The Asia Chronicles: Surveying the Asia Markets
[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting -- sponsor of the Asia Chronicles, and an ATL advertiser. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past two years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]
Here we sit in Hong Kong, midway through our semiannual review and survey of the major law firm market here. While we normally have someone on the ground here in Hong Kong, only twice a year are both authors of this column in town gathering and compiling the latest and greatest information about who is hiring, who is firing, and what people expect for the future. Given the state of the current global economy and most U.S. legal hiring markets, we were somewhat anxious about what we might find as a result of this survey. We know that our business has seen positive trends this year in Asia, but a valid survey needs to include data not only on our business, but the overall hiring picture for our clients. We are pleased to be able to report, preliminarily, that things look good. While we have detected a note of caution among some of our clients, the outlook on the whole is positive. Most firms remain busy, even if not at as frenetic a pace as in 2007.
With regard to why and how we conduct this survey, we need to provide a few prefatory notes. First, we do not conduct this survey solely to determine firm needs. We are constantly learning about firms' prospective needs throughout the year. This survey has a selfish reason for being: we want to determine, first of all, whether our market share is increasing or decreasing. It is impossible to determine market share without knowing the overall level of hiring in a market and in the individual firms. By way of example, the importance of having placed five attorneys in a given office of a single firm is impossible to know without also knowing that the firm has hired ten lateral associates in total over the same period. We also want to know whether, using the same example, the other five associates hired were placed by our competitors and, if so, which ones. Taken over a period of years, this data gives us insight into whether what we are doing is working.
Read more, after the jump.
Getting to the heart of what interests most of you, we are in a very unique position of being able to set up 20+ law firm meetings in HK on short notice. We have so far visited the offices of, and met with leading partners of, the following firm clients during five days of intensive meetings: Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, O'Melveny & Myers, Latham & Watkins, Sidley & Austin, Withers, Linklaters, Morrison & Foerster, Allen & Overy, Baker Botts, DLA Piper, Freshfields, Fried Frank, Simmons & Simmons, Weil Gotshal, Cleary Gottlieb, Ropes & Gray, Simpson Thacher, Debevoise, Withers, and Milbank. Schedules have not permitted us yet this week to meet with the following firms, and we will be adding their data to the survey in the very near future: Kirkland & Ellis, Fulbright, Davis Polk, Sullivan & Cromwell, Orrick, Mayer Brown, Clifford Chance and Vinson & Elkins. While certainly not all firms in the market, this gives us a good overview and cross-section of firms.
There were several prevailing themes in the meetings we had this week. First, the IPO market has certainly slowed, but it has not stopped in Asia markets (with the possible exception of India, where IPO's have been at a virtual standstill since approximately when David Hirsch of Cleary's and his team completed the Reliance Power IPO earlier this year). The market has been surprisingly busier than expected, considering the global downturn. Firms have needed to be increasingly selective about the listings that they pursue due the difficulty of collecting fees in the event that a public offering does not close. As one partner said, "It's easy in this market to find you have been busy simply for the sake of being busy."
A number of firms who focus on M&A have been riding a wave of M&A activity that seems to be only increasing in size at this time. More than one of the representatives of our clients proclaimed that we are in an M&A "boom" at this time, especially in China, more so than even '06 and '07. While cautious optimism predominates for now, one well-respected law firm told us that his personal optimism about the increased M&A activity is tempered by concern that the market might be acting a little bit exuberantly. In any case, firms are looking to continue building these practices, albeit with some caution.
Continuing with the theme of cautious optimism, there is a growing consensus within a number of firms here that the most prudent course of action will be to diversify the practice areas represented in Asia. One of our clients anticipates adding a complete IP practice in early 2009 to one of its China offices, while another client has started to beef up its litigation capabilities, using U.S. litigation associates to supplement what has traditionally been only a local litigation practice. Two clients announced that they would eventually be adding antitrust capability in Hong Kong, as deals in HK / China, India and Korea become even bigger. Several clients are considering the addition of a real estate practice as well. Most firms are looking to significantly build up their M&A capability.
Importantly, all of our clients indicated a high level of enthusiasm for the future growth of their Asia practices and that their firms are heavily committed to being in Asia for the long-term. Most clients have plans for office expansion into new Asia markets.
This is obviously a very basic review of some of the things that we have discovered in our survey this week. Please feel free to direct us regarding the topics that you view as important in the comments to this article, or get in touch privately, so that we can go over what we have learned in more detail.
Earlier: Prior installments of the Asia Chronicles (scroll down)
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The Asia Chronicles are sponsored by Kinney Recruiting. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.
(28) Comments
FIRST!
oh fuck.
you can not--i repeat, you can NOT!--post both (a) a Hope Winters piece, and (b) a segment from Asia Chronicles on the same day. potentially not even within the same 7-day period.
brutal.
Interesting. Are firms on the mainland expanding offices, too, or just HK? I've heard of some firms scaling back mainland offices.
What's going on in Singapore?
Where can American law graduates find internships/jobs in Beijing?
Why is India slow on the IPO front? I thought their economy was exploding.
If the IPO market is slow in India, what corporate areas are hot in India now? And where is most of that work being done by foreign firms (HK, Singapore, Dubai)?
