Lawyer Salary

Is Corp business booming or not?
Some friends say super booming, some say barely scraping by

Anyone any good thoughts? Thanks

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Is Corp business booming or not?
Some friends say super booming, some say barely scraping by

Anyone any good thoughts? Thanks

Some companies are booming while others are down-sizing.
Just be positive and avoid negative thoughts.

If you are employed, try not to resign till you got another job offer.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Some companies are booming while others are down-sizing.
Just be positive and avoid negative thoughts.

If you are employed, try not to resign till you got another job offer.

Thanks for the exceedingly helpful response mate

Anyone from big 4 had the retention talk yet?

How common is it to jump to another firm to continue tc?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Anyone from big 4 had the retention talk yet?

How common is it to jump to another firm to continue tc?

Every year got ppl ask same qns. If you didn’t bother scrolling through and do your DD before asking (I don’t think it’s too far down the thread), maybe that’s why you got cut!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Every year got ppl ask same qns. If you didn’t bother scrolling through and do your DD before asking (I don’t think it’s too far down the thread), maybe that’s why you got cut!

Sad!

Ok then just focusing on the first question - anyone had the retention talk yet?

Thoughts on the "consultation paper" SILE posted regarding the new training period?

I personally feel like they addressed everything except the main issue, i.e. the salary/remuneration of practice trainees.

Still exploiting them as cheap labour smh

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Thoughts on the "consultation paper" SILE posted regarding the new training period?

I personally feel like they addressed everything except the main issue, i.e. the salary/remuneration of practice trainees.

Still exploiting them as cheap labour smh

bunch of nonsense. decided to lengthen the training period and now scrambling to actually fill in the framework. shows how much thought was put into the whole reform

Originally Posted by Unregistered

bunch of nonsense. decided to lengthen the training period and now scrambling to actually fill in the framework. shows how much thought was put into the whole reform

What would be your ideal approach then?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

What would be your ideal approach then?

Not the person you quoted but my suggestion would be to keep the current TC programme of 6 months. Increasing it to 1 year is not going to make a difference. Experience is also gained after getting called to the bar. Increasing the TC by another 6 months is just making the law graduates' lives miserable with no added value.

No one honestly thinks a freshly called to the bar lawyer knows much anyways. The problem is when these newly called to the bar lawyers try their best in court, the Judges are less than empathetic to them and demand perfection as though they are not newly minted lawyers and have no idea how Judges expect the trial to be run.

I foresee the quantity and quality of lawyers in the future dropping even more if this kind of effort persists. This industry is filled with misinformed, out of touch boomers who cannot keep up with the trends of society.

Current generation of young adults do not care about progressing to partner or MD etc. They want work life balance and would give up the "prestige" in a heartbeat, not that the current law progression has any in the first place. Its all a facade. My point being the current generation will choose to do something more worthwhile and meaningful than slog their 5-6 years in law school and bar exams only to be given a wage lower than computer science by 1-2k with worse working hours and being treated like a slave, exploited and verbally abused daily.

I think its pretty easy to tell that this industry is failing considering how 10 years ago the boomers were saying there was a shortage of lawyers, and then 5-6 years later changing that narrative to "oh there's a glut of lawyers now" so we need to gatekeep. Look where we are now, we are in a shortage again of 3-5 pqe lawyers because lesser people are looking to join this industry and the numbers of people being burnt out and leaving before 5 pqe increases. Even 0-2 pqe lawyers cant take it anymore and firms are finding it harder and harder to find new associates.

One of my juniors went for an interview in early 2023 and the interviewer asked him "by any chance do you know if there is still a glut of lawyers?" and my junior instantly knew that that law firm was having trouble finding a new associate. It was a mid sized firm of 30 lawyers iirc.

When I asked my interns what A level score they got to get accepted into SMU Law or NUS Law, they told me they only required 82-83/90 which I believe.. says a lot about how the industry has fallen since back in my time we all required AAA/AAA and had a competitive interview looking into our achievements bullcrap etc.

But I mean these are just tell tale signs that it is failing, the boomers probably dont give a **** because they are living in their ivory tower ass world and they know they wont be the one suffering when everything goes to ****.

Ask anyone if they would want to pay 50k-100k for 4 years of depression in law school and to spend another 6-7k for another 2 years of bar exam (Part B and TC) only to get a starting pay lower than their peers and be verbally abused and exploited for 14-16 hours a day. I thought so.

"Law is a calling" my ass