Cooley recently announced it is opening a fourth Asian office in Singapore. Once approved by local authorities, Cooley will join some 130 foreign law firms in the city-state. The firm just opened a Hong Kong office in March.

Singapore has been on many minds lately because of Hong Kong, where occasional protests have now turned quotidian and violent. For the first time in a long while, people are concerned with the overall stability of Hong Kong as unrest persists. Nobody is leaving Hong Kong right away over the protests, but people seem to be considering their options.

But Singapore is by no means an easy market for foreign law firms. While Hong Kong has a more open and liberalized legal market, Singapore keeps a strictly regulated regime of foreign lawyers. On paper, both jurisdictions require foreign law firms to cooperate with local firms in giving local law advice. But the barriers to entry are different.

In Hong Kong, the requirement of a local alliance is more or less a formality. Firms are free to operate an associate firm of their own choosing from the outset.

In Singapore, firms have a menu of options, and it's exceedingly more complicated. Currently, there are at least four different ways foreign firms can access local law practice, and all are subject to lengthy regulatory scrutiny. Nine firms now operate as qualifying foreign law practices, which allows for limited practice of Singaporean law, mostly in transactions but not litigation and conveyancing. The QFLPs have long been criticized for a review process that requires firms to meet a variety of quotas they set for themselves in order to obtain their licenses. Last year, the government had to postpone license renewal for firms such as Jones Day and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher after they failed to deliver what they promised.

More firms prefer to operate either a joint law venture or a formal law alliance with local firms. Both programs give unlimited access to local law practice. But for those aiming for an integrated practice, these approaches don't naturally lead to a merger; so far, U.K. firm Withers is the only one that has managed to combine with its formal law alliance partner firm.

Mergers didn't exist in Singapore until 2015, when Morgan, Lewis & Bockius combined with Stamford Law Corp. The deal between Eversheds Sutherland and local firm Harry Elias was the first combination of two existing offices in Singapore, and the entire process, including regulatory filings, took two years to work out.

Some argue there is no need to localize or practice local law in Singapore. U.S. firms with strong Singapore practices, such as Shearman & Sterling and Milbank have done so without local law practice. Unlike in Hong Kong, where local law practice is essential to matters related to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, most foreign firms in Singapore handle cross-border transactions and international arbitration and have minimal need for local law practice. This also has to do with the strong group of local firms in Singapore hat for years have dominated the premium local law work in cross-border deals and top domestic matters.

For its new Singapore office, Cooley has hired Ferish Patel, a U.S. lawyer advising startups on cross-border financing deals. His previous firm, Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, secured some of the largest regional mandates three years after launching in the city-state, with no Singapore law practice. Local law or not, Singapore isn't any less competitive than Hong Kong. It may be an alternative, but it's challenging in its own ways.