Asia Chronicles

The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting.
Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.

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The Asia Chronicles – ASSOCIATE AND IN-HOUSE OPENINGS IN HONG KONG / CHINA, JAPAN AND SINGAPORE

The Asia Chronicles – ASSOCIATE AND IN-HOUSE OPENINGS IN HONG KONG / CHINA, JAPAN AND SINGAPORE

The Asia Chronicles – HK / China Market In An Up Cycle Again? / New US Associate Openings In HK / China

The Asia Chronicles – HK / China Market In An Up Cycle Again? / New US Associate Openings In HK / China

The Asia Chronicles: Kinney Participating on CBLA And APALSA Hosted Career Panel At Yale Law School Thursday, February 28

The Asia Chronicles: Kinney Participating on CBLA And APALSA Hosted Career Panel At Yale Law School Thursday, February 28

The Asia Chronicles – ASSOCIATE AND IN-HOUSE OPENINGS IN HONG KONG / CHINA, JAPAN AND SINGAPORE

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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.

We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.

The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:

• 2nd to 5th year mandarin fluent M&A associates needed in Beijing and Hong Kong at several firms;
• Korean fluent 2nd to 4th year cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 5th year Japanese fluent M&A associates needed in Tokyo;
• 4th to 6th year mandarin fluent cap markets associate needed in Hong Kong;
• 2nd to 4th year M&A / cap markets mix associate needed in Singapore.

Also, we have the two below in-house openings:

In-House position at hedge fund in Singapore (3 to 4 years experience)

This position is at a growing and well known hedge fund, founded several years ago, in Singapore, which is looking to hire its first in-house counsel. The new hire will likely come from a top US or UK firm in Singapore or Hong Kong, but they will consider candidates from other markets. The role will be compliance heavy so significant compliance experience, preferably dealing with funds, is a must. Compensation will be at around the current top law firm associate comp level of the new hire.

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The Asia Chronicles – HK / China Market In An Up Cycle Again? / New US Associate Openings In HK / China

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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.

We hesitate to make big predictions on the China economy, since we don’t employ economists at Kinney and even those folks have a hard time making such predictions with any accuracy recently. However, we do have our own set of data points to go on that are unique in the US biglaw industry in Asia. We have been cautiously optimistic since late October that ’13 looks to be a very good year HK / China.

Our Asia team is in daily contact with partners at top US and UK firms in Asia, especially in HK / China, where our Asia team has made more US associate placements than any other recruiting firm over the past 5 years. In fact, our Evan Jowers has alone made more than 150 US associate placements in Asia in the past five years. All of this activity gives our Asia team the opportunity to have close relationships with most of our firm clients in Asia. Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney have developed friendships or at least close business relations with most of the key US hiring partners in HK / China over the years and this enables them to get on the phone and have in person meetings with such persons on a regular basis.

Since November, we have noticed a much more positive outlook in HK / China from our US partner contacts there. Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney make frequent trips to Hong Kong and other Asia markets and it is not unusual for them to have 8 meetings per day with US partners while on such trips (its a lot of coffees, beers and diet cokes). These conversations usually focus in large part on how busy the partner’s practice has been and expectations in coming months and the following year, as well as the state of the market in general.

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The Asia Chronicles: Kinney Participating on CBLA And APALSA Hosted Career Panel At Yale Law School Thursday, February 28

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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.

As our regular readers know, Kinney Recruiting has always been a big supporter of the Chinese Business Lawyers Association. Please note that the CBLA will be co-hosting (along with Asian Pacific American Law Students Association) a career panel at Yale Law School this Thursday evening. You are welcome to attend, if you can make it out to New Haven. These career panels are a great way for law students and major law firm associates to learn more about working as a biglaw associate in Asia and how to best position one’s early career for an easier lateral move to (or a career start in) Asia in the future. As usual, our Evan Jowers will be participating on the panel and will be available before and after the event to meet individually with those interested. Evan will also be available for meetings in NYC parts of Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Also, please note that the CBLA will be having its 2013 Lunar New Year Banquet this Friday evening at S. Dynasty Restaurant in NYC. This event was originally scheduled for February 8, but was postponed due to the winter storm Nemo. Please feel free to stop by Kinney’s table at the dinner if you would like to meet with our Evan Jowers and Danielle Cyr there.

