[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.]

Evan here, writing from New York. Apologies for no new post for a few weeks. It was an extremely busy October, including multiple trips to NYC and Asia (and those trips are of course continuing, with two more NYC and one Hong Kong trip scheduled over the next few weeks).

For the die-hard AC readers, next week we plan to launch a new daily Asia blog over at kinneyrecruiting.com, so you can keep up with the Asia biglaw lateral markets and our goings on much more frequently.

I will be in Hong Kong again from November 21 to December 5, so feel free to reach out if you would like to meet up with me there. Of course, Alexis is there full time and available. For the law student readers out there, on November 19 I will be participating in a seminar in NYC sponsored by the China Business Lawyers Association and the Asia Law Society of NYU. The event’s target audience will be law students who are interested in future biglaw careers in Asia. While I don’t always have time available (I wish I did) to talk to each of the many law students that reach out to us about future potential careers in Asia, events like this can be very helpful for those interested. The event’s sponsors have done a great job of securing speakers / participants for the seminar, including a few law firm partners and myself.

It has been a solid past couple of weeks for us in Hong Kong, with one partner placement and three associate placements. There has also been a lot more interview activity recently in Asia, especially in HK / China, so we are expecting more results for our associate candidate clients in the short-term.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here, writing from Hong Kong. The past week has been very busy, thus it has taken a couple of weeks to put up another post.

The number of US associate openings continues to increase in Asia, especially in Hong Kong and Greater China, and especially in now-busy capital markets groups. Two particularly special and urgent openings are for M&A 4th to 7th year associates for Shanghai and Hong Kong. The Shanghai opening, a private equity-focused position, does not require Mandarin fluency, but the Hong Kong opening, a more general M&A spot, does. I consider these openings very special opportunities for a number of reasons, including firm, supervising partner, and the realistic partnership track available in both of them. I am not going to go into great detail here, but suffice to say that I believe these are A+ positions and arguably among the best private equity/M&A spots in all of Asia. They are both extremely selective openings, will be filled soon, and the new hires will likely come from a top 10 US firm, most likely from NYC. We know both supervising partners very well and of course we are happy to fill you in on the details. I am cutting this Asia trip shorter than planned for some business in NYC next week, so can also meet in person with qualified and interested persons.

Last week, we made another placement of a US associate in Hong Kong (continuing a nice placement run of the last few months in Hong Kong and Greater China) and moved very close to placements (offers in hand) of a US partner, a US counsel and two more US associates in Hong Kong. Those successes were all expected, as they have been in the works for some time.

Robert and I spent most of last week together in Hong Kong meeting with partner-level candidates and clients. Many of these meetings were set up by our US and Asia-based recruiting back office. This week the focus is more on associate and firm client meetings, something our HK based recruiter, Alexis Lamb, does on a weekly basis here. It is truly a team effort of our Asia group that allows us to have the privilege of representing so many very impressive senior attorneys, and remarkable people, in Asia. The meetings happen from three sources: a) already established personal relationships (past career consulting or recruiting for partner’s firm); b) referrals; and c) our impressive back office team of recruiters based in the US and Asia.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here, writing from Miami, working from home base on the beach for a two week stay sandwiched between hectic Europe (London and Warsaw, of all places) and Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing) trips. I will return to our Hong Kong offices for a few weeks starting this weekend and will also be in NYC for a couple of days this week.

Robert will be in HK next week as well. It is the third extensive China trip since June for both Robert (who also had a recent Europe trip) and me. Of course, Alexis, our resident HK recruiter, will be in town as usual. We have a packed schedule of mostly prospective partner candidate and law firm meetings on tap. We are also in town to help close a few placements and help with current interviews. It is probably going to be too busy to take the usual fun side trip (Bali or Thailand) this time around.

