Evan here. It continues to be a very busy year for lateral biglaw associate and partner hiring in Hong Kong / China. Further we have noticed that in HK, BJ and SHG there is more enthusiasm coming from US, UK and PRC firm partners, regarding the market, than we have seen since mid ’07. You can tell a big difference in enthusiasm by simply going to meetings in firm offices in those markets. Earlier this year, while it was a boom, there was optimism, but much more cautioned and guarded. Sure, the IPO boom at its current pace in China is not sustainable forever, but there is much less concern of a bubble burst or other type of economic downturn. Frankly, Hong Kong has become the market of choice for many major international companies and banks to have IPOs, with many choosing HK over NYC and London. Needless to say, US firms are going to be in and expand in HK / China for a long time. Offices are turning from outposts to much more substantial and strategic parts of US firms, globally.

Our Asia team is so busy, we have fallen behind on fully launching our new theasiachronicles.com blog and we apologize for that. Starting this weekend, we will have daily original posts, as promised (to go along with the numerous daily biglaw asia news posts).

For our readers in NYC who would like to meet us, please note that Robert and I will be in NYC again October 20 to 22. I will be back in China in a few weeks for meetings, as well as trying to catch the last days of the World Expo in Shanghai. Alexis is of course based in Hong Kong and Yuliya is based in Russia (not really Asia, but part of our Asia team nonetheless).

Of course this is the time of year when our 2L law student readers are choosing where to summer. If you would like to talk about your firm choices, with regards to the firms’ Asia practices and offices, we are happy to speak with you. Feel free to reach out any time.

Greetings to our readers. Robert Kinney here. I’m fresh from a visit to our Hong Kong office, where Evan Jowers and I had a big week with literally dozens of client meetings over 10 days. It is difficult to conceive of for most of our readers who are not in Hong Kong/China already, but the legal market there is red-hot. It is probably hotter in many ways than in the boom-times of 2006-2007. The pockets of activity are more hidden than before though, and the requirements are much tougher.

Evan Jowers will be speaking this evening (Monday, September 27, 2010) from 7:30 to 9:30 PM at NYU’s Vanderbilt Hall (40 Washington Square South, Room 204) as part of a panel discussion on the best strategy to land a job in the current job market in Asia. As always, we are grateful to the US-China Legal Exchange Foundation, as well as well as the NYU Asia Law Society and the NYU APALSA for the opportunity to speak as part of this panel. Any of our readers who are located in New York and are interested in hearing the latest information about the job market in Asia, particularly Hong Kong/China, please feel free to attend the discussion. It will certainly be instructive

HK Local Practices Being Built at US Firms

The growing importance of Hong Kong as not only a gateway to China and Southeast Asia, but also as a regional financial center in its own right, has compelled many foreign firms to add a Hong Kong local practice. For the last two years, Hong Kong has been the world’s leading IPO center (surpassing New York and London) and clients are increasingly seeking one firm to handle both the US and Hong Kong side of the IPO. Even General Motors was reported to have seriously considered a Hong Kong listing along with its planned NYSE/Toronto listings, only to drop the idea in part because of Hong Kong’s more restrictive listing requirements. Hong Kong is already the preferred market for international share offerings by China’s behemoth state-owned enterprises, which previously might have considered listing in Europe or the US.

Not all US firms will see an immediate need to acquire a Hong Kong practice as long as they continue to land major deals because of the participation of their US clients (mainly US-based financial institutions) in Asia-based transactions. Yet, as long as Hong Kong continues to be the world’s IPO leader and Asia continues its financial dominance, there will be pressure on foreign firms to add a Hong Kong arm to their practice.

Furthermore, a US firm adding a Hong Kong practice to an already strong US law practice is a throwing down of the gauntlet, so to speak – a signal to the more-established Magic Circle firms that they are committed to Asia and intend to be “all in” as a major regional player. In response, some British firms in Hong Kong have recently invested heavily in expanding their already strong US practice in Hong Kong, with Allen & Overy being a perfect example

Evan here. Senior cap markets associates at top US firms who are native Chinese have never been as marketable in HK / China as they are today. While such persons have over the past five years always had attractive HK /China options at US and UK firms, as well as in-house, in ’10 we have seen these opportunities expand and improve (more clear shot to partner opportunities than usual) significantly. Further, this may be a relatively small window of time, one to two years perhaps, where these clear shot to partner positions are available in such relative abundance (a handful available at one time, versus zero to one usually at any given time).

To clarify, a clear shot to partner opportunity is one where a business case already exists at a new hire’s new firm for that person to make equity partner. In other words, there is already an equity partner slot open and pegged for such new hire. Of course the senior associate / counsel / salary partner will have to perform, but there is already plenty of deals for that person to execute and the only variable (baring a catastrophe in the market) to making equity partner is that person’s performance, rather than the many variables outside of one’s control that almost always come into play for equity partner promotion (even in the most realistic and strong partnership tracks, there is most usually not already a business case for a new hire to make partner before he / she joins the firm and the business case can be in part made by the new hire’s performance, but also even more usually relies on supervising partners’ and / or new hire’s ability to expand the current practice).

There are a growing number of US cap markets practices in HK / China that have very strong deal flow (emanating from the IPO boom over the past year in HK / China), but are missing a senior native Chinese associate / counsel / junior partner to both execute deals and maintain existing client relations. In many cases in HK / China, top US cap markets groups do not have Chinese partners and although such groups’ partners are market leaders and deal makers, they could use a rising senior associate / counsel to lean on who happens to be native Chinese. The candidates that fill such roles today are being handed one of the leading keys to their new firm’s China practice, in that they are being given both the deals to execute and a leading role in the existing client relations. The former is of course a pre-requisite to having partnership and top in-house senior roles, but the latter is a rare special opportunity that gives a rising attorney a lot of leverage both in the market at large and at his / her current firm. As top US firms are building HK practices and top UK firms are expanding US practices, having a stellar native Chinese senior US associate / counsel on board is more important today than ever before.