Bernard is the managing-director of the firm. He worked for the Singapore Legal Service from 1976 to 1982 and has served in various Legal Departments including the judiciary of the Subordinate Courts before going into private practice in 1982. He has undertaken a variety of civil and commercial litigation at both the trial and appellate jurisdictions and advised as a solicitor on cross-border transactions for acquisition of assets in Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. Presently he advises clients on establishing business organisations in Singapore, the sale and purchase of real estate and undertakes trial work.

Since 1985, Bernard has acted in numerous retail conveyancing transactions including mortgages to DBS Bank, UOB, OCBC, HSBC, ABN Amro and Hong Leong Finance. He has also personally acted in major transactions in his career including an unincorporated joint-venture sale of land and buy back of apartments which is now known as 800 Thomson; acted for the developers in the sale of a block of apartments in the project known as South Haven; the sale of landed properties in the project known as Riverina; enbloc purchase and sale of Shan Mansions (Residential) at Balestier Road and enbloc sale of Dapenso Building (Commercial) at Cecil Road.

Bernard served on the Law Society Cross Border and Multi-Disciplinary Sub-Committees as well as the International Relations Committee. He also tutors regularly in the Post Graduate Law Course for law graduates and is a sub-committee member of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce and Singapore Institute of Directors. He was an independent director of a publicly listed company and also holds non-executive board appointments of several privately held companies.

Soon Yien was one of the founding members of our law practice and now heads up the Civil Litigation department. She is an experienced litigator of 22 years standing. She has acted as counsel in a wide variety of commercial, property and chancery litigation work involving property law, complex conflict of law issues, shareholder disputes, derivative actions, limitation periods, contentious probate matters, trademark cases, distributions of assets in family disputes, letters of credit cases and disputes in enbloc transactions.

She has made her mark in taking novel legal arguments not only to courts of original jurisdiction but to appellate courts including the Court of Appeal. Some landmark cases include acting for a foreign corporation in expunging a registered trademark which was heard in the Court of Appeal and subsequently cited as precedents for trade mark cases.; successfully acting for a seller in a landmark property case which was also heard in the Court of Appeal and set the law on whether unauthorized works to properties constituted defect in title; acted successfully in an environment issue avoiding forfeiture orders which relied on a lacuna in the Environmental Public Health Act which subsequently led to an amendment in the said Act and the judgement was reproduced in an eminent publication of the then Singapore Chief Justice Yong Pung How; successfully defended in the Court of Appeal the principle that fraud vitiates all but not a judgement in rem relied on by bona fide purchasers of real estate without notice. A full and detailed write up of her work experience can be made available on request.

Edward has 15 years of experience in legal practice and in-house positions. He has undertaken numerous joint ventures, cross-border mergers and acquisitions and venture capital investments. His significant transactions included several multi-billion dollar and multi-million dollar joint ventures.

He has also a strong technology transfer background having served in the technology transfer office at the National University of Singapore. He is able to provide effective and pragmatic guidance in the field of technology protection strategies, technology licensing and research collaboration. He has undertaken numerous projects relating to commercialisation of technology, many resulting in multi-million dollar institutional investments.

Edward is the Honorary Treasurer of the Licensing Executives Society Singapore and Singapore Editor of Legal Studio’s General Commercial Contracts Service. He was also Vice-Chairman of the Cross Border Committee of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association from 2001 to 2005.