Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why do you wish to stay in private practice? That would be my first question. Most people stay in private practice because they see it as good money or a viable future career path (partner). I can think of very few other reasons why people stay in private practice.

So here is my two cents. I'm the OP you quoted by the way.

If your end game is to go in-house anyway, then you might as well move now. Regressing in your PQE means taking a somewhat major paycut [pqe3-NQ] and you'll need another 3 to 4 years to match what you're currently earning.

And what happens if in the next 6mths to a year you decide you don't like private practice corp - you will be in an extremely weak negotiation position going in-house since your last drawn pay would be the equivalent to that of an NQ-1pqe. You would also not be eligible to apply for corp-intensive in-house roles, since you do not have the requisite experience in this area of law (at least from a HR perspective). What this means is that you will likely be relying on your liti exp/localisation to pivot into an in-house role - basically, you will be in the exact same position you're in right now - except with a really shitty last drawn pay.

Going in-house now would allow you to at least negotiate for a 20% pay rise from what you're currently earning (maybe not so much in the current economy, but i'd say you still have a good shot at getting a decent pay increase).

Ofc, many will argue that the pay increases for in-house counsels are much slower than private practice. This is true, i went from practice-in-house-practice.... but many of my peers who left practice at the same stage as you still manage to negotiate a decent salary at their respective PQEs. Think 4-5pqe at 8-10k and 6-8 PQE at 10-12K (pre-covid).

It would be interesting to know what you decide in the end... do keep us updated!

8-10k at 4 to 5 PQE is not decent, its bad, you can do so much better than that. If you're intent on doing corp you must go all the way - do a few years of practice in intl firms first, and then negotiate for your in house pay from that higher level. If you have experience in intl firms, your pay will be far better, the opportunities for advancement in an in house role are much greater.

Future trainee here. What are the essential excel skills and MS word skills we need to know to survive practice? I'm unfortunately not the best at these and am looking to brush up before training, but not sure how much excel we need to know or how excel is used in the law context

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Future trainee here. What are the essential excel skills and MS word skills we need to know to survive practice? I'm unfortunately not the best at these and am looking to brush up before training, but not sure how much excel we need to know or how excel is used in the law context

LOL Funniest Post.

Uh.

1. Justify

2. Control F

3. Convert to PDF

4. Redact

5. Paginate

6. Simple Excel like = SUM ( )

Originally Posted by Unregistered

8-10k at 4 to 5 PQE is not decent, its bad, you can do so much better than that. If you're intent on doing corp you must go all the way - do a few years of practice in intl firms first, and then negotiate for your in house pay from that higher level. If you have experience in intl firms, your pay will be far better, the opportunities for advancement in an in house role are much greater.

Yeah but this OP is quite right to say that if your goal is in-house do it on the basis of litigation and not corporate.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Future trainee here. What are the essential excel skills and MS word skills we need to know to survive practice? I'm unfortunately not the best at these and am looking to brush up before training, but not sure how much excel we need to know or how excel is used in the law context

Excel for capitalisation table usually, must know how to use auto formulas

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Whoever took the time on Father’s Day to write this, excellent account.

Didn't a UK Queen's Counsel LSE undergraduate and LSE LLM professor who's known for his wit and sense of humor take over a prestigious role at NUS law this month?

One less reason to choose LSE over NUS, seeing as he has decided to share his knowledge outside the LSE circle. I envy the fact that you paid for lectures with him for less tuition fees.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Didn't a UK Queen's Counsel LSE undergraduate and LSE LLM professor who's known for his wit and sense of humor take over a prestigious role at NUS law this month?

One less reason to choose LSE over NUS, seeing as he has decided to share his knowledge outside the LSE circle. I envy the fact that you paid for lectures with him for less tuition fees.

Any prestgious KCL LLMs made it in Sg? I am contemplating doing an LLM considering that its so easy to print a first, however i am concerned about the degree mill status.

Hi I've been seeing a lot of posts about how a UK LLM is not very useful, but other than not being super useful is there any harm in doing a LLM? Any reason why I shouldn't do it?

(I mean more like any prejudices resulting from it, not things like cost - am very fortunate that money won't really be a problem, parents are very supportive and I've checked and I can pay for it myself too)

Also because I always see someone bashing on students trying to cure undergrad grades with an LLM, before that person starts scolding me I'm at a good 2:1 now, so I'm not trying to do an LLM to do that. I'm just very interested to study overseas and get a masters because I'm not sure when else I will have to do one and I feel like I'd be happy to do it now, so I just want to check if there are any negative implications/negative mindsets towards it.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any prestgious KCL LLMs made it in Sg? I am contemplating doing an LLM considering that its so easy to print a first, however i am concerned about the degree mill status.

Can't advise sorry.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Hi I've been seeing a lot of posts about how a UK LLM is not very useful, but other than not being super useful is there any harm in doing a LLM? Any reason why I shouldn't do it?

(I mean more like any prejudices resulting from it, not things like cost - am very fortunate that money won't really be a problem, parents are very supportive and I've checked and I can pay for it myself too)

Also because I always see someone bashing on students trying to cure undergrad grades with an LLM, before that person starts scolding me I'm at a good 2:1 now, so I'm not trying to do an LLM to do that. I'm just very interested to study overseas and get a masters because I'm not sure when else I will have to do one and I feel like I'd be happy to do it now, so I just want to check if there are any negative implications/negative mindsets towards it.

Thank you!

I'm nowhere near senior enough to have any actual insight into what goes into hiring decisions, but as someone who was also considering an LLM, the advice that I've gleaned from the earlier posts is that the main negative is the opportunity cost of the time spent on the Masters that could've been time spent in practice (provided practice is the end goal). So just make sure you're willing to benchmark yourself against equivalent actual PQE peers as opposed to against the batch you did undergrad with.