It has been a nice couple of weeks for our Asia team, with 5 of the US associate candidates for whom I was responsible being placed in HK / China (3 at firms, 2 in-house). I expect another associate candidate to be placed this week. Further, several of us are very close on partner placements in HK (in addition to successes in our other markets, which has also accelerated of late). Daniel Roark, our newest recruiter to become involved in our Asia business appears likely to close a very nice partner placement in China alongside Alexis Lamb. Our St. Petersburg, Russia and Miami based recruiter, Yuliya Vinokurova, is close on a couple of associate placements in Tokyo (the Russia biglaw lateral market remains extremely slow, but we remain very committed to that market and Yuliya will be in Russia for most of the next year). Our team-based approach continues to pay dividends and I’m happy to be leading such a good group.

To be sure, the biglaw lateral market in Asia is showing stuttering signs of improvement, but things are still much slower than the sizzling levels of mid ‘06 to mid ‘08. We are seeing a lot more interview activity recently (although the competition for such interviews is fierce, as selectivity remains extremely high), but not many of the top firms are urgently hiring (more are interviewing but moving slow with offer decisions). Some of the most attractive target firms remain on hiring freeze, but if current deal flow is sustained through end year, we expect such freezes to thaw.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Partner recruiting season is never closed, and there’s normally no bag limit. Nevertheless, as new sharing ratios get set to be announced over the coming months, this is the time of year that many ultimately fruitful and plenty of fruitless discussions between law firms and potential lateral partners begin. The meat of these discussions varies little, whether in Asia, the US, or Europe. Unfortunately, many of the partners who are looking at their options could be saved a lot of time for themselves and the firms that they are considering with some introspection. Particularly in this über-cautious economic environment, prospects for marginal players are slim. With this in mind, since many of our readers are partners and some of our associate readers ultimately will be partners, it seems that now is as good a time as any to discuss what makes a partner a viable lateral candidate.

Every firm asks for some of the same data points which give them information about the financial picture of a lawyer’s practice, not merely billed hours. All of the relevant, basic economic factors can be determined using three pieces of information: personal billable hours for each team member, working attorney collections for each, and billing and/or originating attorney collections for the partners. From these pieces of information, one can derive hourly rate, revenue per lawyer, and most other relevant raw data. But each situation is different and distilling the data to these simple figures is rarely enough. One example (not necessarily from Asia, but very possibly…) may illustrate the point.

The candidate team was from an international law firm. The lead partner came to us with a sizable book of business and a loyal team. He was around 50 years in age. His skill set, the size of the business, his ability to move it to several of our client firms, and his well-constructed team all looked promising because it folded well into the business plan of a couple of our client firms, at least tangentially.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Although not all US practices in HK / China are currently very busy, many have seen deal flow pick up dramatically in the past couple of months. The outlook is good for most US practices to stay fairly busy through the end of this year and beyond. Some groups are becoming understaffed. The China economy is on a full-fledged rebound, notwithstanding the drop in exports. It is a domestic consumer driven recovery that has taken much of the world by surprise. The Shanghai Index has risen already about 90% this year and had doubled since its November ‘08 low.

This is about the point in this Kinney-sponsored post where you probably expect me to go on and on about all the hiring that is about to happen, to call Kinney and an apartment broker in China, right? But I can’t quite take you on apartment hunting trips to Asia, because the lateral hiring, although it has picked up from the dead period earlier this year (we continue to be put on more attorney searches in Asia, especially in HK / China each week), is just not there for most junior to mid-level US associate candidates. Hiring likely won’t be even close to what we started in 2007 to consider “normal” until at least late ‘09 to early ‘10.

Why? Here are some factors that are coming into play:

- Many US firms are understandably very concerned about their profit per partner numbers for ‘09. It has obviously been a brutal 18 months in the US economy and of course we all know that US biglaw has been very negatively affected. One substantial factor in successful senior partner recruiting and partner retention is of course PEP numbers. Unfortunately, layoffs, de-equitizing partners, and hiring freezes are effective in propping up PEP and in such a climate it is not easy for even very busy US partners in Asia to simply get clearance for all the associate hires they want / need. At some US firms there is a lot of pressure for continued lay offs in the fall, further making new lateral hires overseas a complex issue.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Apologies for no new post last week, as Robert and I have been extremely busy and also traveling quite a bit. Our Asia team as a whole, including Alexis Lamb, Yuliya Vinokurova, Robert and me, are representing more qualified US biglaw attorney candidates for Asia than at any other time prior. While some of these even highly qualified candidates will be on a longer term job search involuntarily (due to the market), and others are contacting us with plans to move to Asia in a year or two (over half of our Asia placements have been of US associates that contacted us a year or more before starting a job search), we are seeing a surge in active interviews and hiring in Asia, especially Hong Kong / China, for our most qualified candidates.

