In-demand specialities

International law firms in Singapore typically seeks junior to mid-level lawyers from 3 to 6 pqe.  Areas of demand are in banking and finance, corporate finance, project finance and general corporate matters.  Clients would generally look at candidates with good academic and strong transactional experience with top magic circle or top US law firms experience.  The international law firms in Singapore are generally not that large in size as compared to Hong Kong and they can only practice off-shore law so they generally need candidates with at least some experience so that they can come on board and hit the ground running. The local law firms are also very active and some do hire foreign lawyers to join their specialist teams in banking and finance and corporate finance teams. As for in-house roles – market has been very good – banks have been busy and they always prefer candidates with spot on experience that can hit the ground running but we have seen exceptions made.  Candidates in demand the last year for the banks have been in derivatives, private banking and asset management.  Other than that, the IT/Telco sector has also been quite active.  The FMGC industry also seems to be having more movement then usual