Australia is not a bad place to start your legal career. You have the qualifications. You have the brains. I’m also fairly sure you have a good work ethic. There are a number of areas of practise in Australia that you will never be able to fully develop in Singapore if you are interested, eg, criminal defense.

Think of it as a blessing in disguise.

My suggestion after 5 years in the profession. Qualify in Australia and then UK if you can. Go all the way there while you can.. get yourself some experience in practise, see if it is really your cup of tea. Australian PR will be easy if you have work experience.

If you move back here with a 2nd lower and with no prior experience, you will be competing with the NUS grads here for scraps. Not worth it.

In consolation, there are a lot of us here who wish we could have your lifestyle in Australia… *sighz*

It would be great to share experiences. My email is: cambridge.gymnast@gmail.com. Anyone else to share experiences, please email me as well. Singapore is not the only place where you can practice!! There are other jurisdictions that will accept your qualifications.

Thanks.

Regards
Hal

I’m glad that I came by your comments. I can empathise with Han as I am somewhat in the same situation, graduating soon with an Aussie law degree. It’s interesting to read both of your experiences, and I am paving my way to go down the path of becoming a paralegal in an offshore law firm in SG while working towards being admitted into legal practice of an Australian jurisdiction (via the College of Law or Practical Legal Training at the Australian National University).

It will be appreciated if you both could share more of your experience in shaping your legal career. I would certainly love to learn more from you. My email: agratefulheart@gmail.com

Cheers

Wow, you are going through exactly what I went through 6 years ago. I bet you get those sweaty palms and wake up in the middle of the night shouting “why???”. First off, its probably not because of your grades or for lack of trying, but really a situation of bad circumstances. Ok so you can’t qualify to practice in Singapore at this moment - big deal. Would you really want to in the first place? By all indications I think most Singaporean lawyers burn out in 3 years, and except for the elite few, do boring mundane tasks every day. What you could do is apply for PR status in Victoria. Do you have any relatives that might be able to sponsor you? I think when I applied, there was a special visa for graduates who applied within 6 months of completing their degree. Highly recommend you check it out. If that doesn’t work, I would suggest working in a law related field, in house or for some of those offshore firms in Singapore as a paralegal. Bide your time and then apply for PR - I think at this stage you need 3 years work experience. That work experience will come in handy when you apply to law firms in Australia. It will happen for you and will happen quickly. I now live in Sydney and I’m a Senior Associate at a prestigious law firm - it took me a long time (6 years) to get here, but you know what? If its really what you want i.e. to practise as a lawyer - its all worth it. Best of luck, having been through the same thing, I can really understand how you feel, but keep at it and you will get there.

I sympathise with you on your predicament. I’m not doing law though, doing accounting. Last sem, I underperformed at uni as well, which in this sem it looks like I’ll be continuing to do so. I’m not exactly a lazy or unfocused person, but more like I’m not as ’smart’ as I would like to be, unfortunately.

I’ve had a S’porean law student friend before, and from what I heard from him, yeah, S’pore’s legal fratenity is like a very tight-arsed body. They aren’t even that keen to accept foreign degrees, even though Australian unis ranked respectably in the Top 50 or 100. If I remember correctly, they are more receptive towards law degrees coming from the UK.

Do they set a certain class you have to obtain to be able to practice law in Singapore?

Like what many of the people have commented before me, I suggest you just put roots down in Victoria and try to be admitted to practice law in Oz. I admit you’ll have to compete with many locals and such, but maybe you can specialise in places where there are shortages of lawyers? Tax law comes to mind, since it relates to a shortage of accountants in Oz right now.

Or you can also just go into the financial or banking sector, like what’s been mentioned before also. Many law students don’t become lawyers in the end.

Anyway, good luck!

last but not least, good luck and work doubly hard this sem. don’t lose sight of your dreams.