Thanks for your comments!!

Do you guys think I'll struggle to get a good training contract (big 4, international firm) given my family situation? My dad is actually quite ups in the legal scene and my aunt is quite big in conveyancing. Based on connections I should be quite set but how important are connections really??? How do they select people? Like for example, would it make a diff to CC that my aunt works there?

I am quite confident of getting a cum laude, maybe magna if I make myself have no life.

Also, doesn't seem v fair that Oxbridge people get treated so highly. I actually know someone who didn't get both local law schools and got trinity at Cambridge. All comes down to your financing. But I Guess things are generally unfair haha...

Any comments on my original and follow-up questions???

Clifford Chance does conveyancing??? That's new to me. What do they conveyance? $800 million dollar office developments? I'm sure your "aunt" will be thrilled to know that her "nephew/niece" thinks that she's a conveyancing lawyer.

She does real estate law but I guess maybe technical term is not conveyancing? What's with the condescending tone though, why would I come to a random forum and troll people?

And as I said I'm not even doing law yet so I think it's alright that I get some things wrong. Isn't the whole point of this forum to facilitates discussions and questions that may sometimes be factually wrong?

Clifford Chance does have a real estate department anyway and she's one of the peeps there, sorry for making you all riled up over misinformation...

I don't mean to troll you, but seriously, why are you posing this questions in a random forum, when you are related to two persons (one of which is your father, no less) who are well-placed to answer all these questions? At least, you won't get any troll replies from your father or aunt.

And to answer your question, if you do well in school and are capable, connections do not matter. If you don't do well, then you will have to make your connections matter.

Unfortunately for you, CC is one firm in which it is not very useful to have connections. Their trainees are mostly first class honours / summa cum laude. So I guess only if you can get a first class honours, and you are competing with other first class honours people, then your connection might be useful. Otherwise, it is useless.

If your aunt/dad was in a big 4 then that would be very useful. You could even get in even with just a lowly cum laude / borderline second uppers. Maybe even second lowers could make the cut.

But since your dad is not in a big 4, it is also a useless connection. Your best bet would be to go to your dad's firm if it is decently sized. I'm sure your dad will take you in even with non-cum-laude or second lowers.

Actually you sound rather insufferable, so I'd say stick with your dad's firm. You have a job lined up and and people there will have no choice but to tolerate you anyway.

Family connections aren't gonna cut it in an int'l firm like CC. for one, the Brits will never allow nepotism from their Asian colleagues. Nepotism is only okay if you are white.

If you have the connections, you don't need good grades. Don't even need brains - just go and network and meet some of these clowns. Even in the offshore firms.

Having said that and since your life is set with the connections, and you can afford it, study overseas and have a ball of time.

Also that is not true... There is at least one UCL trainee in CC.

There are only that many senior women real estate lawyers in CC Singapore, or in the FLA tie-up for that matter.

Well done for posting it publicly on this forum. I'm sure Ms. _____ ___ T__ will be none too pleased that her nephew is advertising his brilliant plan to leverage on her to land an easy position.

Why don't you start with the very basics first, i.e. putting in the effort to being a reasonably good law student?

Hello! I'm from SMU, from the graduating batch. Glad to hear that you're considering joining us. First off, this is probably a bad time to get into law; the number of students in each batch is increasing at a rapid rate (for example in SMU, my year has like ~100, the year below ~150, below that like ~180). This is compounded by the number of students from the UK.

There is also a marked grade DE-flation here, with only 2 summas in year below (compared to ~5 in my year, and the same for the years above).

That said though, it is not difficult to get a job in a big 4 here; a 3.5 (which is a cum laude), without more, will almost definitely land you an interview, and I personally know of people below cum laude who got into the big 4 and medium firms without connections (they did perform well at internships though). All of my fellow magnas got multiple offers, and the one guy in my year who got into CC will be graduating with a magna.

If you want ROI, then go for SMU (cheaper fees, equivalent job prospects in Singapore - not counting magic circle firms). I'd personally go for Oxbridge just for the brand name though - it really opens doors even outside of law. I hear the education there is top notch as well. This is not really the case here - last year we didn't have enough electives to go around! The seminar style of education is highly stressful, and does not consistently produce good students - some grads don't have basic legal knowledge, while some are amazing at everything.

Take the above with a pinch of salt as I cannot predict the state of the job market in 4-5 years!

If you'd like to know more, PM me

am currently working as an assoc for one of the big4.

can confirm that there's a 50/50, or 60/40 split in terms of local and uk uni grads within the trainee batches now. obviously oxbridge grads are valued everywhere but attending ucl/lse/kcl/bristol still puts you in good steed. other than that, better pull those strings and pray hard. (but it becomes pretty obvious when you're the only tasmania/leicester/godknowswhere trainee...)