Things continue to pick up dramatically in the China economy, as a successful stimilus and increased lending are helping the stock indexes in HK / China surge. The Shanghai Index has now doubled its global recession low in November ‘08. The Shanghai Index is the world’s best performing stock market, having gained 89% this year thus far. Earlier this month, China briefly overtook Japan as the world’s second largest stock market by value and is likely to soon overtake Japan indefinitely. Atlhough there will most likely be a correction in the market later this year, with stocks in China being too expenseive, on average trading at 37 times earnings, it is clear that China’s domestic economy is quite strong, on the rebound, and growing rapidly.

I say the domestic economy because there is a perception out there that China’s economy is heavily reliant on exports to the west, but in reality it is becoming more and more of a consumer driven economy. For example, consumers in China now buy more new cars and gold than any other country in the world and not so long ago it would have been unthinkable that the US and India would not be those leaders, repsectively, indefinitely. Some countries, such as Australia for example, have become quite reliant on exports to China rather than vice versa. While of course, the China economy benefits greatly from the US and other Western markets importing goods from China, and there is of course a very substantial manufacturing industry in China that relies on demand from west, there has been some decoupling of China’s economy from the US economy. The global downturn has made this reality more clear and has surprised many economic experts that felt certain that China’s economy would suffer a major and long-term blow from the serious recession in western markets.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Robert here, writing from Austria, where I am vacationing with my family near a place called Altaussee. Wonderful place; I’d be happy to talk to anyone about it if you are coming this way.

We continue to see a pick up in the lateral hiring market in Asia, especially in HK / China. However, the deal flow is picking up at a much higher rate than the lateral associate hiring and that will likely be the case for many months, well into ‘10. Even as some US practices in Asia potentially become understaffed, hiring will not necessarily follow quickly. Until the US markets fully rebound, some firms will continue to have global hiring freezes and not all US partners with hiring needs in Asia will have the green light to staff up in ‘09 (although some of these same firms are being aggressive in partner hiring and we have been fortunate to have made a few partner placements recently in Asia).

Here are some of our more pressing US associate needs:

*M&A - class of ‘08 (or ‘09 that has been deferred) - Tokyo - native Japanese required
-new hire likely to come from US markets
*M&A - 4+ years - Tokyo - Japanese required
-new hire likely to come from NYC or Tokyo market
*PE / M&A - 3 to 5 years - Shanghai (Mandarin not required, but commitment to SHG is)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market.
*Cap Markets - 5 to 10 years - Hong Kong (native Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from HK / China or NYC market
*Cap markets / M&A - 1 to 3 years - Hong Kong (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from HK / China or NYC market
*M&A - 4 to 7 years - Hong Kong (native Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC or HK
*M&A - 1 to 7 years - HK qualification required
-new hire likely to come from HK market
*Finance - 2 to 5 years - Hong Kong (native Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market.
*PE / M&A - 2 to 5 years - Beijing (Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market
*Project Finance - 2 to 5 years - Tokyo (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here, writing from Miami. Here is a headline from today, July 1, at ALB Legal News: “Firms poised as Hong Kong’s capital markets spring back to life.” The article, by George Beveridge, opens: “After posting the slowest first quarter in almost a decade, Hong Kong’s capital markets are once again in full swing, or at least, the closest we are likely to get to it in the middle of a worldwide economic crisis.”

Those of us keeping a close watch on the HK / China market are not surprised by such enthusiasm, although most of us are cautious enthusiasts.

