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Looking at the database of various law firms rankings (e.g Who’s Who Legal, Asian Legal Business, as well as Chambers and Partners), all the top listed and recommended law firms and lawyers for corporate, commercial dispute, and criminal litigation are domiciled in Jakarta. Currently, most of clients (particularly, foreign clients) will engage a law firm/lawyer in Jakarta to attend for their matter/case (particularly for sophisticated/complex matter/case, or case with significant value), which many of the cases, located outside Jakarta.

Due to Indonesia’s geographical nature, hire lawyer(s) from Jakarta to attend a matter or court hearing/trial outside Jakarta will incur significant operational costs/expenses to attend a matter or court hearing/trial outside Jakarta (i.e. travel time, cost for transportation/airfare and accommodation, allowance for meal and local transportation, etc.). Moreover, attending a matter or court hearing/trial outside Jakarta is generally a full-day assignment for a lawyer based in Jakarta – at least.

Additionally, it is highly likely that there will be a time delay from the appointment of lawyer(s) until the time where the lawyer(s) can attend onsite and perform effectively. For example, a Jakarta law firm may require approximately 24 hours-36 hours to prepare their lawyer(s) and arrange for his/her travel to the designated site outside Jakarta. This time frame may occur longer time if the firm requires client to pay a significant sum of deposit to cover their initial expenses (to dispatch their personnel). Once they have arrived onsite, the lawyer(s) may also need additional time to initiate contact and establish relationship with local authority in order to minimize risk of the authority treated the client with prejudice. This may give rise to significant strategic disadvantages in the event of an emergency situation (e.g. vessel collision, allegation from authorities, operational incident, third party damages-related issues, etc).