The comments today on the Chronicles are much more intelligent than usual.
Is there a market for corporate tax attorneys in Asia or any other international market you are aware of?
someone needs to learn how to use apostrophes:
"with the possible exception of India, where IPO's have been at a virtual standstill since approximately when David Hirsch of Cleary's and his team completed the Reliance Power IPO earlier this year"
6, Evan here. I am not sure of what are the specific reasons, but I do know that IPOs have slowed in India recently and the last big one was in the very early part of the year. All the heads of India pracitces that I have spoken with have indicated that the IPO market in India is very slow right now. There is of course a lot of potential in India and firms are investing in India pracitces, but IPOs are right now happening more in other parts of Asia, although IPOs have also slowed down in HK / China, Japan, Korea, and Pan Asia as well, as a result of the global economic slowdown, they have not shut down as much as in India. M&A is booming in some parts of Asia now, especially China.
9, Evan here. It is a very small market for US international tax attorneys in Asia or elsewhere abroad, but there is an opening here and there in HK, with a small handful of firmst that have international tax practices AND could use US associates in such practices. The private client side of international tax is starting to pick up a bit in HK and there will be some openings there over the next year, but still rare and hard to land.
7, Evan here. Most of the India work is being done from Singapore and HK, with some also being done from Dubai. If firms have Singapore offices, they usually run their India practices out of there, but a lot of firms with solid India practices are not in Singapore. There is M&A, project finance, energy work going on in India. The IPO work will be strong in India again in the future. Firms are investing in that market for the long-term.
3, Evan here. I see US firms opening or having plans to open new mainland offices, so expansion is in HK / China, not just HK. Some firms are expanding now, whereas others have big plans for medium - term future, but hiring only for need in '08. Most firms that have only one office in mainland, have plans to open a second office.
Another pile of steaming dung from our least favorite recruiters. Thanks guys!
With all due disrespect, ATL is great, but this Asia Chronicles thing consistently sucks. This post goes on and on wtihout saying a single thing of substance. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can these guys pronto.
Whatever, 16. These people are fine. The post is perhaps a bit verbose, but they actually answer questions. And i don't know many people who know anything about Asia markets, so I think this is great. AND since this is a sponsored column, it's good for ATL in general. It's good for me b/c they answered my Q, and it's good for them b/c they get a lot of exposure. I know when I go looking to move to Asia in a bit, I'll certainly consider these people to help me - sounds like they're connected at the kind of firms I want to work for. So it's good for all of us - if it's not good for u, don't read it!
And no, this isn't "evan here".
Can someone explain why an article that begins "Here we sit in Hong Kong" is posted under a picture of Singapore, not Hong Kong? Strange, considering that the piece never mentions Singapore.
i kicked the sh__ out of a guy that lateralled to an asian law firm...it was no big deal.
that sentence was stupid and idiotic...and it still was better than the asian chronicraples.
atl is quickly becoming, if not already, a sellout to lateral link and this pathetic recruiters from asia. if it was so great to work there, i dont think they would need to pay off Lat to get the word out. lawyers smell money almost as fast as they smell sh__. we would have known already.
18, Evan here. We don't choose the photos. They are just picked at random by ATL and are in many cases nice skyline shots of cities in Asia.
Are there currently opportunities for a second year litigator in Hong Kong doing Korea work?
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn....I have yet to read anything more insightful in this column than a 30-second perusal of the Wall Street Journal could accomplish.
21, Evan here. There are, but unfortunately you would need to take a big pay cut to work in litigation in HK. Some magic circle HK firms are starting to look at US litigation associates for the first time, but it would be at HK pay scale, so about 60 to 70% of NYC base pay. However, if you wow'd them in interviews, they may consider negotiating on the pay.
Evan: is the same re: low pay scale true for corporate practice? I'm about to start in New York at a V10 firm in M&A, and am considering looking into a transfer to HK, also to work in M&A. No one in NYC seems sure whether pay out there is comparable.
Given different GDP/PPP conditions in these markets, I suppose I'm asking if the absolute salary is the same in HK, and how this translates relative to expenditure compared to NYC.
Any comments would be great. Thanks.
24, Evan here. You can be assured that as long as you land at a major US firm in HK (or anywhere in Asia), or in a US practice of a major British firm, you will receive top market NYC base plus bonus and at most of these firms housing allowances in HK of 60k to 80k US per year. Some British firms prefer to consider only US cap markets associates for US practice (and thus top market NYC pay and housing allowance), but just about all the top US firms do hire M&A focused US associates. In fact, most US and British firms in HK are actively building up their M&A practice due to chat segment of the market booming at present, while IPOs are down from last year, for obvious reasons.
Curious as to how have the property markets in Asia been holding up? And how do short/long-term prospects look, given that current (continuing?) meltdown surrounding financial institutions and credit mess likely to restrict even more the dirt side of commercial real estate in US.
LAST BABY LAST. THANK GOD I AM LAST!!!!!!!
Anything happening in the South Korean market? Aren't they progressively moving towards opening up their legal market to the international community?...Or are law firms satisfied with commuting from their Hong Kong offices??