Dacheng Laucnhes in Hong Kong

Dacheng Law Offices, China’s largest law firm, has just launched in Hong Kong to take advantage of the increase in finance and mergers. The office will have 15 partners by the end of 2010. Dacheng has 29 offices in Chinca, one in Los Angeles and one in Singapore.

 

Source:  www.bloomberg.com

Tags:  Hong Kong

Dan Gelber Quits Akerman Because of Client BP

Dan Gelber, a candidate for attorney general as well as a partner with Akerman Senterfitt, has quit the firm as consequence of Akerman taking on BP as a client. Opponent Dave Aronberg requested Gelber’s resignation on the basis of conflict of interest. Aronberg maintained that although Gelber would not be working on the case directly, he would profit from his law firm defending BP and later, as attorney general, Gelber would be representing those injured by the same company. 

 

Source:  www.blogs.tampabay.com

Tags:  Akerman LLP

Mayer Brown and Simmons Stay Single

After somewhat of a roller coaster ride, Mayer Brown and Simmons & Simmons have decided that they will not unite as one. On June 7th, it was understood that the merger was not going through. Two weeks later, it was unveiled that talks were back on again. But, according to a joint statement just released, the merger is back to not happening. There is a sense of finality this time around, but who knows with these two!

 

Source:  www.thelawyer.com

Tags:  Mayer Brown LLP

Why Expat / COLA did not Fall in Hong Kong

A great draw of US biglaw associates to Hong Kong is the lucrative and somewhat illogical expat / cola allowances. Even though the cost of living in Hong Kong is not much different than New York (housing is a bit higher in HK), it is common to receive an expat / cola allowance of well over $60,000 USD.

Last year most in the Hong Kong market expected the lucrative US associate expat / cola allowances to lower dramatically, due to the global recession (which did greatly reduce deal flow in HK / China from late ’08 to mid ’09) and with many firms on global hiring freeze at the time. However, in reality, the expat / cola allowances at the more competitive US and UK firms in HK were never really in danger of dropping much, even during the very slow lateral biglaw hiring period in HK from December ’08 until October ’09.

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Tags:  Asia | Hong Kong

Partner Survey

According to a study conducted by Altman Weil Inc., about a quarter of law firms were forced to de-equitize partners in 2009. Apparently 18.8 percent of the surveyed reported that their firm would have to de-equitize partners in 2010. 787 law firms were surveyed, 37 percent of which were AMLaw 200 firms. All firms had at least 50 attorneys.

 

Source:  www.nylj.com