On a typical day, I talk to at least 10 biglaw associates or partners in Asia and the rest of our Asia team does same. I mention this because we have done an informal survey during the past several weeks, regarding deal flow in HK / China. The majority of the people we know have become substantially busier in the past six weeks and most have been told by biglaw friends / colleagues / acquaintances in the HK / China market that they have also become busier.

We have a long way to go before deal flow in HK / China returns to boom levels of ‘06 to mid ‘08, but it is clear that there is substantially more work now than a few months ago.

Here are a few of our more pressing US associate needs:

*PE / M&A - 3 to 5 years - Shanghai (Mandarin not required, but commitment to SHG is)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market.
*Cap Markets - 5 to 10 years - Hong Kong (Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from HK / China or NYC market
*Cap markets / M&A - 1 to 3 years - Hong Kong (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from HK / China or NYC market
*M&A - 1 to 7 years - HK qualification required (position is at top 10 US firm)
-new hire likely to come from HK market
*Finance - 2 to 5 years - Hong Kong (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market.
*PE / M&A - 2 to 5 years - Beijing (Mandarin required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market
*Project Finance - 2 to 5 years - Tokyo (Korean required)
-new hire likely to come from NYC market

***Substantial evidence of HK / China market rebounding after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Apologies for the delay in getting this post up. I just returned Tuesday from a few weeks of hectic work travel - Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York - and have been slammed the first couple of days back in the office. It was the typical non-stop meetings for 16 days (with both candidates and firms), plus I also made a few associate placements in HK (two M&A and one cap markets) earlier this month.

We are representing a large number of both US associate and partner candidates in Asia now, especially in HK / China, and our entire team is being kept quite busy. Robert and I traveled to Hong Kong the past couple of weeks mainly in order to help some of our partner candidates pitch their skill set and books to their target firms, as well as help firms attract key partner additions they need.

I plan to return to HK / China later this summer for a longer six week trip, as well, after a short Dubai trip. Of course, Alexis is based in HK. Yuliya is in Russia all summer working in that market (things are starting to pick up deal flow wise in Russia, but it will be a while before firms there start hiring again).

We have a few urgent associate openings right now in HK / China (many more slower moving openings, but these are the most urgent):

1) 5 to 10 years cap markets US associate / counsel, fluent Mandarin, Hong Kong
2) 7+ years energy / project finance US associate / counsel, fluent Mandarin, Hong Kong / China
3) 4 to 7 years PE / M&A associate, Mandarin preferred, Hong Kong
4) 7+ years IP / TMT (litigation and transactional experience needed) associate / counsel / junior partner, Mandarin fluent, Hong Kong

***More after the jump.

Robert here. Having arrived back in the US last night, I’m sitting up at 3 am now reflecting on the results of another outstanding visit to Hong Kong. Several of us were in town and able to meet with dozens of people while there, some of whom are candidates and some of whom are representatives of law firms and some private equity and hedge funds for whom we have conducted attorney searches in the past. Evan’s spent an extra couple of days working on some additional projects we have in place and will be leaving tomorrow.

In a nutshell, and while this is not without some caveats, we believe that things are picking up strongly at this point in China. By the end of the year, while total number of international attorneys hired in Asia will not be as high as 2007 or even 2008, we expect to have had our best year in Asia yet on a revenue basis by a long shot. Just in the last few weeks we have confirmed eight attorneys placed in Greater China and we anticipate being able to confirm another five placements (touch wood) in the next several weeks. Now, here are some of the caveats:

1. Private equity funds, on the whole, are still seeing reduced deal flow. They report law firm interest in negotiated deals, including busted deal reductions, is significantly higher than in the past. Much of the deal work is restructuring related as they try to mop up the balance sheets of some struggling portfolio companies.

2. Some firms report that, while M&A work has been looking up overall, it’s been hurt recently by the relative surge in stock prices, which has made deals more expensive in many cases and caused some firms to temporarily shelve their plans.

3. The market is changing so that local qualification is becoming a plus factor for any candidate looking to work in Hong Kong.

