[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan Jowers here. There is nothing like expat package discussion to get our readership up. It seems like we have recently written on this topic, but there has since then continued to be an uptick in housing / cola, as well as a lot of momentum for a cross the board market shift upwards regarding what is considered a competitive expat / cola allowance in HK / China.

First, please check out our recent press at CNBC, where our Alexis Lamb is the only recruiter interviewed for the March 7 ’11 article “Law Graduates Head to Asia as IPO, M&A Boom Creates Talent Shortage,” by Ansuya Harjan. We will be featured / interviewed in several other national and global publications, regarding Asia biglaw, in April as well.

Usually when the top US or UK firms in HK / China are considering an expat / cola raise, they will contact Robert Kinney, Alexis Lamb, Yuliya Vinokurova and / or me for information on other expat / cola allowances in the markets, recent changes we have seen, and what we are expecting in the near to medium-term future. We have been taking such calls on a just about daily basis recently. Why are we such a great source of information for these hiring partners? Well, it is known that we are the market leaders and are the most informed recruiters in the HK / China biglaw market and each year we see offer letters from just about every top US or UK firm in HK / China. Routinely, Robert and I are asked to meet with senior partners in both Hong Kong and New York in order to discuss the state of the lateral hiring market in Asia, including cola / housing allowances.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: HOUSING / COLA ALLOWANCES IN HK / CHINA ON THE RISE AGAIN”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Alexis Lamb here, writing from my soon-to-be-old flat (err, apartment) in Hong Kong. Housing markets tend to be a barometer of more general market conditions, and nowhere is that more apparent than in more emerging economies. While China is more of an emerging superpower than an emerging economy, the grand fall and rise of the Hong Kong property markets are evidence of general economic strength and renewed optimism in this part of the world.

I moved into my current flat in April 2009, smack-dab in the depths of the economic dead zone. I was able to secure my 680 square-foot, high-floor, doorman building with pool and clubhouse for approximately US$1980 (HK$15,000) without the landlord putting up much of a fuss. If anything, the landlord seemed relieved that someone – anyone – was renting his flat!
Fast forward 2 years to mid-March 2011. Landlord decides to nearly double my rent to HK$25,000, or US$3,200! Before I launched into “Why you gotta break my balls”, I did some market research and found that other flats in my building on similar floors were being rented out for a similar price. Time to get a better deal.

Fortunately, a bit of digging and creativity yielded results. For some bargaining I was able to find apartments that fit my checklist. 500 square feet? Check. Doorman, luxury building? Check. Near the Robinson Road escalator stop? Check. Within my budget? What budget! Budgets are for the boring! Just kidding; check. Bigger and more tricked-out options were to be found in more farflung neighborhoods – which, in HK, means a 15-minute walk to the escalator instead of a 45-second walk to the escalator – such as Sheung Wan and NoHo (“North of Hollywood Road”).

The NoHo option was intriguing. I found a bright, airy, 800-square foot studio (asking price slightly over US$2,400) on Gage Street, right next to the Gage Street wet markets, a wholesale distributor of flash-frozen high-end meat products imported from places like New Zealand and South America, art galleries, and a cheerful spattering of unique jewelry and clothing boutiques run by local designers. The apartment was a stone’s throw from Gough (rhymes with “cough”) Street, which has surfaced as a grittier, cooler escape from the expat ghettoes of Soho and Lan Kwai Fong. To draw a comparison with the mean streets of New York, if SoHo is the Upper East Side, Gough Street is the Lower East Side (for my fellow Longhorns: if SoHo is 6th Street, Gough Street is South Congress).

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: NEED PROOF HONG KONG / CHINA IS BOOMING? TRY RENTING A NEW FLAT!”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here, writing from a lounge on a short layover at LAX. Robert and I just returned to the US this morning from another exhausting China trip (8+ meetings per day makes for early rises and late evenings), something we repeat about every other month. No surprise, but all indications on the ground, from meetings with various corporate / cap markets partners at top law firms in HK / China, we are still planted solidly in an economic and deal flow boom there.

We have been averaging about 2 US associate or counsel placements per week in Asia so far this year, a blistering pace that can’t continue quite frankly, but is an indicator of how hot the market is right now (see recent Asia Chronicles ATL posts for more details on this hiring boom or do a search at theasiachronicles.com for such info).

