Singapore's joint law venture (JLV) regime, which required international firms to pair with local firms to practise Singapore law, never had many fans.

Tie-ups between Shearman & Sterling and Stamford Law Corporation; between White & Case and Colin Ng & Partners; and between Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe and Rodyk & Davidson all ended within a few years of the programme's launch in 1999. Most of the rest folded almost as soon as Singapore announced in 2008 that it would issue licences for some foreign firms to practise local law outside of a JLV.

But one JLV has carried on. Last September, magic circle firm Linklaters and Allen & Gledhill – Singapore's largest law firm, with 300 lawyers – celebrated their 10th anniversary in business together. Why have Linklaters and Allen & Gledhill stuck together while all others have gone their separate ways? Allen & Gledhill chairman Lucien Wong declined to comment for this article, but Kevin Wong, head of Linklaters' Singapore office, says that the JLV, known as Linklaters Allen & Gledhill, works "simply because we meet each other's expectations".

According to Wong, foreign firms usually entered the JLV seeking access to a local client base and local expertise, while taking advantage of lower local compensation for lawyers. Local firms wanted the training and technology available at a larger international firm, as well as overseas referrals.

But the arrangement is not as simple as it sounds. Like the other JLVs, the one between Linklaters and Allen & Gledhill is non-exclusive. A common complaint at other JLVs was that the two joint venture partners often found themselves pitching for the same work with other firms instead of together. Wong acknowledges that such situations occasionally trouble Linklaters Allen & Gledhill.

When Allen & Gledhill last year took the lead role representing Khazanah Nasional, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, on its $2.6bn (£1.61bn) acquisition of Parkway Health, Southeast Asia's largest hospital chain, Linklaters had no part of the transaction: Allen & Gledhill was sole legal adviser to Khazanah and its financial advisers, Deutsche Bank and CIMB Bank Berhad.

"The foreign party to the JLV sometimes gets upset because the clients have chosen its local partner instead and vice versa," says Wong. But he feels such situations are largely balanced out by work that each firm has gained through the JLV.

The two firms worked side by side representing Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) in its $758m (£470m) acquisition of a 30% stake in Pakistan's Warid Telecom in 2007. Linklaters also worked with Allen & Gledhill on a $1bn (£620m) convertible bonds issue in Singapore by CapitaLand, Southeast Asia's biggest developer, in 2009, and together they represented Barclays Bank and UBS on a $3bn (£1.86bn) bond issuance for the Republic of Indonesia that same year.

Wong notes that one advantage of Linklaters' JLV with Allen & Gledhill is that, outside Singapore, the two firms largely focus on different markets, avoiding direct competition. For instance, Allen & Gledhill has not made a big push in mainland China, a key market for Linklaters.

Allen & Gledhill also has some unparalleled institutional relationships in the island city-state. Its list of long-term clients includes major financial institutions like Bank of America, Barclays Capital, Citigroup, DBS, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and United Overseas Bank.

Still, Singapore's Qualified Foreign Law Practice (QFLP) programme now allows select foreign firms to hire their own Singaporean lawyers. Linklaters was not among the six firms – Latham & Watkins, Allen & Overy, Herbert Smith, White & Case, Norton Rose, and Clifford Chance – initially selected for QFLP licenses. But the Singaporean Government has said it is likely to increase the number of QFLPs.

Linklaters' Wong does not rule out the QFLP option in the future, noting that the firm has already developed most of the client relationships it sought from the JLV with Allen & Gledhill.

But he also notes that Linklaters has grown faster in Singapore and has a larger headcount than most of the current QFLP firms. Despite the pull of independence, Wong says there are still many benefits to the Allen & Gledhill relationship. "We don't need to hunt for local talent and we can tell clients that we are working with, instead of competing against, the largest firm in Singapore," he says. "The size and scale of your firm matters, especially in Asia."

This article first appeared in The Asian Lawyer, an affiliate title of Legal Week.