Originally Posted by Unregistered

LOL this is such a stupid statement on so many levels and does not reflect offshore firm culture in the slightest.

Let me guess - white-worshipping small local firm junior assoc with a second upper from some unheard of uk uni?

The right answer is probably that the offshore firms dont practice litigation here, which local expertise (that cannot be found overseas) is concentrated in. Corporate work like M&A, intl arbi, banking, ECM/DCM - foreign lawyers can come into SG and do it just as well if not better than local lawyers. The low numbers of local partners in these firms is a matter of statistics and the traditional ways these firms hire i.e. from their headquarters. There are only 4-5k lawyers in Singapore -> far fewer than can do work at the level of an offshore firm. This would be the big 4 trained corp lawyers (or really only two of the big 4 firms, local corp assocs would know what Im talking about)