Just the fact that Robert and I can set up meetings on short notice with the leading corporate partners of top US and UK firms in HK / China (especially in a boom market where time is at a premium for such persons running multiple big deals on understaffed teams) is a major difference between Kinney and other recruiting firms trying to break into the increasingly hot US associate biglaw lateral hiring market in HK / China. Remember that just about every US and UK firm in HK / China are hiring US corporate associates at this time, so you should not settle for a recruiter / agent who simply is aware of openings and can provide a list of firms and can name a few partners there. Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Only Kinney Can Provide 100+ References Of US Associates We Placed in HK / China In Past Few Years”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here. As we have been predicted would happen in past posts, a sizzling biglaw US associate lateral hiring boom has arrived in Hong Kong / China for the first quarter ’11. We expect this hiring boom to continue until spring, with hiring being steady afterwards but dropping to more normal levels.

A “perfect storm” has developed, causing many US and UK firms in Hong Kong / China to have multiple US corporate / cap markets urgent openings at one time now.

A lot of these top firms in Hong Kong / China have been understaffed since late 2009. When the global recession went into full swing in late 2008, the downturn had started to seriously affect biglaw deal flow in China (about a year after negative effects were felt in US and other Western markets), with IPOs coming to a stop. There was misguided concern at the time that because China had some dependence on US exports for its economy to be fully fueled, China would be heading into a bubble-busting down turn, even much worse than what was taking place in the US. However, in mid-’09, deal flow in China was booming again, fueled in large part by China’s own consumer economy expanding rapidly. This was no surprise to many of us who have observed China for several years. After all, 2009 was the year that China over took the US in new cars purchased annually, China overtook India in gold purchased annually, and the Asia Pacific Region overtook North America in daily commercial flights. Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: As Predicted, The HK / China Mini Hiring Boom Has Begun”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan Jowers here, with a quick post before the New Year holiday. As you know from our recent posts, Robert Kinney and I have continued our pattern this year of traveling to Hong Kong / China to meet personally with clients and learn of openings (six trips each this year – ouch). Alexis Lamb of course is permanently based in our Hong Kong office and Yuliya Vinokurova travels to Asia periodically from her base in Russia. As a result of our availability to firms and more importantly our success in placing more US attorneys in Asia than any other recruiting firm, we are on top of many US associate openings at present in Hong Kong/China.

As you know from recent posts, we have many current openings for Mandarin fluent cap markets and M&A US associates (too numerous to list here). As the year winds to a close, we wanted to list in one place a description of some of our more unusual openings for US associates at top US and UK firms in Hong Kong / China:

Hong Kong – native Korean fluent private equity fund formation US associate; 2 to 5 years experience

Shanghai – native Mandarin fluent IP transactional US associate; mid to senior level

Hong Kong or Singapore – US securities / high yield / M&A mix US associate (English only ok); 4 to 7 years experience (the successful candidate will have his/her choice of Hong Kong or Singapore location)

Hong Kong – native Korean fluent private equity M&A US associate; 2 to 6 years experience

Hong Kong, Beijing or Shanghai – native Mandarin fluent US senior capital markets associate for counsel or partner role (several openings); very senior associate with top firm experience in China and NYC preferred

Hong Kong – native Korean fluent project finance US associate; 3 to 6 years experience

Beijing – native Mandarin fluent finance associate; junior to mid-level (multiple openings) Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Hong Kong / China Openings; Hiring Boom In First Quarter ’11?”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here. If you are a transactional associate at a top US firm and your name happens to be of Asian origin, especially of Chinese background, then you are probably receiving multiple cold calls per day from recruiters. After all the Asia lateral biglaw markets, especially HK / China are red hot now and it is of course very easy to compile a list of top US firm associates with Asian names.

Keep in mind that there can be very negative consequences in giving control of such an important career move and job search to someone calling you out of the blue (no matter how many times they may call). We often get calls from very well qualified US associates with sad tales of at worst their resume being plastered unauthorized all over China or other Asia markets; or at best only authorized submissions (thankfully) but realizing their recruiter has done little more than emailing their resume to begin with and is unresponsive for weeks.

