Lawyer Salary

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Can anyone share the payscales for bigger mid-sized firms? e.g. SLB, Oon, WKW, TSMP etc?

I’m in one of these firms with 4 PQE, drawing around 140k p.a. base.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I’m in one of these firms with 4 PQE, drawing around 140k p.a. base.

So about 1k pay raise each year or slightly more?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

So about 1k pay raise each year or slightly more?

Thereabouts indeed!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I’m in one of these firms with 4 PQE, drawing around 140k p.a. base.

Fully front-loaded or do you get bonuses on top of that?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Fully front-loaded or do you get bonuses on top of that?

it excludes bonus which could be several months worth

Is law still a good career path for young people now? Asking for someone from my in-laws' side. He's taking A Levels this year.

I'm a lawyer myself so my view is slightly jaundiced. Around 8 PQE. Most of my lawyer friends are doing OKish. Some far better than others obv, but even the lowest earning / far below average ones are getting around $140-150K per annum. Not great but their workload is significantly lower than those in international firms or inhouse FIs. But we had to grind through the nonsense in our junior years.

However, I think many other industries offer far better WLB and even comparable pay for lesser stress.

Thoughts? how would you advise a 16-17 year old kid?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

R&T pay is pathetic and below market

used to be! this year, they seem to have raised their NQ salaries to outbid the other big 4s.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is law still a good career path for young people now? Asking for someone from my in-laws' side. He's taking A Levels this year.

I'm a lawyer myself so my view is slightly jaundiced. Around 8 PQE. Most of my lawyer friends are doing OKish. Some far better than others obv, but even the lowest earning / far below average ones are getting around $140-150K per annum. Not great but their workload is significantly lower than those in international firms or inhouse FIs. But we had to grind through the nonsense in our junior years.

However, I think many other industries offer far better WLB and even comparable pay for lesser stress.

Thoughts? how would you advise a 16-17 year old kid?

Only study law if you are confident of being in the top 10% of the industry. Medicine is a better career for average performer. Baseline salary of 20000/month for an average performer (Anchor GP in private sector)

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Only study law if you are confident of being in the top 10% of the industry. Medicine is a better career for average performer. Baseline salary of 20000/month for an average performer (Anchor GP in private sector)

But medicine course is in itself much tougher to get into than law courses. Even if we talk about "buying" an overseas uni cos cmi to local law/med schs, an overseas MBBS is at least 3x more expensive than an overseas LLB.

So if you extend the "lookback" period to A Level/poly time, law seems to give a better ROI for average performers on the whole.

The whole schtick with protection professions is that the competitive barriers to entry starts at the uni admissions stage (to a recognised MBBS or LLB degree). So it makes sense to lookback to that stage as the starting point of comparison.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

But medicine course is in itself much tougher to get into than law courses. Even if we talk about "buying" an overseas uni cos cmi to local law/med schs, an overseas MBBS is at least 3x more expensive than an overseas LLB.

So if you extend the "lookback" period to A Level/poly time, law seems to give a better ROI for average performers on the whole.

The whole schtick with protection professions is that the competitive barriers to entry starts at the uni admissions stage (to a recognised MBBS or LLB degree). So it makes sense to lookback to that stage as the starting point of comparison.

Agreed with you on the ROI of law vs medicine. But that only applies for local unis. It’s kind of pointless to study law in a second tier UK/Australia Uni if you can’t get into the local unis. You will struggle when applying for a TC in SG compared to the local grads.

Whereas for medicine, any overseas degree on the second schedule is still recognised for practice in Singapore. Whether you are an NUS YLL grad or Monash Med, it doesn’t matter because both still start as a HO.