A GUIDE TO LIVING AND WORKING IN SINGAPORE

Making the move

Although, ethnically, Singapore is heavily Chinese (close to 80% of the population is of Chinese descent) with significant Malay and Indian communities and therefore has four official languages, the State's most commonly used language is English and ordinarily there is no requirement for recruits from overseas to have any additional language capability over and above that. Furthermore, given the restrictions on practice, Singaporean qualification is not an issue. In other words, the firms are looking for overseas qualified, English speaking lawyers.

Some of the City based firms have a strong preference for England & Wales qualified lawyers, for obvious reasons, while similarly some US firms concentrate on NY admitted attorneys, but many of the firms are just as happy to consider candidates only qualified in, say, Australia or New Zealand.

Areas of Practice

Once again due to the restriction on practicing local law, the international firms have typically not established full service practices in Singapore. Instead they have tended to concentrate on certain core areas, which are least effected by the restrictions and which are best suited to obtaining work from not only Singapore, but from around the South East Asian region. Therefore, the areas of practice best suited to a career as an overseas lawyer in Singapore are as follows,

		Projects / Energy / Natural Resources
		Banking & Finance
		Corporate / Commercial
		Capital Markets
		Non-contentious construction
		Restructuring

A handful of the international firms have also established dispute resolution teams in Singapore, but they are small and opportunities in that area are relatively few and far between. For the few jobs that do exist, arbitration experience is important.