[Disclosure: This post is authored not by the Asia Corporate Lawyers, but by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting — sponsor of the Asia Chronicles, and an ATL advertiser. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past two years. You can reach them by email at asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

On Monday we discussed some positive trends in M&A in Asia, notwithstanding the turmoil in credit markets and overall economic downturn globally. Today, we discuss very briefly some of the lateral hiring trends we have been seeing in Asia recently and in ‘08 in general.

We have not seen an overall reduction in hiring of U.S. associates in Asia, but firms have been much more selective than in ‘07. This is for a variety of reasons. Some notable U.S. and British firms in Asia are hiring at a significantly slower clip than in ‘07, but this unfortunate trend is being balanced out by other peer firms hiring significantly more than in ‘07. There are a number of firms in heavy expansion mode, with several top U.S. firms in Hong Kong / China, for example, that will easily double the size of their offices in ‘08. Some U.S. firms in Asia have very aggressive medium-term (5-6 year) expansion plans to have 100+ attorney offices. Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly to readers, some of the most urgent needs still happen to be for mid-level to senior U.S. securities associates, despite the slower pace of capital-markets deal flow coming in.

It is important to note that in ‘08, there are as much as three to four times as many U.S. associate candidates on the market for Asia positions, compared to ‘07. Firms can afford to be a lot more selective and also can take their time with hiring decisions, much more than was the case in the frenzied hiring environment in Asia in ‘07. While we are seeing the same pace of hiring in the Asia markets in ‘08 that we saw in ‘07, it has become a more difficult market to break into for some U.S. associates than was the case in ‘07.

Read more, after the jump.

We and our sponsors on this series of articles, Kinney Recruiting, Inc., have taken some heat in the comments and our inboxes over the last two months. Now that we have slowed up a bit at work, after being slammed for several weeks, next week we’ll move forward with more substance about what it’s actually like to work here in Asia.

Perhaps what follows will assist some of you in understanding why Kinney’s involved. We thought it might be cathartic (for us) and informative (for you) for us to lay out why we turn to Kinney Recruiting as a source of information for these posts.

This article discusses what we think you should look for in a U.S. associate recruiter for the Asia market. We’ll use Kinney as an example, because we think they make the grade, but we aren’t saying that only Kinney can do a good job representing a U.S. associate in the Asia markets.

If you are considering a job search in Asia, you should put a lot of thought into the recruiter selection process. Don’t just go with the next recruiter that cold calls you. The process is much more complicated than simply making a move down the street or to another domestic market. It’s a higher-risk process for both the candidate and the target firms.

We suggest that you ask any recruiter who wishes to represent you in Asia the following questions before sending in your resume:

1) How many U.S. associate placements has the recruiter made in the particular Asia market you are targeting? Some U.S.-based recruiters that claim expertise in Asia have actually made few if any placements there, and many Asia-based recruiters have placed exclusively locally-qualified attorneys.

2) Can the recruiter provide five or more references of past U.S. associate placements in Asia?

3) Can the recruiter provide detailed information about the interview / hiring process? The process can take months and include numerous phone calls, video conferences, and Asia travel.

4) Who are the specific partner contacts the recruiter has at each target firm and in your practice area?

5) How much time does the recruiter spend in Asia each year? Ask for details regarding particular cities and firm office visits.

6) Can the recruiter provide details regarding expat / cola / housing packages at each firm you are targeting?

7) Can the recruiter provide you with details regarding the practice focuses at each of your target firms, including sample deal sheets?

There are many more questions to ask at early stages of the process, but these should help you determine whether the recruiter you’re dealing with can truly add value to your job search.

If the recruiter can’t answer these questions in a way that demonstrates familiarity with the Asia markets, could he/she still place you? Sure he could. A doctor who has never taken out an appendix could probably get yours out safely, too. But do you want your doctor experimenting on your appendix, or someone else’s? Be realistic — you want the best services if you are going to be trying your luck in Asia these days. A recruiter who has won the trust of hiring partners through repeated experiences with them will not only have more information to add to the mix for you, but will also be more likely to get the ear of the people who will make decisions about whether your future will be with a good firm out here.

Next week we’ll look at the actual state of the market out here in Asia, market by market. While the five of us have Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo covered, we’ll also be gathering data from our colleagues at firms in mainland China and other parts of Asia. If you know of specific openings or needs in these markets, please contact us.

Earlier: Prior installments of the Asia Chronicles (scroll down)

[Disclosure: Kinney Recruiting, which has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past two years, is the sponsor of this post.]