For today I just want to touch on the third note above regarding local qualification in more detail. It’s important that our readers understand what the local qualification question means. The Hong Kong Law Society regulates lawyers in the territory and does not permit a firm to practice Hong Kong law unless it has over 50% Hong Kong qualified attorneys. Otherwise the firm must be a “Registered Foreign Law Firm.” Lawyers from other jurisdictions can be licensed as “Registered Foreign Lawyers”, in which case they are called foreign lawyers by the Law Society, or they can be licensed as Hong Kong solicitors, in which case they are referred to as “Overseas Lawyers” by the Law Society.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Robert here. I’m writing this blog entry in the Newark President’s Club as I prepare to depart for China for my second trip this month. I’ll be joined in Hong Kong on Tuesday by Evan Jowers and Daniel Roark. Upon our return I think that Evan will write a contribution to our Asia Chronicles describing this trip.

Why do we travel to Asia more than any other legal recruiters in the US or UK who attempt to specialize in the region? We travel to Asia for the same reason that, in my case, I often travel to Houston, Dallas, and New York: because those are our markets and we want to add value in every interaction we have with people who come to us to seek our services. We can’t possibly understand our clients’ and our candidates’ needs without having sat down with them within recent memory. I thought I’d provide our readers with a few examples of how this has worked in our candidates’ favor in the recent past.

While on a visit to Hong Kong earlier this month I was having dinner with a very important M&A partner at a major international firm who was interviewing several candidates we had provided. In fact, every candidate he ultimately considered for his two open positions was provided by Kinney Recruiting. While at dinner he mentioned some things that indicated to me that he also needed a certain level of skill and experience on his team that only someone near partnership level could provide. Evan was working with a senior candidate whom we had not yet introduced to this client, and had I not had that dinner we might never have known of the fit. To make a long story short, within 12 hours I had met the candidate for lunch, prepped her on the client, and personally escorted her to an interview with this firm that ultimately turned into an offer.

**More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Apologies for the delay in getting another post up. We have been extremely busy the past couple of weeks with extensive travel and also a great run of new placements in Hong Kong / China. Yes, after going from February through April having just one placement in Asia (after 3 in January), we had a nice run last week, with four US associate, one US counsel and one US partner placement, all in Hong Kong. Further, Robert made a partner placement in Texas and I made one in Florida in the past week. We expect 4 to 5 new Asia placements (all in Hong Kong), including one partner and counsel, in the next few weeks. The practice areas involved with the current recent and expected Asia placements are M&A, cap markets and fund formation.

Next week, Robert, Daniel and I will be again in Hong Kong and Yuliya will be traveling back to Russia. Yuliya will be in Russia for three months. Of course, Alexis is in Hong Kong, per usual, as that is her home base.

The slow down in placements in Asia the past few months (up until this past busy week) has of course been market related and although we are seeing a lot of positive signs for a rebound, especially in China, we expect a still very slow (relative to ‘06 to mid ‘08) lateral associate hiring market in Asia for the foreseeable future and well into ‘10. February and March were the first months in over two years that I had no Asia placements, so things were really dead there for a while and there has been steady improvement since then.

Keep in mind though that our increased placement numbers recently are in large part due to our adapting to the current tough climate, rather than the market heating up significantly. Further, numerous US firms have hiring freezes globally, including Asia markets, and many US firms in Asia are quite overstaffed, due to focus on the busy and lucrative IPO market the past several years (hard for some US partners in Asia to get clearance for needed hire, when plenty of cap markets associates are available on site for re-tooling). Thus, while M&A and other practice areas in Asia, especially in China, look to be on the rebound, it will take a) IPO work in Asia to rebound, as wells as b) US markets to rebound, before the Asia lateral markets can return to the previous sizzling levels. The former is important in order to get entire offices busy, not just a certain practice group, and the latter is important to slow down the flow of US candidates from US markets.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Things are getting busier for us in Asia, in particular in HK / China. Robert just returned from a trip to Hong Kong, where he typically met with numerous firms, as well as a number of impressive partner candidates that we are representing, including a few that we are in the process of placing. It was an extremely productive trip.

