Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I dunno why yall talking like mcm civil servants, all these woolly notions of salary must go up just cos some time has passed, must beat inflation, etc. Like apropos of nothing, and simply by virtue of being an employee, can talk about salary in the abstract, divorced from any value it is supposed to be commensurate with

Yall forgetting you sell legal services. Sell being the operative word, if not each one of you got charge out rate and do time sheets for what

Not a single post has addressed the value contributed point. So I'll repeat it - in this day and age, wtf does a lawyer do to justify the salary they draw. Why is the argument for more, and not less. Why isn't NQ pay $2,500

Have you even seen a contract before and the amount of paperwork in a transaction? This is besides the commercial astuteness you expect from hiring from the big 4. Even if you don’t think the legal sector should be on pace with inflation simply by virtue of it being a sales based (which is ridiculous ground), paying 5.6-6 is not proportionate to the work produced.

I just assumed that you were talking about corp work cause if you were referring to liti work you obviously don’t work in the legal sector.

how many attempts needed to pass part b nowadays? What’s the cause for failing a subject?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I dunno why yall talking like mcm civil servants, all these woolly notions of salary must go up just cos some time has passed, must beat inflation, etc. Like apropos of nothing, and simply by virtue of being an employee, can talk about salary in the abstract, divorced from any value it is supposed to be commensurate with

Yall forgetting you sell legal services. Sell being the operative word, if not each one of you got charge out rate and do time sheets for what

Not a single post has addressed the value contributed point. So I'll repeat it - in this day and age, wtf does a lawyer do to justify the salary they draw. Why is the argument for more, and not less. Why isn't NQ pay $2,500

This guy must be a salty non-lawyer. Only people who wanted to, but failed to, become a lawyer will ever use "apropos of nothing" in their writing (in an attempt to look clever).

It's very simple. Legal fees for a freshly called associate is $300+/h. On average you should be billing 2000+ hours a year, but let's count it as 2000. That's $600,000 a year. That's the value you are providing to your firm/customers (also, because the OP is evidently not an economist, value is determined by market forces that deem your work at a certain pricepoint --> stupidly saying that lawyers have not addressed their value proposition is an argument that can be transposed to any vocation - why doctors demand high salary? why bankers demand high salary? why xxx demand high salary? - because that's the value society is willing to ascribe to the work that they do).

Again, since the OP evidently does not know how the legal industry works, the breakeven point for hiring a fresh lawyer is estimated at 3x their pay. I.e. if you are paid 6k/mth, you should be billing 18k/mth. That's only $216,000. Meaning that the firm, excluding overheads and related costs, are taking around 400k while giving you 72k (and whatever bonus for that year - which is pegged to higher billings). All these extra fees go to the partner's pocket. Generally the partner's only achievement is being born at the right time (when law was not so competitive) and being older and therefore more "experienced".

Telling everyone there is a "glut" of lawyers, and then artificially suppressing wages without a corresponding drop in legal fees tells us that this is merely profiteering by the firms. But we will always have idiots like the OP who are salty of the salaries of NQ lawyers, without understanding the amount of value an NQ lawyer brings to the firm.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Well there’s definitely something wrong when legal salaries in other financial centres have increased substantially in the past 10 years, whereas Singapore’s local firms have remained stagnant. Are Singapore law firms losing relevance?

The underlying issue, as you've alluded to, is that Singapore law firms have likely not remained as profitable as firms in other jurisdictions.

Bear in mind that our legal industry is very underdeveloped and immature. You won't find reported stats on revenue figures for law firms.

In the US and UK, you have AmLaw200 and The Lawyer 200 rankings that track stats like revenue, profit per lawyer (PPL), profit per partner (PPP), profit per equity partner (PEP) Year on Year without fail. These have shown nothing but steady increases. If we can't even find these stats, you can forget about industry-wide info on salary scales, which must be gleaned anecdotally here.

I suspect that revenue growth of local Big 4 and midtier firms is very flat or only slightly increasing, but non-fee earner overheads are increasing a lot. To maintain the same level of partner drawings, the partners have resisted across-the-board raises in the salary scale.

Because this problem of low profitability of Singapore legal services is structural, the solution must also be structural. I.e., to allow for full liberalization of international firms to practice in all areas of SG law. That will force some unprofitable local firms to merge or close while giving more options to Singapore lawyers to work in international firms here.

We may not see NY or London level salary scales, but it at least cause an upward push on salaries for the largest firms here.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This guy must be a salty non-lawyer. Only people who wanted to, but failed to, become a lawyer will ever use "apropos of nothing" in their writing (in an attempt to look clever).

It's very simple. Legal fees for a freshly called associate is $300+/h. On average you should be billing 2000+ hours a year, but let's count it as 2000. That's $600,000 a year. That's the value you are providing to your firm/customers (also, because the OP is evidently not an economist, value is determined by market forces that deem your work at a certain pricepoint --> stupidly saying that lawyers have not addressed their value proposition is an argument that can be transposed to any vocation - why doctors demand high salary? why bankers demand high salary? why xxx demand high salary? - because that's the value society is willing to ascribe to the work that they do).