Welcome to the second installment of a recurring ATL feature: the Above the Law Roundtable. In each roundtable, we put together a panel of experts to discuss an issue of interest to the ATL community. Our inaugural roundtable, back in April, focused on electronic discovery (a subject that many of you are all too familiar with).

Today we turn to a topic that interests many readers, at least based on the amount of email we receive about it: legal recruiting and placement. Some of the questions we wanted answered:

We continue our series of open threads on the lateral hiring process. Yesterday’s post, which addressed the “why” and “when” of making a lateral move, generated almost 200 comments.

Here are the questions for today’s open thread, concerning the “how” of the lateral process:

1. What are the benefits of headhunters / recruiters versus personal referrals versus blind emails / cover letters?

2. What is the lateral interview process like (as opposed to law school interviews)?

If you have information or opinions to contribute on these subjects, please share them in the comments. Thanks.

Earlier: Lateral Move Open Thread: When and Why?

Over the past few months, we’ve received several requests for a series of open threads on lateral moves — i.e., how to move from one law firm to another (as opposed to moves from Biglaw to government, academia, or public interest).

We’ve decided to launch a series of open threads devoted to this subject, similar to our Fall Recruiting Open Threads, in which people can trade information and gossip about the lateral move process. From a tipster:

Please please please do a thread or series of threads on how to make a lateral move. With bonuses being paid, or coming soon, it seems like it might be lateral season, and there are a lot of people thinking of jumping ship. The market is shaky, which makes the decision more complicated than in the past.

There was a (very) little bit of useful information in the Headhunter from Hell thread, but it mostly got buried by people trashing the person who emailed you the story. You could break it down into a series of posts (like with Biglaw Perk Watch).

We like the idea of dragging things out over a series of posts (especially since we seem to be in a slow news period right now). Our correspondent helpfully laid out a series of possible topics related to lateral movement. We’ll devote this thread to two of them, saving the rest for posterity:

1. When is the right time to move?

2. What are good reasons to move — i.e., how do you avoid the “same s***, different office” problem?

If you have thoughts on these subjects, please share them in the comments. Thanks.

Ed. note: We have nothing against headhunters or legal recruiters. To the contrary, we’re generally big fans of them — especially the ones who advertise on ATL, making this website possible.

But it can’t be denied that some of them can be real pains in the a**. If you have a headhunter horror story to share, feel free to submit it by email (subject line: “Headhunter Horror Story”).

We’ll kick off the series with this fantastic story, which a reader just submitted. It’s long, but worth it — highly entertaining, suspenseful, and written with real panache. Enjoy!

********************
Sure, we’ve all had annoying recruiters call. Many of us have decided to accept a free lunch from these yahoos from time to time to garner some legal gossip. I was not such a person until yesterday, and it turned out to be an utter disaster.

Part 1: The romancing.
A recruiter, let’s call him Bob, has been calling me for over a year. I have blown him off 1000 times and told him I am happy at my mid-sized firm. My salary and bonus structure is good, and as a third-year lawyer, I’m really practicing law. (I’ve never even summarized a deposition.)

One day, we had plans to go to lunch at a nearby seafood restaurant, but I canceled at the last minute. Still, he calls every few weeks about some new position at some major firm looking for a person exactly like me (which is doubtful, considering my less than stellar law school grades).

Part 2: The lunch invitation.
Bob calls me Monday and says that Jones Day is interested in seeing my resume. Again, he tells me what amazing experience I have, blah blah, and asks me to give him my resume. He also says he still wants to take me to lunch. I say, “Let’s go tomorrow.” He says ok and that he will call me Tuesday morning to finalize plans.

Part 3. The planning.
First thing Tuesday morning, Bob calls and asks me where I’d like to go. I say that I have no idea, he presses me to choose, and I say, “Well, let’s redo our old plans and go to [the seafood restaurant]. I’ve never been there, so I don’t know if it’s good.” He says, “It’s…ok, that’s good. Let’s go there. I wouldn’t want to take you to Jason’s Deli or anything, and there’s not much more over there. Let’s meet at noon.”

Part 4. The falling apart.
At 11:30, Bob leaves a voice mail that he needs to move our lunch to 12:30. At about 12, he calls again to ask if I got the message. He then says, “I wish I could say that some big negotiation came up, but the truth is, I forgot my ATM pin number and it locked me out from getting cash after I tried three different numbers. So I’ll have to use credit for our lunch. But I’ll see you at 12:30.” He then describes what he’ll be wearing.

Read the rest, after the jump.