The Ministry of Law, the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) and International Enterprise (IE) Singapore have launched a new program on February 1, Thursday for lawyers who wish to work overseas since Asia is a growing market for legal services.
The main motive of the new Lawyers Go Global program is to help lawyers expand their network outside Singapore with the help of trips, training and branding.
According to the law ministry, based on the recommendation by the Committee on the Future Economy group on legal and accounting services, the Lawyers Go Global is required to enhance Singapore's position as an international legal hub.
The Senior Minister of State for Law and Finance Indranee Rajah said that it is expanding the markets for local legal services and looking for more options outside the country. He also mentioned that when Singapore based companies are going overseas they are actually expanding their market. According to Rajah, lawyers are looking for new places to provide their services.
The law ministry mentioned that legal services are expected to grow in Asia, particularly in areas such as infrastructure. It also includes the south-east Asian country Singapore, where many multi-national companies use local lawyers for their regional transactions.
According to reports, within next three years, there will be several missions to introduce Singaporean lawyers to some fast-growing countries such as China, India and other south-east Asian countries, as a part of the trips and training sessions.
Each trip will involve up to 35 lawyers for at least four to five days. The Singaporean lawyers will get proper opportunities to understand the need of their client and legal requirements for the business, including a chance to create the network with local legal and business communities in respective countries.
As part of the new program, there will be some workshops, which will help the lawyers to learn new skills relevant to work overseas.
Gregory Vijayendran, the president of LawSoc told Today Online that the new program will provide a more coordinated support, even though they organized similar trips in the past.
IE Singapore under its Local Enterprise and Association Development (LEAD) program will finance the Lawyers Go Global. People who are interested can apply for the programme through LawSoc.
This is not the first case in Singapore, where something has been done to encourage people to pursue a law career. Earlier for aspiring law students, who want to build their career as a criminal and family lawyers, a scope to opt for $50,000 scholarship to get admission in Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) School of Law, has been provided after SUSS received a $2million donation.