Again, since the OP evidently does not know how the legal industry works, the breakeven point for hiring a fresh lawyer is estimated at 3x their pay. I.e. if you are paid 6k/mth, you should be billing 18k/mth. That's only $216,000. Meaning that the firm, excluding overheads and related costs, are taking around 400k while giving you 72k (and whatever bonus for that year - which is pegged to higher billings). All these extra fees go to the partner's pocket. Generally the partner's only achievement is being born at the right time (when law was not so competitive) and being older and therefore more "experienced".

Telling everyone there is a "glut" of lawyers, and then artificially suppressing wages without a corresponding drop in legal fees tells us that this is merely profiteering by the firms. But we will always have idiots like the OP who are salty of the salaries of NQ lawyers, without understanding the amount of value an NQ lawyer brings to the firm.

The only important point was "the breakeven point for hiring a fresh lawyer is estimated at 3x their pay" - who comes up with this stuff?

It seems so arbitrary, like an excuse to work backwards and say because I bill $600k a year, I should be paid $200k a year and therefore ~$17k a month.

What kind of client is willing to instruct a bunch of 24yos who each earn $17k a month?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The underlying issue, as you've alluded to, is that Singapore law firms have likely not remained as profitable as firms in other jurisdictions.

Bear in mind that our legal industry is very underdeveloped and immature. You won't find reported stats on revenue figures for law firms.

In the US and UK, you have AmLaw200 and The Lawyer 200 rankings that track stats like revenue, profit per lawyer (PPL), profit per partner (PPP), profit per equity partner (PEP) Year on Year without fail. These have shown nothing but steady increases. If we can't even find these stats, you can forget about industry-wide info on salary scales, which must be gleaned anecdotally here.

I suspect that revenue growth of local Big 4 and midtier firms is very flat or only slightly increasing, but non-fee earner overheads are increasing a lot. To maintain the same level of partner drawings, the partners have resisted across-the-board raises in the salary scale.

Because this problem of low profitability of Singapore legal services is structural, the solution must also be structural. I.e., to allow for full liberalization of international firms to practice in all areas of SG law. That will force some unprofitable local firms to merge or close while giving more options to Singapore lawyers to work in international firms here.

We may not see NY or London level salary scales, but it at least cause an upward push on salaries for the largest firms here.

Can we not do "other people go up, so we also must go up"

Quite a stupid reason for increasing salaries tbh, like for no good reason at all pay must go up without increasing the value provided to clients

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The only important point was "the breakeven point for hiring a fresh lawyer is estimated at 3x their pay" - who comes up with this stuff?

It seems so arbitrary, like an excuse to work backwards and say because I bill $600k a year, I should be paid $200k a year and therefore ~$17k a month.

What kind of client is willing to instruct a bunch of 24yos who each earn $17k a month?

I will answer your point line by line even though it's already pretty clear to everyone here you're just a salty low-achiever:

-> People who have run law firms and know how much the usual cost of hiring staff / rent / benefits are...? Do you have any concept of what running a business entails? The 2.5-3x number is standard in the legal industry.

-> How is it arbitrary to work backwards from revenue to determine cost of employment LOL are you stupid? It's the opposite of arbitrary. So what do you mean when you repeatedly ask "what value do you bring"? Based on your reply you're not referring to monetary value, so what kind of value are you referring to? The value of good service? Moron LOL

-> The client is not instructing the 24 y/o, the client is instructing the partner who takes responsibility for the 24 y/0's work.

I really hope you're 14 or something because if your mind is working like this as a working adult it'd be in the best interests of the species if you don't breed

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I will answer your point line by line even though it's already pretty clear to everyone here you're just a salty low-achiever:

-> People who have run law firms and know how much the usual cost of hiring staff / rent / benefits are...? Do you have any concept of what running a business entails? The 2.5-3x number is standard in the legal industry.

-> How is it arbitrary to work backwards from revenue to determine cost of employment LOL are you stupid? It's the opposite of arbitrary. So what do you mean when you repeatedly ask "what value do you bring"? Based on your reply you're not referring to monetary value, so what kind of value are you referring to? The value of good service? Moron LOL

-> The client is not instructing the 24 y/o, the client is instructing the partner who takes responsibility for the 24 y/0's work.

I really hope you're 14 or something because if your mind is working like this as a working adult it'd be in the best interests of the species if you don't breed

So basically the entire premise is it takes money to produce more money, therefore pay me more money

That is a terrible premise for asking for more money tbh, I mean if that is all you can muster then lawyer salaries should go down instead of up since it's really not apparent what value lawyers provide beyond WORK MANY HURR and WORK HARD DURR

Just ignore him lol he's a troll nobody can be this dumb on purpose

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So basically the entire premise is it takes money to produce more money, therefore pay me more money

That is a terrible premise for asking for more money tbh, I mean if that is all you can muster then lawyer salaries should go down instead of up since it's really not apparent what value lawyers provide beyond WORK MANY HURR and WORK HARD DURR

Just write your own contracts, then go ahead and sign them. Zero legal fees. We'll be happy to bill you >100 times what you would have paid to get your papers properly drafted in the first place when **** hits the fan. There, economical enough.