Originally Posted by Unregistered

I don't 100% agree with your analysis.

It is true that the big 4 have much goodwill and strength in depth. There are not going to disappear in a short time but over the years they may downsize if they are caught in no man's land

I think law firms, like all other businesses need to know their strengths and niches. I see MNC and FIs prefering international firms for big deals over time. So firms like A&G and WongP corp side may see the need to rethink their practices. Coupled with the lack of substantial IPOs and funding raising in Singapore, the headwinds is strong.

Disputes is here to stay because of only Singapore firms can do litigation in Singapore. However unless the firm is bent on having an SC and a big team on the case, it is open for the mid sized and smaller firms to take disputes cases as well. MNCs tend to go for trusted names and reasonable fees rather than specific firms for lawyers. Drew is clearly the strong one in this but questionable whether disputes can feed the entire firm sufficiently if it gets too big.

I have to mention R&T which i think is diversifying risk by not emphasising too much on one practice area. They prefer to bank on their regional esp myanmar stuffs. Sound strategy but there is always risk with going 8nto a foreign developing place. R&T is stronger on the disputes side imo.

The mid sized firms fit in well if they know their markets well. Legal cost is important to many companies so as mentioned they are on par with big 4 in disputes in terms of competitiveness. There is no sure-win lawyer! Corp side deals they might not get the big deals (which are drying up anw) but serve the more cost conscious SMEs and Catalist companies and foreign companies who just need a reasonably compentent local counsel. There are some mid sized which are into niche practices. It really depends on how the practice is run and positioned in the market.

The less than 30 lawyers firms serves the smaller SMEs and do most of the personal law work... yes these firms are not so resourceful and sometimes the quality of legal service raise questions but surely i don't want to pay so much for a posh law firm to do my own conveyancing or advise me on employment contracts... these are the firms i will trust them to recover my debts and wind up my retail shop but fighting a bigger multi million dispute is a no no.