Lawyer Salary

You are so mean? If you lateral to a MC or white shoe firm I’m pretty sure you would want your colleagues to help you adapt. That said I can see how other associates may feel that they are treated unfairly and agree it’s something for the firm to do something about. Some new hires earn lower pay during their probationary period or are asked to leave after their probationary period as their performance was not satisfactory. I don’t know about Baker though.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Exactly. The point is not really the new hires. It is as mentioned the lack of direction and strategy from management and HR poor practices and not being prepared to deal with poor performers. It is a systemic toxic issue which needs a total overhaul and this will take time. Baker is broken.

Which department are you talking about?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You are so mean? If you lateral to a MC or white shoe firm I’m pretty sure you would want your colleagues to help you adapt. That said I can see how other associates may feel that they are treated unfairly and agree it’s something for the firm to do something about. Some new hires earn lower pay during their probationary period or are asked to leave after their probationary period as their performance was not satisfactory. I don’t know about Baker though.

You are daft? The point is that ordinarily white shoe wont even take me cos its not systemically rotten? I'm making the analogy which is only peculiar to baker and to make the point on unfairness

Originally Posted by clementicollege

TKQP/Tan Kok Quan Partnership - Salary, Culture

hello everyone - strongly considering TKQP as a place to train at. Given that our TC is gonna be one year long, I'm quite worried about firm culture and mentorship. Anyone has experience there and/or heard stuff about the firm? Last post about the firm was 2018 so a bit outdated.

Also if anyone has updated salary information on TKQP (or yardsticks based on comparable firms) would be great.

I have two close friends who both work there. I personally have interned there myself. I would say firm culture is generally okay but also depends on which department you go into. Liti is their bread and butter and it looks like they are headed into general liti for the foreseeable future with a partner about to leave and take their entire dept with them.

I would say it's very solid mid-tier, so definitely better than all the sinking ships outside the B4 but not at the same level and probably fighting with the other mid-tiers.

The firm also had a scandal a few years back, with the influencer's husband who was accused by Charles Yeo being from there.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You are daft? The point is that ordinarily white shoe wont even take me cos its not systemically rotten? I'm making the analogy which is only peculiar to baker and to make the point on unfairness

Quite bitter this guy. Like a cmi jilted lover.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am a big 4 NQ who is getting called in August , doing litigation.


I am wondering whether anybody else is doing mundane and tedious work like list of documents, standardize formatting and reviewing documents for typos, change spelling from american english to british english, standarize terms etc etc which are pretty low level imo.

I heard from my friend in UK, his firm has a team to do all these low level work. Like a team on call24/7 that do basically any document review and formatting. For example, you can send them a PDF and a spreadsheet with info for 200 investors, and you say “please recreate this PDF in Word, add margin of 30mm, then prep a copy for each of the 200 investors with their corresponding info, and send back the results in both Word and PDF” and they’ll work all night to get it to you. Then in the morning, 8am, they will get it out for you.

I read the CJ is asking for greater use of technology and its transformation in the industry. Perhaps for a start, local law firms can look into having a dedicated team to do these low level work?

So it is pretty good because I am going to be a real lawyer, and I am not supposed to do all these low level work.

lol i know exactly which firm you are talking about, pretty much only 2 firms do this now and its good but its really just outsourcing, they have an office in a country where its basically sweatshop labour and in sg i used to work at a startup where these processes are automated and AI does it - the problem is most firms especially Big 4 and bigger firms won't adopt these processes as they don't like technology

Originally Posted by Unregistered

lol i know exactly which firm you are talking about, pretty much only 2 firms do this now and its good but its really just outsourcing, they have an office in a country where its basically sweatshop labour and in sg i used to work at a startup where these processes are automated and AI does it - the problem is most firms especially Big 4 and bigger firms won't adopt these processes as they don't like technology

US firms used to employ lots of doc review attorneys before the great recession. imagine going through 3 years law school (total 7 years college education) plus bar, to do doc review. these guys are more like contracted workers and definitely not on the partner progression track.

for big 4 theres no incentive to create a class of such doc review lawyers or spend money on tech or outsourcing. its better to let the junior associates do it because junior lawyer salaries in singapore are so low anyway and they can still bill clients for such work as part of the overall case or deal

Has anyone (NQ) been yelled at by partners before?
I am a victim. Was yelled at last friday. Today the partner just pretended nothing happened and did not even apologize to me. Where can I complain to? HR or law society? I find this is yelling by partner is very unprofessional in this honourable profession.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

US firms used to employ lots of doc review attorneys before the great recession. imagine going through 3 years law school (total 7 years college education) plus bar, to do doc review. these guys are more like contracted workers and definitely not on the partner progression track.

for big 4 theres no incentive to create a class of such doc review lawyers or spend money on tech or outsourcing. its better to let the junior associates do it because junior lawyer salaries in singapore are so low anyway and they can still bill clients for such work as part of the overall case or deal

Any reason why big 4 doesn't want to increase salary for junior associates?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any reason why big 4 doesn't want to increase salary for junior associates?

why would they. barring a few training spots offered by JLV tie ups, where else offer the most number of training and NQ roles for junior lawyers to qualify and work in?

In short, because they can get away with paying peanuts n u either take it or leave it. As with many sinkie companies.