Clifford Chance LLP and the five other new licensees have increased the lawyers they have in Singapore by 20 percent from last year, Shanmugam said. With a collapse in corporate finance work, US and UK firms have been expanding their arbitration and India practices in Singapore. The Southeast Asian city state hopes more lawyers will strengthen its financial sector.

“If you look at Hong Kong, New York, London, it’s no coincidence that they’re all leading financial industry centers,” Shanmugam, 50, said. “Legal services really grew to support the financial services industry.”

London-based firms have expanded in Singapore even as they’ve cut jobs at home, with Clifford Chance setting up a dispute resolution practice and raising the number of lawyers in its Singapore office to 50 from 38. Allen & Overy LLP hired all 10 lawyers from Singapore firm Venture Law LLC, bringing its total to 44.

Norton Rose’s plans

London -based Norton Rose LLP hired Wilson Ang from Linklaters LLP’s Hong Kong office to set up a regulatory practice in Singapore, where it has 55 lawyers. That will expand next year when it absorbs the Singapore office of Sydney-based Deacons Australia. “We see Singapore as one of the most important hubs connecting a number of places from India to Australia and from Tokyo through to Jakarta, and also to Shanghai and Sydney,” said Norton Rose’s Chief Executive Officer Peter Martyr.

As of last month there were 95 foreign law firms with offices in Singapore, a 13 percent increase from a year earlier, according to the Law Ministry.

That’s more than the 66 such firms in Hong Kong, according to the Chinese city’s Law Society. The number of lawyers working for foreign firms in Singapore rose 12 percent to 757 in July from a year earlier, while there were 1,100 foreign lawyers in Hong Kong.

Source: Bloomberg