Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Current NUS law undergrad here - already got my TC at a big 4 firm for disputes. How important is getting first class honours to my future in disputes practice? Can anyone share how a first class degree has helped/may help in terms of career progression? Thanks in advance.

Disclaimer - I haven't entered practice, just finished Part B.

Honestly, from what I see in friends and seniors, nobody cares. At the most, people give you a second glance at the start or put you in a different/"better" sub-practice area. It'll probably matter more for Masters applications. But you don't sound like you're gonna go on to further studies

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Current NUS law undergrad here - already got my TC at a big 4 firm for disputes. How important is getting first class honours to my future in disputes practice? Can anyone share how a first class degree has helped/may help in terms of career progression? Thanks in advance.

Anyone who tells you it "doesn't matter at all" is just full of it (or salty). There's no way getting first class honors will not give you some advantage in a job application or in raising your profile to clients, the question is just of how much it helps.

As a general rule I would say it helps more in disputes work (which is very reputation driven and your performance in school is more indicative of your ability to do good work) than corporate. It is also less important the more years of practice you have. My degree and grades definitely helped when I did my first job change one year in, but I dont see it mattering if I was 6 PQE for example.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Current NUS law undergrad here - already got my TC at a big 4 firm for disputes. How important is getting first class honours to my future in disputes practice? Can anyone share how a first class degree has helped/may help in terms of career progression? Thanks in advance.

First class degree is always very helpful for your career. Law is a profession where (i) the school you attended and (ii) the grades you got at it matter. Partly also because it makes it easier for your partner/firm to sell your services.

Always put yourself in your potential employer's shoes when confronted with these questions. You may find that you can answer them yourself.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anyone who tells you it "doesn't matter at all" is just full of it (or salty). There's no way getting first class honors will not give you some advantage in a job application or in raising your profile to clients, the question is just of how much it helps.

As a general rule I would say it helps more in disputes work (which is very reputation driven and your performance in school is more indicative of your ability to do good work) than corporate. It is also less important the more years of practice you have. My degree and grades definitely helped when I did my first job change one year in, but I dont see it mattering if I was 6 PQE for example.

This is correct. Without a FCH, going to intl firm practices nowadays is very difficult (it is not even easy with a FCH). A FCH will also help you considerably with progression in the legal service if you are so inclined.

If you wanna "rough" it out in local firms, it probably doesn't matter so much. They are all bleeding people - if you willing to stick it out with them, getting to salaried partner is generally not a problem.

For inhouse, doesn't matter so much as well. Unless you are applying for a disputes inhouse role, you will be disadvantaged as a liti lawyer, FCH or not.

But at the end of the day - if you are a great rainmaker or have great personal connections - that is the most important for law firms.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anyone who tells you it "doesn't matter at all" is just full of it (or salty). There's no way getting first class honors will not give you some advantage in a job application or in raising your profile to clients, the question is just of how much it helps.

As a general rule I would say it helps more in disputes work (which is very reputation driven and your performance in school is more indicative of your ability to do good work) than corporate. It is also less important the more years of practice you have. My degree and grades definitely helped when I did my first job change one year in, but I dont see it mattering if I was 6 PQE for example.

Thanks all for your replies. I’m a bit worried because I’m on the fringe of FCH and I find it quite binary that just because I fall just short the cutoff, the “worth” of my degree is somewhat equivalent to anyone else with a second upper degree (the CAP range for 2nd upper is from 3.2 - 4.3). Any thoughts on this?

Also to the person who posted this reply, would you mind sharing what kind of firm you switched to 1 year in? And what tier of firm were you in preciously? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anyone who tells you it "doesn't matter at all" is just full of it (or salty). There's no way getting first class honors will not give you some advantage in a job application or in raising your profile to clients, the question is just of how much it helps.

As a general rule I would say it helps more in disputes work (which is very reputation driven and your performance in school is more indicative of your ability to do good work) than corporate. It is also less important the more years of practice you have. My degree and grades definitely helped when I did my first job change one year in, but I dont see it mattering if I was 6 PQE for example.

Thank you all for the helpful replies. I'm a bit worried because I'm on the fringe for FCH, and it seems quite binary to me that if i fall just short of the cutoff, the "worth" of my degree is somewhat labelled as similar to perhaps 70% of the cohort (the CAP range for 2nd upper is anywhere from 3.3-4.3). Any thoughts on this?

