[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. Evan and I are visiting our Hong Kong office most of this week, getting ready to usher in the year of the tiger. We have a very busy week, with over 30 meetings scheduled.
Today, February 2, 2010, was a special day in the Hong Kong legal community – it was the day that the results of the Hong Kong Law Society’s annual admission examination were published. Interested parties included several dozen partners and associates of top international law firms who were “encouraged” to take the examination last October in order to assist their offices in achieving the required ratio of foreign admitted to Hong Kong admitted attorneys in the offices. A 50/50 ratio or better is required if a firm seeks admission to practice Hong Kong law rather than just foreign law. There has been a sudden recognition among a number of firms that competing in this market is going to require a move beyond advice solely on foreign law issues. The exam is not that hard. It’s fair to say that everyone from the firms that count passed, if they studied.
Some people were too busy to study. The legal market here is booming again, at least temporarily. Lots of practices are “flat out”. Here’s a complete email I received from a friend who is a partner in an international firm today – “I’m in KL through Weds night. How long you in town? Find any senior associates for us yet? We are pretty desperate.” This is a capital markets practice. The truth is that we have already probably filled the position, but my friend has just been out of the loop. Things are moving fast here again, which explains why our esteemed competitors are probably calling our readers on a daily basis.
***More after the jump

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Bringing in the Year of the Tiger”

[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.]
Hello from Russia! I am Yuliya Vinokurova, Kinney Recruiting’s resident recruiter in Russia. Yes, Russia is not really Asia of course, but let’s call it the Eurasia Chronicles for a day. While ensconced in my nicely warmed office in St. Petersburg (I split time between St. Petersburg, Moscow and Miami), I am pleased to be able to inform our readership that the market in Russia for lateral associates has finally begun to thaw, at least a little bit, with a few firms now hiring (mostly mid-level US cap markets associates, fluent in Russian). We now have several urgent US associate needs in Moscow. This is a remarkable development and the suddenness of it is a bit surprising to me, considering there were practically no US associate openings as recent as one month ago. For about 15 months there has been very little lateral US associate movement in the Russian legal market, while many firms had layoffs here (as recently as summer ’08, most biglaw firms in Moscow had urgent needs for US and UK background associates, which they then promptly cancelled).
Although most US and UK firms in Moscow are still not hiring and likely will not be for some time, there are four of our client firms who have asked us to provide candidates just in the last week. In fact, ironically, Evan and Robert came across one of the new openings while in NYC yesterday meeting with management of one of our client firms there, regarding their HK / China expansion. Their Moscow office came up in the meeting, due to its recent success and new hiring needs. Their Moscow 4 to 7 year US associate opening is so new that we are the first recruiting firm to hear about it and they are just going to leave it with us for a while, expecting that we can, as usual, deliver a handful of great candidates in the next week or two and help them start the interview process in early January, after the holidays.
***More after the jump.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Hello from Russia!”

[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 airport lounge, about to head off for the weekend (does not mean my phone will not work for candidates this weekend, as usual) and trying to get another Asia Chronicles post out. Just returned Wednesday from a hectic NYC to Hong Kong to Tokyo to NYC trip. When I am in HK it is typically about seven meetings a day (mostly with partner candidates and hiring partners), usually outside of our HK offices (in ICBC), so it takes a couple of days of recovery on Miami Beach upon return. Apologies to all my associate candidates that may have found me to be a bit out of pocket some of this week, while traveling and recovering.
On the first day of the trip, I was on the panel of a seminar at NYU on Asia Practice with Toby Myerson (Paul Weiss), Jonathan Pan (Kind & Wood), Puneet Arora(Pricewaterhouse Coopers), Nan-I Chen (Barclays) and Alex Hao (Vinson & Elkins). I hope more of these kinds of events can occur, to further our goal of educating the biglaw associate community on lateral movement to and within Asia. Thanks again to the Chinese Business Lawyers Association and the NYU Asia Law Society for organizing and sponsoring.
I made two Asia associate placements in the past week, one a mid-level fund formation associate in HK and the other a junior M&A associate in BJ. Both are moving from NYC. Expect more to be official shortly…
Places you can meet with our Asia team over the next couple of weeks: Hong Kong – Alexis is back in HK, where she is based, after being abroad for a few weeks. New York – I will be in NYC Dec. 7 and 8 and Robert and I will be in NYC Dec. 14 to 17. Shanghai – I will be in Shanghai Dec. 19 to 21. My next several week Asia trip will be in January, but trying to spend some time on the home front for the holidays with my wife and family.
Opening of the Week: We have a lot of openings in Asia, but will promote one each week here in the Asia Chronicles. We are representing a top US firm in HK that has an urgent need for an ’09 (deferred) to ’07 US associate with native Korean language skills. A Korean practice partner from this firm will be in NYC next week and if you are interested, and pass a screen interview with me, then I can set up an interview for you with the hiring partner on Wednesday or Thursday. This is a top Korea practice at a top US firm in HK. Very good JD academics and native Korean fluency needed.
***More after the jump.

Continue reading “Asia Chronicles: ODDS AND ENDS; THANKSGIVING IN HK WITH THE MARINES; COUNSEL PAY IN ASIA”

Panelists:
Jonathan Pan, Managing Partner, NYC Office, King & Wood
Toby Myerson, Partner, Co-Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP
Puneet Arora (LLM, 2001) Principal/Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Evan Jowers, Kinney Recruiting, Author of the Asia Chronicles at Above the Law.com
Francis Zou, Senior Counsel, NYC Office, Allen & Overy LLP
Nan-I Chen, Senior in-House Counsel, Barclays Capital

[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.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Asia Openings / Advice to Law Firms Re Giving Offers in Asia”

[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.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Kinney Asia Teamwork / Two Special M&A Opportunities (HK and SHG)”

[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.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: September China Placements /Asia Expat Packages”

[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.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: ISSUES IN PARTNER RECRUITING: DIGGING DEEPER”

[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.

Continue reading “The Asia Chronicles: Hiring Outlook 2nd half ’09 / List of Some Openings”