Sidley Austin in Asia looks very different today compared to five years ago, the firm’s partners said during a media briefing on Wednesday. Today, the firm is focusing its growth on its Singapore office, where it sees promise in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia. “The [gross domestic product] prognosis for the next ten years is very much India and Southeast Asia, or at least the SEA [Southeast Asia] Six, which is Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia,” said Leonard Ng, the firm’s Singapore co-managing partner and executive committee member. Appointed to his Singapore co-head role alongside city-state partner Manoj Bhargava in August, Ng, a native Singaporean, is based in the London office “The GDP growth is all going to be in this region. There's going to be more foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia, more so than into China, which is a bit bizarre, but I guess in the same way that the U.S. and Europe are developed economies, and so the growth will not be as great as there.” The firm is recalibrating its Asia offering to suit market ebbs and flows, which have in recent years been fraught with geopolitical uncertainty and volatility, the partners at the briefing said. “Everyone thought that the U.S. administration would be very pro-business, and then because of the tariffs and general geopolitical issues, [deals] probably didn't flow as everybody thought [they would],” said Charlie Wilson, head of Sidley’s Asia mergers and acquisitions and private equity practice. The hot sectors and active players have also shifted in the region, Wilson said, from startups and unicorns to what he calls “real asset deals.” “The idea of investing in an e-commerce business hasn’t been really attractive, something that generates real revenue, and people can see it and touch it and feel it,” Wilson said. But that volatility translates well for partner Yuet Ming Tham’s pipeline. Tham is Sidley’s global co-leader of the white-collar defense and investigations practice, head of the litigation group in Asia, and leader of the Asia-Pacific compliance and investigations practice. She has been busy advising on sanctions and representing clients who are subject to U.S.Regulations, she said. “In Asia, we still have many China clients who still want to go to the U.S. and so, it's our job to try and help them navigate that, show them where their minefields might be and what they need to look out for,” said Tham. The recent influx of work in Tham’s space relates to blocking statutes, which block compliance with foreign laws and can include penalties for those who violate them. China’s Ministry of Commerce, for example, issued a set of rules in 2021 to counteract foreign sanctions and regulations deemed to have an unjustified extraterritorial application. Sidley is also fielding an increasing volume of queries regarding export controls from clients, as well as those who are being sued before the U.S. International Trade Commission and, or the Department of Commerce for anti-dumping and countervailing duties, Tham said. To help deal with that area of work, the firm has shipped out two partners from its U.S. offices this year—Arif Noorani, who helps life sciences companies with U.S. Food and Drug Administration compliance, and David Silva, who defends companies and their directors, officers, and employees in criminal and civil investigations, environmental government enforcement actions, and white collar matters. Digital infrastructure and India's IPO Boom In the short to medium term, Sidley expects its Singapore office to continue to focus on those specific contentious practices. Its other key areas of focus are mergers and acquisitions and the relevant financing capabilities, Indian capital markets and restructuring and insolvency matters. It is positioning itself to seize those opportunities, Ng said. Aside from the relocation of its two U.S. partners, Sidley has also recently hired former A&O Shearman partner Alun Evans , who specializes in infrastructure-related M&A. According to Wilson, digital infrastructure, which includes data centers, has been a hotbed for deal activity this year, and the high level of interest and investments will likely continue. Southeast Asia is also seeing significant investment in fiber optic infrastructure to meet rising digital demand for services like 5G and cloud computing, he added. In July, Evans advised American investment firm Stonepeak on its $1.3 billion equity investment in Singapore-headquartered data center operator Princeton Digital Group (PDG). The booming Indian capital markets have also been a key driver for the firm’s focus on Singapore. That practice is being led by Bhargava, who has so far this year acted on the $1.75 billion initial public offering of Tata Capital Limited, the $821 million IPO of Lenskart, the $250 million IPO of Belrise Industries Limited, the $185 million offering of Kalpataru Limited, and Schloss Bangalore’s $410 million listing. There are about 20 more such transactions in the pipeline, Ng said. Recalibration The shift is not without some losses. In April, Sidley lost its Singapore-based Indian capital markets counsel, Shashwat Tewary , who went on to become a partner at Cooley. Last year, its Asia head of international litigation and arbitration, Frivenn Yeoh, defected to Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom, shortly after another disputes partner, Jennifer Lim, left for Duxton Chambers in Singapore. Matthew Sheridan, the firm’s former Singapore head and global co-leader of the capital markets practice, retired this year after 25 years at the firm. Outside Singapore, Sidley has closed its Shanghai office and lost a chunk of its lawyer head count in Hong Kong. In the 12 months ending in September 2025, the firm’s lawyer head count in Hong Kong dropped by almost 40% . Departures from its Hong Kong office included partners defecting to new Hong Kong boutique Broadfield and to Chinese practice Zhong Lun Law Firm. Some of these changes became necessary as Sidley recognized broader changes in the Greater China market, particularly in Hong Kong, where investor bases have changed, Ng said. Chinese firms have become key competitors for IPO work in the city. Listings that require high-end U.S. legal advice have dropped off, so the firm is focusing on the top rung of deals that would warrant Sidley's assistance and rates. The firm does not intend to compete with Chinese firms on rates and will continue to focus on chasing complex deals with higher margins, particularly where the firm can add value in terms of providing both Hong Kong and U.S. law advice. “Despite the fact that there are hundreds of IPOs right now in Hong Kong this year, many of them don't feature an international element,” said Ng. “So if you're just there to chase a traditional local IPO, we, as a firm, would struggle." Sidley's Hong Kong capital markets team is now leaner than it was five years ago, but the team’s lawyers are currently “flat out,” the partners said and so the office has started hiring in that space again. In terms of its practice coverage, however, Sidley has retained one of the city's largest capital markets benches among U.S. law firms in Hong Kong, with seven partners dedicated to advising on listing transactions. So far this year, Sidley has advised on the Hong Kong IPOs of Jiaxin International Resources, TransThera Sciences, and Softcare Limited. In all those deals, Sidley advised on both Hong Kong and U.S. law.