UK law firm Trowers & Hamlins has expanded its newly launched Singapore office with the hire of energy and projects expert Ignatius Hwang, a former managing partner of the local offices of McDermott Will & Emery, Squire Patton Boggs, and the legacy Bryan Cave.

Watson Farley & Williams has hired a second energy partner in Singapore from U.S. law firm McDermott, Will & Emery in the form of Clarinda Tjia-Dharmadi.

U.S. law firm McDermott Will & Emery is down to a single partner in Singapore after energy expert Merrick White joined Watson Farley & Williams.

U.S. intellectual property boutique Groombridge, Wu, Baughman & Stone (GWBS) has established an office in Tokyo and hired patent litigator Maxwell Fox from McDermott Will & Emery to lead it.  

Investigations and compliance lawyer Shu Min Ho has become the second McDermott Will & Emery Singapore partner to return to Sidley Austin, after a stint that lasted three months.

Yuet Ming Tham, who left Sidley Austin in April this year to join McDermott Will & Emery as Singapore managing partner and Asia-Pacific head, has returned to the former firm as a partner in Singapore and global co-chair of the white-collar (government litigation and investigations) practice.

Since it opened its Singapore office last year, McDermott Will & Emery has made a number of high-profile lateral hires, including energy expert Clarinda Tjia-Dharmadi, a former global power industry group co-chair at Latham & Watkins, as its Asia transactions head. Tjia-Dharmadi talks about how the energy space in Asia has evolved in recent years, and what that means for today’s energy lawyers.

U.S. law firm McDermott Will & Emery has continued to expand its newly established Singapore office after hiring four lawyers specialising in investigations and compliance from Sidley Austin, including partners Yuet Ming Tham and Shu Min Ho. Tham will join as Singapore managing partner.

U.S. firm McDermott Will & Emery (MWE) has added Clarinda Tjia-Dharmadi as the chair of its Asia transactions practice to its recently opened Singapore office. She joins from Latham & Watkins, where she spent more than two decades.

Singapore’s already competitive legal market has seen multiple new entrants this year, including India’s Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas and Khaitan & Co, China’s Allbright, Korea’s Bae Kim & Lee, and the U.S. firms Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and McDermott Will & Emery. While the city-state’s pandemic resilience has certainly been a draw, the firm’s see it as a hub for the fast-emerging Southeast Asian region.