[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.

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 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.