Also to the poster of this reply, would you mind sharing what kind of firm were you at previously, and what kind of firm did you jump to 1 year in? Was it an international firm? Also are you in disputes? Thanks.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Current NUS law undergrad here - already got my TC at a big 4 firm for disputes. How important is getting first class honours to my future in disputes practice? Can anyone share how a first class degree has helped/may help in terms of career progression? Thanks in advance.

I got an FCH from overseas uni which is probably not on par with the NUS one. Nonetheless no one cares about it a few years into practice. In fact it’s your practical skills. You can manage the exam but cannot manage the client or the work. What does an FCH mean.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thank you all for the helpful replies. I'm a bit worried because I'm on the fringe for FCH, and it seems quite binary to me that if i fall just short of the cutoff, the "worth" of my degree is somewhat labelled as similar to perhaps 70% of the cohort (the CAP range for 2nd upper is anywhere from 3.3-4.3). Any thoughts on this?

Also to the poster of this reply, would you mind sharing what kind of firm were you at previously, and what kind of firm did you jump to 1 year in? Was it an international firm? Also are you in disputes? Thanks.

Legal academia rarely holds bearing to legal practice. It’s just a bench mark because how else would the market evaluate a student? Unless you have a whole host of prior work experience, your grades are all they have going on about you. So obviously it’s good to have but not a deal breaker for most teams in big firms. Some teams do only take in firsts but if you’re struggling to get a first I doubt those teams are your goals anyways.

I mean HR and the recruitment partners aren’t blind? They can see if your 2nd upper is close to a first which will obviously hold a different light compared to someone that barely scraped a 2nd upper.

I’m sure you already know this but the main reason why there is a shred of comparison to legal academia is because disputes deals with the law a lot more than corp work. Some of my friends in corp has a **** understanding of most areas of the law and I am from time to time surprised they’ve gotten a first. They are often just naturally bright people.

From what I’ve seen, unless you do a lot of appeals-esq work your grasp of the law is often only relevant to how the facts can be twisted in that direction, and not so much the intricacies of the principles. No one is going to honestly care about your cutting edge legal paper that scored a 80%, but just as a gauge as to how well you can tolerate the rigour of the industry, your ability to comprehend difficult concepts in what is hopefully a short amount of time and finding relatively creative ways to frame arguments (and this involves fact finding which has nothing to do with the law) within the remits of the law.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Legal academia rarely holds bearing to legal practice. It’s just a bench mark because how else would the market evaluate a student? Unless you have a whole host of prior work experience, your grades are all they have going on about you. So obviously it’s good to have but not a deal breaker for most teams in big firms. Some teams do only take in firsts but if you’re struggling to get a first I doubt those teams are your goals anyways.

I mean HR and the recruitment partners aren’t blind? They can see if your 2nd upper is close to a first which will obviously hold a different light compared to someone that barely scraped a 2nd upper.

I’m sure you already know this but the main reason why there is a shred of comparison to legal academia is because disputes deals with the law a lot more than corp work. Some of my friends in corp has a **** understanding of most areas of the law and I am from time to time surprised they’ve gotten a first. They are often just naturally bright people.

From what I’ve seen, unless you do a lot of appeals-esq work your grasp of the law is often only relevant to how the facts can be twisted in that direction, and not so much the intricacies of the principles. No one is going to honestly care about your cutting edge legal paper that scored a 80%, but just as a gauge as to how well you can tolerate the rigour of the industry, your ability to comprehend difficult concepts in what is hopefully a short amount of time and finding relatively creative ways to frame arguments (and this involves fact finding which has nothing to do with the law) within the remits of the law.

Which team only takes FCH nowadays? All the local firms are desperate for people, and even the top tier teams in the local firms have many non-FCH, unless you are talking about intl firms - but for those, there are so few positions and its so personality/connection driven that even FCH may find it difficult to get in.

That said however, good grades certainly helps in disputes, as it is correlated to ability to frame arguments etc. But other things (like diligence, public speaking, asskissing, willingness to fight, organisational skills) are also important if not more important.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thank you all for the helpful replies. I'm a bit worried because I'm on the fringe for FCH, and it seems quite binary to me that if i fall just short of the cutoff, the "worth" of my degree is somewhat labelled as similar to perhaps 70% of the cohort (the CAP range for 2nd upper is anywhere from 3.3-4.3). Any thoughts on this?

Also to the poster of this reply, would you mind sharing what kind of firm were you at previously, and what kind of firm did you jump to 1 year in? Was it an international firm? Also are you in disputes? Thanks.

Are you going to apply for JLC? Since you are FCH
Have a friend who’s caught in a bind too - he wants to do corp, but he’s also thinking of JLC
But some say why apply for JLC if going corp