LOH WAI YUE’S JOURNEY BACK TO SINGAPORE
He left local practice after five years, but continues to help the sector’s development. Here’s how—and why—he does it.
BY ASHUTOSH RAVIKRISHNAN
Picture this: you’re a few years into your career and have just become a senior associate and doing well at a major firm. Walking away from this steady progression to try your hand in another jurisdiction might not seem like the most conventional next step.
That’s the conundrum Mr Loh Wai Yue faced in the mid-2000s when an opportunity arose to leave his practice in Singapore to go to Hong Kong. Workplace norms meant that he couldn’t turn to his team or seniors for advice. “It would have been—and I think still is—a very difficult topic to broach with colleagues, regardless of the firm. Don’t get me wrong: we were a very close-knit team that worked very well together. But I think even bringing up the idea of leaving would not have gone down well with my teammates, especially the more senior ones.”
But leave he did, becoming part of Hong Kong’s bustling maritime sector. As expected, there were cultural differences to grapple with. “It’s a cosmopolitan city, with a blend of locals, western expatriates and those from the Chinese mainland. Each has a different expectation of their legal service provider,” explains Wai Yue, adding that his training in Singapore put him in good stead to deal with these nuances.
There were similarities across clients too. “Those early years in Hong Kong impressed upon me that people are not necessarily keen on the minutiae of details of the law—instead, they want to know how the law is going to help them solve a real-life commercial problem. I think that was the learning curve for me as I grew into a larger role, from being a litigator in Singapore to someone committed to helping clients solve real life commercial problems across a truly international business.”
Another lesson related to the dispensing of legal advice. Back in Singapore, he enjoyed the “luxury” of big teams. “Juniors and practice trainees would have the time to thoroughly research any given legal issue before we turned around an advice for the purpose of ongoing or anticipated legal proceedings.” But the role that one was expected to play (and therefore the pace) at an international firm was different. Wai Yue relates that clients are always expecting quick solutions. “You would have operators and traders calling you asking for immediate advice. ‘The cargo is there, notice of readiness has been tendered, a force majeure event has been declared. Can I terminate the charter or not?’ Things like that.”
THE SINGAPORE SPIRIT
Given that he has so many positive things to say about his time in Hong Kong—and later, Shanghai and Beijing, along with stints in London—I wonder about his Singapore connection and why he decided to get actively involved in local practice again a few years ago. “Singapore still holds a very important place in my heart … firstly, I’m a Singaporean and secondly, I’ve benefited from the mentorship of many others in Singapore.”
Mentorship is something close to Wai Yue’s heart, now that he’s the joint managing director at Incisive Law. From his present home in Beijing (he shuttles back and forth between the Chinese capital and Singapore, but his family is currently based there), he mentors a team of about 15 lawyers. At this stage in his career, he’s managing teams as much as he is cases. And as he candidly tells me, the former is not something that always comes naturally to lawyers. “But as senior practitioners, we have to manage our limited resources to do the best job for the client and at the same time ensuring that the team is developing and equipped to give their best. So that’s where that mentorship aspect comes in.”
In fact, you can trace his career in shipping to the earliest of his mentors: his father, the elder Mr Loh, had a forty year career with the Scottish shipowners, Ben Line. Growing up, Wai Yue quickly picked up the ins and outs of the industry and perhaps unsurprisingly, fell in love with its legal aspects at the National University of Singapore where he went on to win the inaugural M Karthigesu Memorial Prize in 2000. Set up in memory of the late Justice M Karthigesu, the award is presented to the best-performing students in maritime law.
Beyond prizes, Wai Yue also forged deep connections with his contemporaries—connections that he has maintained despite being away from home. Just take his friendship with fellow maritime bigwig Mr Ian Teo (Helmsman), which has endured all these years. The pair’s relationship is built on their common interest in the field, so much so that they’re coming together to present a webinar later this week.
The idea for this webinar was mooted when they both recalled coming across clients asking about the wording used in letters of indemnity. Says Wai Yue, “People generally have a vague notion of what the letters are intended to do and the mischief that it is intended to guard against … but there are certain tricky points that we have come across in our careers that we thought would be helpful to share.”
It’s through efforts like these that Wai Yue hopes to continue contributing to the local legal profession. “Singapore is a great place to be for lawyers right now. It’s the place for talented lawyers to hone their craft. And I think many of my contemporaries share that view, and we want to help them do just that.”
Wai Yue and Ian are both Senior Accredited Specialists in Maritime and Shipping Law. Applications for Senior Accredited Specialists in Building and Construction Law and Digital and Data Economy Law are open till 14 September 2022. More details on the application process can be found here.