The Yale career panel will be held at room 120 at Yale Law School and will begin at 6.30pm Friday, February 28, with wine & cheese served beforehand at 6.10pm.

The panelists are:

• William Primps, Partner, Dorsey & Whitney (Yale Law School class of 1974)
• Xiaowen Qiu, Partner, Sidley Austin
• Xiu-Kay Hung, Associate, Shearman & Sterling
• Evan Jowers, Managing Director, Kinney Recruiting
• Jonathan Birenbaum, Director, Lateral Link
• Geoffrey Sant, Special Counsel, Dorsey & Whitney

Here below are the details for the CBLA Lunar New Year Banquet:

S. Dynasty Restaurant
511 Lexington Avenue 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10017
Open Bar: 6:30 pm
Dinner: 7:30 pm
* * *
2013 CBLA Special Award:
Mr. Ko-Yung Tung, Morrison Foerster
* * *
Performance by the New York Chinese Cultural Center
Raffle Prizes
* * *
Please contact events@cblawlaw.org for tickets

CBLA Event January 28 in NYC – “Deals And Suits: Challenges and Opportunities For Chinese Companies Doing Business In The United States”

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We at Kinney Recruiting have a long standing relationship with the Chinese Business Lawyers Association and have placed in HK / China many of their members, including past officers and board of directors members. The CBLA will be having their busiest calendar to date in 2013, with many events being planned (Kinney’s Evan Jowers, will be at many of these events, including on various discussion panels).

Please note that CBLA will be holding an informative and interesting seminar on Monday, January 28 at Fordham Law School -”Deals and Suits: Challenges and Opportunities for Chinese Companies Doing Business in the United States,” jointly presented by CBLA and Fordham Law School at McNally Amphitheatre of Fordham Law School on Monday, January 28, 2013 at 6 p.m.-8 p.m.

The program includes two parts:
Suits: Litigation Challenges Facing Chinese Companies in the United States
• Moderator: Professor Carl Minzner
• Long Arm Jurisdiction, The Honorable Denny Chin
• Client-Related Issues, Geoffrey Sant and Lanier Saperstein
• Intellectual Property Litigation, Professor Mark Cohen

Deals: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Capital Markets
• Moderator: Professor Sean Griffith
• The Chinese Firm Perspective, Alex Hao
• The U.S. Firm Perspective, Selig Sacks
• The Investment Banker Perspective, Euan Rellie

Check-in starts at 5:30 p.m. Reception will be held at Fordham Law Platt Atrium at 8:00-9:00 p.m.

Admission is free for CBLA Members and Friends with prior registration. Due to limited seating, please RSVP to events@cblalaw.org at your earliest convenience.

The Asia Chronicles: NEW FUND FORMATION, M&A, FCPA, LITIGATION, PROJECT FINANCE, KOREA PRACTICE US ASSOCIATE OPENINGS IN ASIA

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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com

The US associate lateral hiring market in Asia for US and UK firms is in a severe down cycle, at least when compared to recent boom hiring periods (mid ’06 – mid ’08; mid ’10 to mid ’11). The bulk of the US associate hiring in Asia since ’05 at top firms has been in cap markets, especially in HK / China in china focused cap markets. This year lateral hiring in cap markets in HK / China has been extremely slow, for two obvious reasons: a) Many IPOs US cap markets groups have been working on in HK / China are on hold; and b) there was much more than usual lateral hiring in this practice area from late ’10 to mid ’11 (right before the slow down in IPOs). Most top US cap markets groups in HK / China are over staffed at present and a number of US firms have US associate hiring on hold in Asia in all practice groups because of this. With that said, we have recently made a few US cap markets placements in Hong Kong, but this is weak hiring area right now, so weak that some very impressive native Chinese US cap markets associates from top 10 US firms are having a hard time getting interviews, much less offers (and for most of the past 7 years in HK / China, this US associate background has been in very high demand, with such candidates usually having their choice of multiple offers quickly after starting a job search). When the market rebounds, hopefully in ’13, US cap markets associate hiring in Asia will bounce back strong. There are a lot of HK / China related IPOs on hold in and many of those deals will come back to life when the market rebounds, but for now things are very slow in US cap markets in HK / China, with there only being some pockets of cap market strength in Pan Asia (such as Philippines and Indonesia for example).

