Augment is an international firm specialising in the Asia-Pacific region
We provide companies in the Asia Pacific with legal, risk, compliance, governance, business consultancy and corporate services. We have a physical presence in Singapore, Australia and the Philippines but our services footprint covers the whole of the Asia-Pacific region. We have deep industry experience in the outsourcing, HR and talent acquisition industry sectors, although our client base extends well beyond them. Several entities make up the firm – Augment General Counsel is a New South Wales Law Society licensed law firm insured by LawCover in Australia; Augment Corporate Services is a licensed Corporate Services Provider in Singapore by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) in Singapore; and Augment Legal Offshoring Inc. is an offshoring and corporate services centre in the Philippines. It is staffed by fully qualified lawyers and accountants.
The common DNA in all Augment branded firms is a focus on delivering services in a differentiated way, in order to enable its clients greater access to knowledge based services. Using our unique onshore and offshore corporate structure, Augment provides its clients with integrated knowledge based services – namely, (a) legal services which a traditional law firm may offer to its corporate clients; (b) services which are usually provided to corporations by their own in-house general counsels and in house legal, risk, compliance and governance functions; (c) services which knowledge process offshorers primarily extend to its clients; and (d) a full suite of corporate services and business advisory services which help corporations expand their commercial reach. Augment offers all of these services in one integrated firm — a combination that remains rare in the Asia-Pacific region.
What Augment does differently?
Augment is structured to provide its clients with the services of a traditional law firm, in-house legal function, corporate services provider and knowledge process offshorer, all in one. Best of all, the services provided by Augment are cost effective, as the service is delivered using a mix of its locations in Australia, Singapore and the Philippines.
Our lawyers are highly qualified and trained to work on complex legal matters for international clients. We use simple, precise processes to drive efficiency and productivity whilst maintaining data security and confidentiality. Few firms in the Asia Pacific region can match our depth of knowledge in the outsourcing, HR and talent acquisition industry sectors. We benchmark our fees regularly and they remain highly competitive.
People
Co-founder Celina Alano is a member of CPA Australia and holds a Masters of Professional Accounting from the University of Sydney. She set up and launched Augment’s Asian operations in 2016 and leads the firm’s accountancy, compliance and corporate secretarial work, drawing on almost two decades of experience overseeing finance functions, financial reporting compliance and corporate secretarial requirements for corporations operating across multiple countries. She has worked in the accountancy functions of large corporations in Sydney across a range of sectors, and is fluent in English and Filipino.
Co-founder Chris Dancey is a dual qualified English/Australian solicitor. He spent over seven years as Asia Pacific General Counsel of a UK FTSE 250 specialist recruitment group, where he established the regional legal function from scratch, built it into a five-person team and sat on the regional Asia executive board. Based in Singapore for four of those years, he has worked extensively across both Singapore and the Philippines and has held company directorships in both jurisdictions.
He trained at Norton Rose in the City of London and practised at Mallesons and Vodafone in Sydney, and has over a quarter century of experience in business law, with a particular focus upon employment, commercial, corporate, licensing, regulatory, technology, banking, property and disputes work. He recently completed a Master’s degree at Cambridge University. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute, the Governance Institute of Australia and the Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore.
Technology Enablement
AI-assisted delivery means we can quote fixed fees that traditional firms struggle to match — and we pass that efficiency to you rather than billing the hours it saves. Every AI-assisted draft, review and research task is checked by a qualified lawyer, so you get the speed without surrendering judgment. Just as importantly, your confidential information stays confidential: we work on enterprise systems under terms where client data is never used to train AI models, with access controls to an ISO 27001 standard. That is a materially different proposition from staff pasting contracts into free consumer AI tools.
Corporations can obtain their legal, compliance, risk, governance and corporate services from law firms, in-house teams and legal process outsourcers. Augment bridges all of these sources, because it is a law firm, business consultancy, in house legal function and legal offshorer all rolled into one.
Our fixed fee promise
As well as giving you cost certainty, it makes us seek out continuous process efficiencies. We have a different cost structure to traditional law firms and so we can pass on our significant cost savings to you. That said, we won’t compromise on quality and we are always looking to drive continuous improvement and productivity.
Highly Responsive Service
Highly responsive to your demands because we understand your deadlines placed upon you by your clients.
People, pricing, excellence
Our success is founded upon people, pricing, excellence, process efficiency and technology enablement.
Achieving Your Objectives
Our ultimate goal is to support you to achieve your commercial objectives.
