When lawyer Benaiah Lim welcomed his first child at the age of 32, he took the opportunity to go in-house after two years in practice, as he believed it would give him more stability and time with his family.
Now 35, he has returned to practice as a counsel at Covenant Chambers.
“What I came to realise was that private practice, despite its demands, offers quite a high level of control over how you build your career and how you manage your matters. And I found that difficult to replicate elsewhere,” he said.
As a junior associate, Mr Lim said he felt like he was being pulled in multiple directions, as he was working on each senior’s and each partner’s schedule.
“At my seniority, I have a level of control,” said Mr Lim of his position now. “I have control over my own schedule. I have control over how I want to arrange court timelines, internal deadlines.”
Mr Thio agreed that the work becomes more satisfying with seniority, when it goes “beyond the less interesting (but no less important) task of precision drafting”.
“A senior disputes lawyer gets more advocacy air time, and gets to develop case strategy directly. A senior corporate lawyer gets more embedded in their clients’ business structure and (to) negotiate deals,” he said.
