Originally Posted by Unregistered

Every firm would prefer to take their own people if possible (more of a known quantity). So if the firm doesn’t run a training contract, they can try to get people who they have worked with before, either opposite or from another office.

My firm (not saying which) actively tries to get london trainees in the same firm to qualify into SG but most people don’t want to uproot their lives to do so (unless they’re Singaporean and it’s going home for them). So they have recently done local laterals, and also laterals from Australia and HK. They don’t prefer Singaporean’s but Singaporeans are more likely to want to move to Singapore in the first place.

There’s a good trend in international firms starting to promote Singaporeans as counsel or partner (E.g. CC, Milbank, White and Case and Shearman.