Coming out of the usual late summer period of hiring partners on holidays and slow interviewing and hiring, we usually get a pop of new openings in September. This year we were not expecting much, considering the market, but we have been pleasantly surprised. It is surely not a strong hiring market at present, but more new openings than to be expected (see below) while the HK / China market is still in a down cycle.

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NOVEMBER 29 CBLA SEMINAR – GOING PRIVATE AND GOING DARK: CONSIDERATIONS FOR U.S. PUBLICLY TRADED CHINESE COMPANIES

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Please note that Chinese Business Lawyers Association is having a seminar on public to private deals on Novmeber 29 at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong. As we mentioned in a recent Asia Chronicles post, there is a big pipeline of these type of deals currently at some US firms in HK / China and thus we are seeing a significant increase in the need by our US firm clients in HK / China for lateral hires with such deal experience. Private Equity practices, in particular, are having a lot of this type of of deal flow.

Kinney Recruiting and the Asia Chronicles have always been a big supporter of the Chinese Business Lawyers Association. We are institutional members of the CBLA and over the years have advised, represented and placed in Asia a large number of attorney members of the organization, including former board members. We support the CBLA because it is a great source of information on the Asia biglaw markets for US associates based in the US who are considering or seeking a lateral move or transfer to Asia. The CBLA also has a presence in Hong Kong and conducts informative seminars and other events there for its members, many of whom are former NYC based associates who joined CBLA while in NYC.

Going Private and Going Dark: Considerations for U.S. Publicly Traded Chinese Companies

Dorsey & Whitney LLP and the Chinese Business Lawyers Association cordially invite you to a seminar on key issues that face U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies that are considering going private or going dark. In light of the challenges many U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies face under the current regulatory and market conditions, an increasing number of Chinese companies are considering leaving the U.S. reporting system by going private or going dark. Going private and going dark are complex processes that involve many business, legal and accounting issues. Restructuring those companies after the completion of a going private transaction also involves tax and corporate issues that require careful planning. An expert panel consisting of senior investment bankers, lawyers and accountants with real case experience will discuss the topic with the audience. Please see the details below and register by November 26, 2012 if you would like to attend.

Thursday, November 29
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | Registration and Refreshments
3:30 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. | Panel Discussion
5:15 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. | Reception

Panelists
• Ted Farris, Partner – Dorsey & Whitney LLP
• Catherine X. Pan-Giordano, Partner – Dorsey & Whitney LLP
• Weimin Chen, Managing Director/Daniel O’Donnell, Senior Vice President – Houlihan Lokey
• James O’Neill, Managing Director of Jin Niu Investment Management Co., Ltd

Moderator
• Kenny Kwok, Partner – Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Location
Mandarin Oriental
5 Connaught Road
Central, Hong Kong SAR

NOVEMBER 29 CBLA SEMINAR – GOING PRIVATE AND GOING DARK: CONSIDERATIONS FOR U.S. PUBLICLY TRADED CHINESE COMPANIES

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Please note that Chinese Business Lawyers Association is having a seminar on public to private deals on Novmeber 29 at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong. As we mentioned in a recent Asia Chronicles post, there is a big pipeline of these type of deals currently at some US firms in HK / China and thus we are seeing a significant increase in the need by our US firm clients in HK / China for lateral hires with such deal experience. Private Equity practices, in particular, are having a lot of this type of of deal flow.

Kinney Recruiting and the Asia Chronicles have always been a big supporter of the Chinese Business Lawyers Association. We are institutional members of the CBLA and over the years have advised, represented and placed in Asia a large number of attorney members of the organization, including former board members. We support the CBLA because it is a great source of information on the Asia biglaw markets for US associates based in the US who are considering or seeking a lateral move or transfer to Asia. The CBLA also has a presence in Hong Kong and conducts informative seminars and other events there for its members, many of whom are former NYC based associates who joined CBLA while in NYC.

