Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

CC NQ is BM 2 PQE, which is around 13-14k now. So the real difference is ~15%, not 30%.

Not really.

CC: 2-year training (8k+ with increments), 3rd year (NQ): 15.5k

Baker: 1-year training (3k), 2nd year (NQ): 9.5k, 3rd year (1PQE): 11k

Notwithstanding the difference in training pay, even comparing the exact year has quite a huge gap. This does not just apply to CC, but the other MC firms as well.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Which silver circle firms in particular pays ~14k NQ (i.e. 2PQE on Singapore scale)?

Any 'real' international firm below the MC level (including the silver circle firms). For example, Ashurst, Simmons, etc

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How can sinkie lawyers operating in second rate sinkie courts deserve more than offshore

when our sinkie CJ are plagiarising from UK courts
its as tho a poorly done o level summary with paraphrasing here and there

Sundaresh Menon CJ, Judith Prakash JA and Woo Bih Li J, [2020] SGHC 255
had also lied to the DT, which found her “a deceitful witness, who tailored her
evidence to portray herself as an innocent victim who had been maligned”

MRS JUSTICE GLOSTER, DBE, [2012] EWHC 2463 (Comm)
"an unimpressive, and inherently unreliable, witness, who regarded truth as a transitory, flexible concept, which could be moulded to suit his current purposes. At times, the evidence which he gave was deliberately dishonest; sometimes he was clearly making his evidence up as he went along in response to the perceived difficulty in answering the questions in a manner consistent with his case; at other times, I gained the impression that he was not necessarily being deliberately dishonest"

how is this plagiarism?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Not really.

CC: 2-year training (8k+ with increments), 3rd year (NQ): 15.5k

Baker: 1-year training (3k), 2nd year (NQ): 9.5k, 3rd year (1PQE): 11k

Notwithstanding the difference in training pay, even comparing the exact year has quite a huge gap. This does not just apply to CC, but the other MC firms as well.

This assumes that BM/CC will retain the same payscale when the 1 year TC kicks in - but that remains to be seen.

Based on the current situation, if we look at someone who was called in SG in 2020, BM's current pay would be around 13-14k while CC would be around 15-16k. For someone called in 2018, BM current pay would be around 16-17k while CC would be 18-19k. AFAIK Links (and A&O) are slightly higher than CC.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

This assumes that BM/CC will retain the same payscale when the 1 year TC kicks in - but that remains to be seen.

Based on the current situation, if we look at someone who was called in SG in 2020, BM's current pay would be around 13-14k while CC would be around 15-16k. For someone called in 2018, BM current pay would be around 16-17k while CC would be 18-19k. AFAIK Links (and A&O) are slightly higher than CC.

Highly certain that the payscale for Baker would be retained. Afterall: (i) NQ pay was already increased this year (from 8k to 9.5k); and (ii) the Big 4 is not making any changes at the moment. If anything, CC's pay is rumoured to become 17k NQ (matching their London office rates).

At the end of the day, there is still a substantial pay gap going to Baker instead of a MC / SC firm.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Any thoughts on the new JLV announced between Mayer Brown and PK Wong & Nair?

They just want a foothold here

Fav tactic of international firms is to plug and play a readymade law practice locally

Not many JLVs or FLAs really work out . Eversheds HarryE or RHT Taylor Wessing come to mind

It really only works out if the local practice is willing to get absorbed / integrated, but this means the partners cede independence over the financials. If the partners insist on staying largely independent, the international side will eventually not see any value in the relationship

Some of the more long running JLVs like Hogan Lovells and Lee and Lee are so loose that they might as well just do a pure referral relationship

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Highly certain that the payscale for Baker would be retained. Afterall: (i) NQ pay was already increased this year (from 8k to 9.5k); and (ii) the Big 4 is not making any changes at the moment. If anything, CC's pay is rumoured to become 17k NQ (matching their London office rates).

At the end of the day, there is still a substantial pay gap going to Baker instead of a MC / SC firm.

You never know. BM raised salaries considerably in 2021 and no one expected that they would raise it again in 2022. But the market spoke, so they had to do it. The B4 are all finding trouble retaining people at this point so I won't be surprised if they do another round of pay raises sometime in the next few years (provided that a huge recession doesn't hit) - look at the number of open positions on A&G's hiring page.

Also, as someone earlier said, BM has largely closed the salary gap with the SC level firms. It's still a tad bit lower than MC but the gap is small enough to make someone think twice about jumping to MC - which is the point of the raise in the first place.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

They just want a foothold here

Fav tactic of international firms is to plug and play a readymade law practice locally

Not many JLVs or FLAs really work out . Eversheds HarryE or RHT Taylor Wessing come to mind

It really only works out if the local practice is willing to get absorbed / integrated, but this means the partners cede independence over the financials. If the partners insist on staying largely independent, the international side will eventually not see any value in the relationship

Some of the more long running JLVs like Hogan Lovells and Lee and Lee are so loose that they might as well just do a pure referral relationship

Seems like more int'l firms have been trying to make a foothold to Singapore (Mayer Brown, Greenberg). Some of the int'l firms here are also implementing new (UK?) TC programmes (Sidley, HSF, etc)

Also, many int'l firms have been appointing Singaporean lawyers to be their Sg office's managing partners (CC, Ashurst, etc)

Cleary these are signs that the legal market in Singapore is maturing? May start to closely resemble Hong Kong soon.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How come Fervent Chambers is still hiring trainees on Law Soc careers page? Didn’t Clarence Lun get suspended because he’s unqualified?

Why so much attention on this lawyeR? Didn't he won some prominent cases?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

You never know. BM raised salaries considerably in 2021 and no one expected that they would raise it again in 2022. But the market spoke, so they had to do it. The B4 are all finding trouble retaining people at this point so I won't be surprised if they do another round of pay raises sometime in the next few years (provided that a huge recession doesn't hit) - look at the number of open positions on A&G's hiring page.

Also, as someone earlier said, BM has largely closed the salary gap with the SC level firms. It's still a tad bit lower than MC but the gap is small enough to make someone think twice about jumping to MC - which is the point of the raise in the first place.

A&g is just a cheap singapore sweatshop. Singapore big4 are loosing out to the intls big time in terms of clients deals and lawyers.