New senior counsel Danny Ong calls on lawyers to dare to be unconventional in modern legal landscape
Source: Business Times
Article Date: 07 Apr 2026
Author: Tessa Oh
He recommends a skill set that is more holistic, than one based on just technical proficiency.
The Republic’s lawyers can no longer afford to be just well-schooled in legal matters, with the profession demanding them to step out of their comfort zones and think beyond technical skills, said Danny Ong, the sole senior counsel appointed in 2026.
Traditionally, the title of senior counsel was conferred to those who demonstrated brilliance in advocacy, but Ong believes technical skill and legal proficiency alone no longer define a top advocate.
What matters today, in his view, is a more holistic set of qualities: contributions to the profession, broad commercial awareness, and the ability to operate on the international stage.
These attributes are how a Singapore lawyer can stand equal to peers in New York, London or Tokyo, said Ong.
“You need to venture out, be brave, and get out of your comfort zone to build yourself, push yourself, to develop and grow,” he told The Business Times.
“We need the thinkers, not just the workers; and we need thinkers more than ever before, today.”
From Big Four to boutique
Ong’s appointment was announced by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon at the ceremony to mark the opening of the legal year on Jan 12.
He is the 101st practitioner to receive the honour since the scheme began in 1997, joining the ranks of prominent advocates such as Davinder Singh and Alvin Yeo.
The 50-year-old lawyer started his more than two-decade-long career after graduating from the National University of Singapore, and practised in both Singapore and Hong Kong.
In 2008, he joined “Big Four” law firm Rajah & Tann (R&T) as a partner where he spent 15 years, serving in roles such as deputy head of its dispute resolution practice from 2014 to 2015 and sitting on its executive committee from 2016 to 2023.
At R&T, Ong became known for complex cross-border financial disputes, fraud investigations and restructuring work, including well-known cases such as the Lehman Brothers collapse and the liquidations of MF Global, OW Bunker and BSI Bank.
But after more than a decade at one of Singapore’s largest firms, Ong wanted to test whether the market was hungry for a different model – a smaller, highly specialist outfit that could hold its own against the top teams in town.
In April 2023, he bit the bullet and left R&T to co-found Setia Law with Yam Wern-Jhien, bringing with them a team of about 10 to 12 lawyers. Since he knew the risks of starting a new practice, his primary concern was not just the firm’s success but also the careers of those who had followed him out the door.
“I had the responsibility of ensuring that this would be a decent success, because I had a whole bunch of 10 to 12 young ones that I brought together with me,” he said. “The main driver was that I had a responsibility to them – this had to work.”
Ong is Setia Law’s managing director.
Standing out
Though going independent came with risks, Ong said the firm was fortunate to receive strong support from clients willing to back a young outfit.
“We had really wonderful support from clients, both existing and new, who were open-minded enough to say: ‘We’ll support you, we’ll instruct you’.”
It has also helped that the winds have shifted in terms of what clients now look for. The lawyer noted that clients across Asia are increasingly looking past brand names and instead seeking the specific specialist who can solve their exact problem.
Rather than defaulting to a long-established firm for all their needs, they are now willing to try “plug-and-play service providers”, he noted.
“They are getting more sophisticated in realising that for particular types of issues, they should go to somebody else and engage people who are really focused on that,” he added. “It’s not just about knowledge – because that knowledge then translates to cost-efficiency, time-efficiency and output as well.”
This is already the norm in bigger markets such as New York and London, said Ong, who believes that Setia’s willingness to push legal boundaries and take up novel arguments is what has attracted the clientele it has today.
The firm has thus since built up a roster of institutional clients, including global private equity and credit investment funds, private and investment banks, and digital asset platforms.
It has also notched up wins in several notable cases before Singapore’s courts. In a landmark 2025 decision, it acted for a claimant who could not afford to fund her own legal proceedings to enforce a £31.2 million (S$54 million) judgment against her former spouse.
The High Court upheld the validity of the third-party funding agreement she had entered into – the first time a Singapore court recognised such an arrangement outside the insolvency or arbitration contexts.
Setia’s lawyers were also part of the legal team in the US$65 million representative action brought by more than 350 investors against Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon over the 2022 collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin – the first such class-action-style case to be heard before the Singapore International Commercial Court.
What’s next for the profession
Ong hopes his experience will inspire young lawyers to take bigger risks in their careers – something that will be increasingly necessary as artificial intelligence (AI) disrupts the legal industry.
“AI will come, and it will come strong and hard,” he said. The traditional pyramid model of large law firms – many junior associates tapering to a narrow senior tier – will flatten as a result.
“Clients won’t be looking for a research note which they can generate themselves from AI. They’re looking for deep analysis, thinking, thought leadership, and experience.”
That means the next generation of lawyers must bring more than technical proficiency. “It’s not just about the law any more. You should be studying finance, economics, political science, geopolitics, design, marketing – anything. All of it adds value.”
With these shifting client expectations, he also foresees more boutique players entering the market over the next decade.
These changes may understandably fill young lawyers with anxiety, but Ong views the situation differently.
“I see it less as a source of despair or nervousness, (and more) an opportunity to reimagine and rethink, an opportunity to unleash yourself totally.”
He noted that, taking into account where Singapore stands today as a country and in the legal industry, it cannot afford to be traditionalist any more.
As for Setia’s own trajectory, Ong said the firm will not be chasing scale for the sake of it. Growth will be organic and focused – through lateral hires or potential mergers with other specialist teams.
“I don’t think you will see a firm like ours growing to 200 or 300 lawyers like R&T, which started from 20 to 50 and grew from there. That’s not going to happen, just because of the changes in the landscape.”
Still, he added: “We don’t have a fixed mindset as to what form it should take.”
Underpinning all of it, he said, is a sense of obligation to the younger lawyers who took a leap of faith in joining him.
“They invested their youth, time and energy in us, and trusted us with their careers. The least we could do is build something they can grow into.”
Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
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