Forty years in Singapore | In conversation with Yu-En Ong and Jeff Smith

Welcome, Jeff, and thank you for taking the time to share your experience with us, as the former head of Singapore.

For the benefit of some of our new clients and colleagues, can you give us a bit of an introduction and tell us how you started with Norton Rose Fulbright in Asia?

Thanks, Yu-En, it’s good to catch up on this tremendous occasion.

My journey started many years ago in London, when I attended a Norton Rose recruitment event at university – out of curiosity, and not just for the free food and wine! – which led to a summer internship, sponsorship through law school and a training contract. A very rewarding evening, really. After qualifying into the London project finance team, I was asked if I’d be interested in moving to the Singapore office. I love Singapore, I was born there and lived there as a child, so I jumped at the chance.

I was diverted to Thailand en route, as part of a team opening our new office in Bangkok – an unusual and exciting adventure for a young lawyer – so it was another 18 months before I landed in Singapore properly. And, as is often the way, that planned two-year stint turned into 20 years.

Singapore is a special place. I remember when I first arrived, the office was relatively small but the team was friendly, motivated and busy – it was exhilarating working with such talented and experienced people. The region was in turmoil in the aftermath of the late 90s Asian financial crisis and most of the work was restructuring, much of it high-stakes and complicated. There was a lot of travel, hard work and stress, but it was also a lot of fun and many colleagues are still close friends decades later.

Yes, and they always bring you the most unexpected surprises!

How about your journey, Yu-En? After working in so many offices across the firm, what was the one thing that attracted you to grow your career in Singapore?

My journey with Norton Rose Fulbright has been long and varied, from London to Hong Kong and back to Singapore, where I started my career. The firm has given me an unique experience with a great variety of transactions and clients spanning our global network. Being Singaporean, I guess it is natural for me to come full circle and return to Singapore with the breadth and depth of experience that I’ve acquired over the years.

Perhaps by coincidence or even by destiny, in 2008 Norton Rose Fulbright was one of the first few law firms to be awarded a Qualifying Foreign Law Practice license (QFLP), which allowed us, as an international firm, to practice certain aspects of Singapore law.

Being the only Singapore-qualified partner at that time, although then in Hong Kong, I was asked to return to Singapore, which I gladly accepted.

Jeff, you’ve mentioned your memories working in the office. What do you enjoy most working in Asia? And what are you most proud of during that time?

I spent 90 percent of my career in Asia and enjoyed the richness and variety of working in so many countries. Advising on a hydropower project in Laos and a sports stadium in Singapore present very different challenges, but like all projects they get done through collaboration between multiple parties, often themselves drawn from all over the world.

I think working in a smaller office in Asia gives you broad experience across a range of areas requiring not just legal skills, but creativity, diplomacy, problem-solving and the ability to work across cultures.

I am proud of our collective achievements: growing to become one of the largest international law firms in Singapore, maintaining the culture and quality of the team, being awarded one of few licenses to practice Singapore law and working on some of the most high-profile deals in the region, such as the Singapore Sports Hub project.

How about you, Yu-En, what do you think is the office’s biggest achievement to date? What are you most proud of?

There is no one achievement that one can speak of. I would like to think I have contributed to a certain extent to all of our biggest achievements – such as leading the way in a new workplace design. The new layout has a mix of open-plan desk space and adjustable workstations that provides flexibility, easier communication within teams that aims to provide seamless client service.

Another significant achievement would be obtaining a QFLP to most recently establishing our Formal Law Alliance (FLA) with Ascendant Legal. The FLA gives us the opportunity to provide our clients with seamless access to the best combination of Singapore and international law advice to meet their increasingly complex and multijurisdictional legal needs.

I recall when I first heard that the office was being granted a QFLP, I was really proud of how far we had come, and the opportunities it presented to allow us to help our clients.

Yu En, with so many different achievements, what is the biggest challenge you have faced in your role as the head of Singapore, and how did you overcome it together?

It might be such a cliché saying Covid but it’s true. It was a big turning point – not just for the office and the wider firm, but also many people’s lives.

As an organisation, we pride ourselves on being inclusive and looking after the welfare of our people; Covid just made it a tad more – I wouldn’t say difficult – but different. And each individual, in any organisation, has taken away something different and experienced something different. With Covid, those experiences became invisible to a lot of the partners, and so we had to pivot, to see and look beyond – to the extent where it is possible – into not just the mental health but the general wellbeing of everyone working in the office. 

Yes I think the whole Covid experience prompted a lot of organisations to refocus on the general wellbeing of all staff.

It’s nearly three years since the pandemic started, and since global borders are opening up again, what is your outlook for the legal business landscape in Singapore and Asia? What are some bright spots you see happening, and anticipated challenges?

Singapore as a country is a great melting pot of different cultures, people and businesses, and is representative of the various markets and cycles throughout the region, broadly in Southeast Asia. Be it pivoting to Indo China, refocusing on India, or bidding down our businesses in Indonesia, other bright spots would include technology, renewables, transition financing, sustainable financing, Vietnam, and the rest of Indochina.

Singapore is also a great source of human capital where local universities provide an excellent source of fresh graduates, who help in the succession plan for the longer term future of Norton Rose Fulbright in Singapore.

Our practice reflects the direction and progress the country is making, which is why – for the next five years – our aim is to grow in different ways, in terms of people, businesses, expertise and many other areas.

Do it. Embrace the opportunity, commit for the long term.

Yu-En, thank you so much for inviting me to be part of the Singapore office’s 40th anniversary celebrations.