Robert and I plan to be in Beijing for the China Finance Summit, May 19-20 (http://www.chinasummit.org/) (Chinese version of website more up to date than English, or so I am told). Should be an interesting and informative conference and I am very fortunate that a friend is arranging a VIP pass, so another good networking opportunity. I will head back to HK and Tokyo in early June, followed by Dubai in late June. Alexis will be at home in HK throughout May and June. Robert will be back in HK at some point in June as well.

In today’s and next week’s posts, we will very briefly and in a basic manner go over the typical process of an associate placement in Asia in today’s market. In short, in many cases (not always of course) we work with associate candidates for months and even years before a job search begins. Further, in this tough market, job searches for even the most qualified and sought after associate candidates can take months. In this post we will focus on the process of working with the firm side of placements currently in the works, by giving two examples, whereas next week the focus will be on the candidate side.

But first, here is a sampling (not all of course) of 15 of our current US associate needs (please note that firms continue to be extremely selective, due to market conditions):

-proj. finance / energy - senior / counsel (Mandarin required) - Hong Kong
-finance - junior to mid-level (Korean required) - Hong Kong
-proj. finance / leveraged finance - junior to senior (Korean required) - Tokyo
-PE / M&A - mid-level (Mandarin required) - Hong Kong (several of these)
-PE / M&A - mid-level (English only ok) - Hong Kong
-M&A / cap markets - mid-level (Korean required) - Hong Kong
-IP Litigation - senior / counsel (Mandarin required) - Hong Kong and Shanghai
-IP Transactional - mid-level (Mandarin required) - Hong Kong
-M&A / cap markets mix - mid-level (Mandarin required) - Beijing
-cap markets - mid-level (Mandarin required) - Beijing
-PE / M&A - junior to mid-level (Mandarin required - Beijing
-cap markets - junior to mid-level (Mandarin required) - Hong Kong
-proj. finance / energy - junior to mid-level (Mandarin required) - Hong Kong
-M&A - senior / counsel (Mandarin required) - Beijing and Shanghai
-M&A / cap markets - mid-level to senior (Japanese required) - Tokyo
—

Firm A - M&A mid-level to senior spot in HK / China

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here, just finishing another all-nighter at about 10am EST I am not proud to say (after all, have to still work on Asia market time when I am stateside with family in our Miami Beach home). Apologies for the couple of weeks without a new post. It has been a very busy past four weeks, with a lot of travel and a surge in Asia associate interview activity finally (as we mentioned in previous post). The surge in interviews that started a few weeks ago has so far resulted in only one senior associate placement in Shanghai (my first associate placement in China since three in January), but we expect three to five associate placements in the next month from the current interview activity in HK / China. We also continue to make partner placements from time to time in this down market, keeping us as busy as ever (we have more partner level candidates in Asia than I can remember at any time previously).

As always, please feel free to ask any questions in comments and we will answer each asap (although this time let’s keep my wife out of the comments, shall we?). The China doomsdayers (all firms are closing withiin 5 years) and impersonaters are welcome too, but these days I have at long last (and at the urging of the “fake Evan, the real fake Evan”) stepped up to the plate with my very own ATL account for commenting, complete with photo, an example of technical savy to be sure.

Please note a sampling of some of our more urgent associate openings (although “urgent” in this market does not make for quick offers, as we have seen even a few five round interview processes):

Tokyo - project finance / leveraged finance mid-level to senior associate, Korean required

Dubai - PE / M&A mid-level to senior associate, must be UK qualified

Beijing - PE / M&A mid-level to senior associate, Mandarin required

Shanghai - IP litigation senior associate, Mandarin required

Hong Kong - PE / M&A mid-level to senior associate, Mandarin preferred

More notes on Asian economic vitality after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Although the lateral market in Asia continues to be very slow, as expected in the downturn, we have seen a substantial upturn in interviewing of our candidates in Asia recently. For example, currently the following of my associate candidates are actively interviewing in Asia, each at multiple firms (there are others with single interviews):