Going Private and Going Dark: Considerations for U.S. Publicly Traded Chinese Companies

Dorsey & Whitney LLP and the Chinese Business Lawyers Association cordially invite you to a seminar on key issues that face U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies that are considering going private or going dark. In light of the challenges many U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies face under the current regulatory and market conditions, an increasing number of Chinese companies are considering leaving the U.S. reporting system by going private or going dark. Going private and going dark are complex processes that involve many business, legal and accounting issues. Restructuring those companies after the completion of a going private transaction also involves tax and corporate issues that require careful planning. An expert panel consisting of senior investment bankers, lawyers and accountants with real case experience will discuss the topic with the audience. Please see the details below and register by November 26, 2012 if you would like to attend.

Thursday, November 29
3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. | Registration and Refreshments
3:30 p.m. – 5:15 p.m. | Panel Discussion
5:15 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. | Reception

Panelists
• Ted Farris, Partner – Dorsey & Whitney LLP
• Catherine X. Pan-Giordano, Partner – Dorsey & Whitney LLP
• Weimin Chen, Managing Director/Daniel O’Donnell, Senior Vice President – Houlihan Lokey
• James O’Neill, Managing Director of Jin Niu Investment Management Co., Ltd

Moderator
• Kenny Kwok, Partner – Dorsey & Whitney LLP

Location
Mandarin Oriental
5 Connaught Road
Central, Hong Kong SAR

CBLA EVENT NOVEMBER 14 – GOING PRIVATE AND GOING DARK: CONSIDERATIONS FOR U.S. PUBLICLY TRADED CHINESE COMPANIES

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As our readers and clients know, Kinney Recruiting and the Asia Chronicles have always been a big supporter of the Chinese Business Lawyers Association. We are institutional members of the CBLA and over the years have advised, represented and placed in Asia a large number of attorney members of the organization, including former board members. We support the CBLA because it is a great source of information on the Asia biglaw markets for US associates based in the US who are considering or seeking a lateral move or transfer to Asia.

The CBLA is having a seminar on Wednesday November 14 that deals with U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies going private. This is a very relevant topic in today’s market, as there is currently a large pipeline of such public to private deals at Private Equity downstream practices of U.S. firms in Hong Kong / China. While the deal flow in the HK / China markets at U.S. firms has been significantly down over the past 15 months, Private Equity practices have been relatively busy, with M&A deals as usual, but also recently very busy with public to private deals. In fact, some of our firm clients in Hong Kong are currently seeking US associate lateral hires with such experience.

During Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney’s most recent visit to Hong Kong, for a few weeks in September, they met with a number of US senior partners of top PE transactional practices and in each case the discussion included the significant pipeline of public to private deals (thought to be a two year pipeline). Part of these discussions on public to private deals dealt with the nice career benefits to mid-level PE associates who have the good fortune to work on such complex deals during this time in their careers. Two partners told us that their having these deals to work on as mid-level associates years ago was a significant fortunate break in their career development.

Clearly, this is a new recruiting trend that we dealing with now and are going to continue to be involved in during ’13 and likely ’14 as well.

Here below are the details on the CBLA event on Wednesday at NYU School of Law. Hope you can make it! Please RSVP by November 9.

Going Private and Going Dark: Considerations for U.S. Publicly Traded Chinese Companies

Dorsey & Whitney LLP and the Chinese Business Lawyers Association cordially invite you to a seminar on U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies that have considered going private or going dark. In light of the challenges many U.S. publicly traded Chinese companies face under the current regulatory and market conditions, an increasing number of Chinese companies are considering leaving the U.S. reporting system by going private or going dark. Going private and going dark are complex processes that involve many business, legal and accounting issues. Restructuring those companies after the completion of a going private transaction also involves tax and corporate issues that require careful planning. An expert panel consisting of senior investment bankers, lawyers and accountants with real case experience will discuss the topic with the audience. Please see the details below and register by November 9, 2012 if you would like to attend.

