-Quip Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Engie Services Singapore Pte. Ltd.
• Epsilon Telecommunication Pte Ltd
• Fox International Channels
• Fushinova Technologies Pte Ltd
• GE Money
• Gemalto Pte Ltd
• General Electric
• General Insurance Association (GIA) of Singapore
• Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Guocoland Management Pte Ltd
• Harley-Davidson Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• HydraX Tellabs, Inc
• Imerys Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Ingram Micro Asia Ltd
• Intelllex
• Intel Technologies Pte Ltd
• JP Morgan Chase Bank
• Klook Travel
• Lazada South East Asia Pte Ltd
• LEGO Group
• LinkedIn Singapore Pte Ltd
• Luxottica

• Marina Bay Sands Pte Ltd
• Marriott International
• Merck Pte Ltd
• Merz Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Minterest Private Limited
• Mitsubishi Corporation
• NBCUniversal
• NEFIN Technologies Pte Ltd
• Nestle Singapore Pte Ltd
• NTUC Income Insurance Co-operative Limited
• Orica International Pte Ltd
• Pavilion Capital International Pte Ltd
• PayPal Private Limited
• PetroChina International (Singapore) Pte Ltd
• RCI Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd
• Rolls-Royce Singapore Pte Ltd
• RtM International Pte. Ltd.
• Samsung Asia Pte Ltd
• Silverdale Capital Services Pte Ltd
• Singapore Petroleum Company Limited
• SMRT
• Standard Chartered Bank
• Symantec
• Temasek Trust Ltd
• TES-AMM (Singapore) Pte Ltd
• Toyota Tsusho Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Unilever Singapore
• Vopak Asia Pte Ltd
• Yara Asia Pte Ltd

SMU YPH law school has facilitated in-house internships with (source: s://law.smu.edu.sg/student-activities/internship):

• Accenture Pte Ltd
• Asia Pacific Breweries Limited
• Adobe Systems Pte Ltd
• Allianz International Pte Ltd
• Allianz SE Insurance Management Asia Pacific
• Aon Singapore
• BP Singapore Pte Ltd
• Capitamalls Asia Limited
• Changi Airport Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd
• Coca-Cola Far East Limited
• CrimsonLogic Pte Ltd
• Dymon Asia Capital (Singapore) Pte Ltd
• Dyson Operations Pte Ltd
• ESPN Star Sports
• Financial Industry Disputes
• Resolution Centre Ltd (FIDReC)
• GE Capital Services Pte Ltd
• GE Healthcare
• Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Hewlett Packard Singapore (Private) Ltd
• Hong Leong Finance Limited
• Ingram Micro Asia Ltd
• Keppel Fels Limited
• LexisNexis Singapore
• McDonald's Restaurants Pte Ltd
• Monsanto Singapore Co. Pte Ltd
• NTUC Income Insurance Cooperative Limited
• Pavilion Capital
• Paypal SG
• Pontiac Land Group
• PricewaterhouseCoopers
• Saxo Capital Markets Pte Ltd
• SE Insurance Management Asia Pacific
• Siemens Pte Ltd
• SingPost
• Singapore Aero Engine Services Private limited
• Starwood Hotels and Resorts
• Symantec Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Tellabs Asia Pacific Pte Ltd
• Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd
• Tiger Airways Singapore Pte Ltd
• Vopak Asia Pte Ltd

You can't tell me that:

1. Working at Tiger Airways wouldn't enable you to gain legal and commercial experience/understanding in asset/aviation finance/law.

2. Working at AON wouldn't enable you to gain legal and commercial experience/understanding in insurance brokerage/laws.

3. Working at Aramco wouldn't enable you to gain legal and commercial experience/understanding in oil and gas/project development/project finance/laws.

4. Working at Pavilion Capital wouldn't enable you to gain legal and commercial experience/understanding in fund formation/structuring/corporate laws.

bro no one is contesting your claim that you can get valuable experience with an in house role. We are just saying that it wont be as much or as valuable as working in private firms, especially in your first few years after getting called.

In case you do not know this already, the law industry is very competitive. Having the brains alone is not enough. Having the connections alone is not enough either. You need to have both in order to survive (not even thrive). If you are so set on doing an internship (in house role) then so be it. But be prepared to struggle when you do go into PP when your peers do not need to be handheld by SCs whilst you are still struggling to figure out how do things.

Just an opinion from me, someone who would not bother giving ******** advice and would rather be blunt and straightforward so a junior's career is not ****ed. You can do whatever you want its your life your career your choice.