*mid-level cap markets associate (Mandarin fluent) from HK interviewing in HK
senior cap markets associate from HK (Mandarin fluent) interviewing in HK
*mid-level PE / M&A associate from US interviewing in HK
*mid-level M&A associate from US (Mandarin fluent) interviewing in HK
*senior M&A / cap markets associate from US (Korean fluent) interviewing in HK
*mid-level project finance associate from US (Korean fluent) interviewing in Tokyo
*mid-level M&A associate from US (Mandarin fluent) interviewing in HK
*mid-level M&A associate from HK (Mandarin fluent) interviewing in Beijing
*mid-level IP associate from US (Mandarin fluent) interviewing in Beijing
*mid-level project finance associate from US interviewing in Abu Dhabi
*junior M&A associate from US (Mandarin fluent) interviewing in Beijing and HK
*mid-level funds associate from US interviewing in HK

It is important to note that firms are moving slow to give offers so the interviewing activity above is not indicative of offers coming soon for each (as it was during the recent boom times for lateral hiring). However, I am getting the impression that some firms are ready to give offers after some months of delay in filling openings. I do think that all the above associates will be placed in Asia in ‘09.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

This is Robert again following up on last week’s introduction to the sort of people who become partners in firms in Asia. Before breaking down the specific categories of people who make partner as promised, it may be helpful to provide the common threads that connect all the people we have gotten to know in Asia who are successful partners in their firms. In the first place, whether you are a US/UK native, Chinese, Japanese, or some other nationality, there is no one we know in Asia who is a partner in a major law firm who does not have above average people and cultural skills. When we meet partners who may be candidates at law firm clients for lateral partner, we rate them on several criteria: language skill, legal skill (as evidenced by the type of work, clients, and our gut), client following, and people/cultural skill, each on a scale of one to five. If we can’t rate a person a four or five in each of these categories, we don’t view them as viable candidates for partner placement. Our experience at this sort of rating has been pretty successful. I can think of one candidate off of the top of my head whom we rated a five on the language and legal skills categories, but only a 3 and a 1, respectively, on the other two categories: client following and people/cultural skill. We did not work with him but he was hired as a junior partner by a firm that is a rung or two down on the league tables and does not get first grab at the better candidates. He did not work out in that position so far.

Clearly the client following and people/cultural skills are intertwined: people who are nerds normally don’t have many clients. The fact is that in Asia there are very few clients who do not expect to have personal relationships with their attorneys. Even the most high end firms have to work hard to maintain client relationships. So, if you’re a dork and can’t stomach the concept of selling your services every day, don’t expect to make partner in Asia on the basis of working for institutional clients.

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Robert here. Loyal readers of our blog will have noticed that I tend to remain in the background here. The truth is that Evan really is an outstanding recruiter, and I prefer to have him out in front of our associate recruitment efforts in Asia. After seven years of recruiting, four years in Asia, my recruiting interest is primarily in assisting partners. My practice dovetails with that of Evan and our other recruiters since satisfied partners continue to have needs at the associate level for many years after we place them and they tend to hire us to fill those needs. Luckily for us, we’ve been involved in more than our share of partner recruitment successes. With the addition of Alexis Lamb to our Hong Kong office, our Asia team is truly coming into its own. I’m very proud of what we have done in Asia but I’m happy to have Evan and Alexis doing most of the direct work with associates.

It seems to me that as a sort of diversion from our usual intense focus in this column on matters that pertain to associate candidates’ immediate interests, some of you actually still want to be partner in a law firm and might benefit from knowing a few things about the process before arriving. Who makes partner at firms in Asia compared to US counterparts, for example? Are your chances better or worse as a result of moving to Asia? And what will the future be for those who succumb to the allure of an Asian career and actually “succeed” in a law firm by becoming partner?

***More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. As promised, in this post we will provide some basic evidence of encouraging signs that China’s economy could recover in ‘09. Our new Hong Kong based recruiter, Alexis Lamb (Texas JD ‘04, former associate at Linklaters’ HK and O’Melveny NYC), contributed to this post. As always, we welcome your comments, whether you agree or disagree (yes, including doomsday commenter #4 from last week), and I will try to timely respond to all of them.