Wednesday, November 14
4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. | Registration and Refreshments
4:30 p.m. – 6:15 p.m. | Panel Discussion
6:15 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. | Reception

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CBLA “NYC TO PRC” CAREER PANEL EVENT OCTOBER 29 AT COLUMBIA LAW SCHOOL (Updated)

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***UPDATE – PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT HAS OF COURSE BEEN POSTPONED, DUE TO HURRICANE SANDY. WE WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN THE EVENT WILL BE RESCHEDULED. ALL OUR READERS IN THE NORTHEAST BE SAFE!!***

As Kinney Recruiting has done for years, we are again happy to help out the Chinese Business Lawyers Association with their upcoming career panel event at Columbia Law School.  If you are interested in lateraling to HK / China in the future and have the time to attend the event on Monday, October 29, we can easily recommend it.  The CBLA career panel events over the years have been quite informative to both law students and associates who attend.  Evan Jowers will be participating on the upcoming panel and will also be available in New York most of Oct. 29 ad 30 for meetings with associates interested in moving to Asia.  Feel free to reach out at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com to arrange a meeting with Evan or simply come to the CBLA event and meet with Evan there.

NYC to PRC — Challenges and Opportunities in International Practices

The Chinese Business Lawyers Association, in conjunction with Columbia Law School and the Society for Chinese Law, is presenting “NYC to PRC — Challenges and Opportunities in International Practices” on Monday, October 29. The panelists include partners and counsel from leading law firms in the United States and the PRC, as well as recruiters specifically focused on the China market. The discussion focuses on developing international careers, and particularly career paths relating to China. Topics include how to advance within a firm, how to make a lateral move, how to build a useful network, as well as legal trends and opportunities in China.

Panelists include:
• Xiaowen Qiu, Partner, Sidley Austin
• Alex Hao, Partner, Jun He
• Evan Jowers, Managing Director, Kinney Recruiting
• Efraim Chalamish, Of Counsel, Dorsey & Whitney; Professor, NYU School of Law
• Justin Flowers, Principal, Lateral Link
• Ko-Yung Tung, Senior Counsellor, Morrison & Foerster; Professor, Yale Law School

Moderator:
• Geoffrey Sant, Special Counsel,Dorsey & Whitney; Director,Chinese Business Lawyers Association

Light refreshments will be served.

The reception will commence at 6 PM on Monday, October 29, 2012 in Jerome Greene 102 at Columbia Law School. We look forward to seeing you on October 29, 2012!

The Asia Chronicles: SENIOR US ASSOCIATE FUND FORMATION OPENING IN HONG KONG, ENGLISH ONLY OK, AT TOP US FIRM

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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Evan Jowers, Robert Kinney and Alexis Lamb of Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com

In the past few years it has become increasingly difficult to lateral to Hong Kong from the US without Mandarin or Korean language skills. However, it has not been impossible by any means, especially in Pan Asia focused corporate practices. In the Investment Management realm, up until a few years ago, English only was just fine for lateral associate candidates in Hong Kong, especially considering most of the documentation is in English in this area anyways. Three plus years ago there were not nearly as many funds groups or funds openings at US firms in Asia as there have been in the past two years. Nowadays, this is a rapidly growing area, although still a small part of the landscape of US biglaw in HK / China. In the past couple of years, we have placed many US associates in fund formation practices in HK / China, but there has usually been a requirement of Mandarin fluency.

We like to point out “English only ok” opportunities in HK / China because they are not the norm and worth mentioning to our readers in this column from time to time.

Currently, we have a brand new “English only is ok” private funds senior associate opening at a top US firm in Hong Kong. The new hire will have 5 to 7 years of experience on the private equity, real estate and / or infrastructure side. This firm is not going to consider candidates who have focused in hedge funds in their career, as that is simply not a fit for their practice in China. Mandarin is not required. Some ties to (or strong career / personal reasons to move to) Asia is of course a requirement, especially considering the high level of responsibility this new hire will have and the fact that they will have a track to career advancement available to them at this firm. The new hire will need to demonstrate that they can and want to be committed to Asia for 3+ years.

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