It is important to note that your resume is a very valuable commodity to recruiters calling you. When you are placed at a law firm, the recruiter who submitted your resume is typically paid (by the law firm) 25 to 30% of your starting base salary. Thus, the recruiters cold-calling you have a big incentive to get a hold of your resume and email it to law firms, with or without your authorization (believe it or not, some biglaw recruiters in Asia are known to be even less ethical than the worst of the lot in the US). Once your resume has been submitted to a law firm, the recruiter who did so “owns” your candidacy there for at least six months. Further, when your resume has been submitted without your authorization, it will take an affidavit from you to the target firm explaining such for the submission to be reversed (and basically that is you explaining to the firm that you did not know you even applied there, which can of course cool off any motivation of that firm to continue to want to interview you, and the unethical recruiter is counting on you to thus not take that route).

We try to think that a lot of recruiters do not take such unethical steps, but please note that even the most well-intentioned recruiters trying to break into the Asia markets are more often than not woefully inexperienced with such lateral placements (and even most of those with some experience have never been more than resume pushers). Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Be Careful With Cold-Callers”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here. Robert Kinney and I just returned from another China trip and we will post market notes from that trip shortly at our blog, theasiachronicles.com.

As you know, we are often quoted and / or featured in various industry publications regarding our US biglaw attorney recruiting and market expertise in Asia. This month, find us in the cover story of the latest California Lawyer magazine. Also, if you don’t mind plucking down the 295 sterling for the brand new book, Building A Profitable Practice In Asia, by Robert Sawhney, just published by Ark Group, you will notice that Robert, Alexis and I were asked to write Chapter 22 (“Staffing an Asia Practice – Recent History and Trends”).

On our recent China trip (we are in Hong Kong / China about every other month and several times a year in other Asia markets), as usual, we were often asked by senior partners at US and UK firms how exactly do we manage to place the majority of their US associate lateral hires and in general represent so many of the top US trained candidates on the market.

Although Robert is based in Austin and my primary home is in Miami, we do manage to have a large market share in Hong Kong / China and Asia in general. Further, we do have a full time recruiter based in our HK offices – Alexis Lamb, who has been with us for two years (previously I placed her at Linklaters HK some years ago). It is not really rocket science what we do and what we offer law firm and lawyer clients. Here is the very basic gist of things re what we offer US associate candidates moving to or within Asia:

• We can provide 50+ very positive references fairly quickly of US associates we have recently placed in Asia, which is something no other recruiting firm can do (they can’t do it because they have not made more than just a fraction of that amount of US associate placements in Asia).

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Why Kinney Dominates Market Share of US Associate Placements in HK / China; Recent HK / China Placements”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here. Please note that Robert Kinney and I will be back in Hong Kong all next week for meetings. Although our schedule is tight, we can fit in some meetings with prospective biglaw or in-house candidates. Feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.

In just the past few weeks, we have seen a noticeable rise in the expat / cola allowances for US associates at some of the most competitive group of US and UK firms in HK / China. In fact , it appears that for the first time $80,000 may be taking hold as the eventual standard in HK / China. For the past several years, while there were anywhere from zero to four firms paying as much as $80,000 expat / cola for associates with no children, most of the top US and UK firms remained in the $60,000 to $65,000 allowance range. The competitive range continues to be $60,000 to $80,000, but more firms are at the top of that range than ever before in HK / China. Further, two top US firms pay $90,000 expat / cola (although one of those has tax equalization on the base).

While there has been already a trend in ‘10 for a number of the US and UK firms with less competitive expat / cola allowances to step it up (see http://www.theasiachronicles.com/archives/2264), there has until very recently not been much movement in the competitive group, most of which have allowances in the mid $60,000’s (keep in mind that many major US and UK firms are still not in that competitive expat allowance range of $60,000 plus, but the size of that group is becoming smaller). Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: EXPAT ALLOWANCES ARE GOING UP AT THE TOP END IN HK / CHINA”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past four years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

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). Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: VERY HOT LATERAL MARKET CONTINUES IN ASIA – OPENINGS LISTED HERE”

[Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. 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.]

Notes Regarding Recent News from Hong Kong/China

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.

For the benefit of those readers who are not in New York but are still interested to hear what has changed in Asia, I have the following notes regarding current openings. Please feel free to follow up with me if you have any questions or want to drill into deeper into the needs described:

• Many of our clients are looking for Hong Kong qualified capital markets associates. The most impressive mid-levels to seniors in HK are now perhaps in more demand than any other group of biglaw associates, due to the current trend of top US firms building HK local practices (we know of two US firms about to make announcements regarding lateral HK partner hires).

• A number of our clients want US capital markets associates; several of these offer a mix of M&A and capital markets work. Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Quick Notes”