As mentioned in previous AC posts and comments, we are, naturally, in frequent conversations with law firm partners and other business leaders in Asia, and the prevailing opinion, even from the most conservative and pessimistic, is that the major law firm deal flow in China could recover somewhat, if not yet to previous recent boom levels, by second half 2009 and that 2010 will likely be a good year. Keep in mind that the downturn hit China about one year after the US markets and it will likely recover well ahead of the US markets.

The Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Limited, Dr. Stephen Roach, has predicted recently that China’s economy will recover by the second half of 2009. In contrast, Roach predicts that the U.S. is only 20% through its deleveraging cycle and it will be a number of years before adjustments are complete. Merrill Lynch & Co., Hong Kong, economist Lu Ting: “China looks set to be the first major economy to recover from the current global meltdown.”

More after the jump.

[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.]

Evan here. Today’s post covers (in a very basic way) a) the current poor state of the short-term lateral hiring market in Asia and the Middle East; and b) the strong possibility remains that qualified US associate candidates, who are focused on settling down in Asia, can still land there at top firms in the next 3 to 18 months (it is more unpredictable in Middle East, but also possible). As always, please feel free to comment and I will reply to all (please note, however, that these posts are not memos and I am simply too busy to spend more than thirty minutes or so writing them, so no need to point out spelling and grammar errors).

Before we get started, here are two unique and interesting urgent needs we have:

PE / M&A senior associate in Dubai at major US firm - UK qualified is strongly preferred

Mid-level to senior corporate associate in Eastern Europe at major US firm - specific type of corporate experience not required, Russian language fluency preferred, willingness to work and live in less than fully modernized city required (ok, it is not Asia, but we work Eastern Europe and Russia markets too, thanks to efforts of my colleague, Yuliya Vinokurova.

As mentioned in prior posts and / or comments, the global downturn, while affecting US market lateral hiring since late ‘07, started to affect lateral hiring in Asia significantly in late ‘08. In the first three quarters of ‘08, lateral hiring in Asia was down from the record breaking ‘07, but not nearly as significantly so as in the US markets. However, starting in October ‘08, we started to notice a more severe drop off in lateral hiring in Asia. In the Middle East, we have noticed a drop off in lateral hiring since late summer of ‘08 and, unlike in HK / China (but similar to Japan), there has been only a very small amount of US associate hiring since then (HK / China lateral hiring is substantially down, but not as much as Dubai, for example).

More after the jump…

[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.]

Evan here, writing from Miami, packing up for another Asia trip this weekend.

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year!! Most firms in HK / China close their doors completely all this week for the holidays.

Here are a few pressing needs that we are working on in Asia and Middle East (there are more, but don’t want to make this a job board):

Tokyo - major US firm needs Korean speaking associates in project finance / leveraged finance practice

Dubai - major US firm needs UK qualified PE / M&A senior associate

HK / China - major US firm looking for IP senior associates / counsel / partner level (from US also considered) and would consider entire groups.

—

Despite an over one year long recession in US and Europe there are still a lot of new major firm offices opening up in Asia and Middle East. Although times are tough now, the long-term strategy by firms continue on in what will continue to be very important major legal markets in the future. At some firms, there is a need to build up a certain critical mass in new offices and that cannot always be accomplished by internal transfers within the firm. Here are some new offices in the past approximately 6 months (there are more opening in the next few months) :

Baker & McKenzie - Abu Dhabi
Ropes & Gray - Hong Kong
Akin Gump - Abu Dhabi
Weil Gotshal - Beijing
Weil Gotshal - Dubai
Curtis Mallet - Dubai
Proskauer Rose - Hong Kong
Salans - Beijing
Winston & Strawn - Hong Kong
Dechert - Beijing
Covington & Burling - Beijing
Walkers - Singapore
Goodwin Procter - Hong Kong

More after the jump.