Three of Asia's top 25 in-house lawyers are from Singapore, a leading regional law journal has announced.
The publication, Asian Legal Business, selected the best lawyers from a variety of companies from 10 economies across Asia - from South Korea in the north-east to India in the south-west.
The Singapore legal high-fliers are Ms Ginney Lim from Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), Ms Joyce Fong from the Singapore Exchange, and Temasek Holdings' Ms Lena Chia.
Ms Chia was also named in the list last year.
Ms Lim is SPH's executive vice-president (legal and corporate communications) and group company secretary. She focuses on mergers and acquisitions, libel cases and intellectual property.
She was most recently involved in the company signing a consortium agreement with Singapore's SingTel and SP Telecommunications and Canada's Axia NetMedia.
The group, named OpenNet, is bidding to win a government contract to build Singapore's next-generation broadband network.
The winner is set to be announced this month.
In an interview with the journal, Ms Lim said her biggest challenge for the coming year would be 'managing and motivating my team...in order to retain talent and ensure a close-knit team which provides excellent service to our internal clients'.
Her best advice for outside counsel is to keep clients regularly updated on time costs and to keep within the agreed budget as far as possible.
She added that they should also understand their client's business before rendering any advice.
Ms Fong is the general counsel and company secretary for Singapore's stock exchange, while Ms Chia is the managing director of the legal and regulations division at Temasek.
A fourth lawyer from a Singapore company to make the list was American Janet Taylor for chipmaker Stats ChipPac.
The journal said that after surveying the 25 lawyers, the most common theme to emerge was the importance of building a successful relationship between in-house and private-practice lawyers.
Top private-practice lawyers from 100 law firms across the Asia-Pacific region were polled to name the best in-house counsel based on criteria that included knowledge of deals, legal acumen and business-savvy.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on September 15, 2008.
