Asia Chronicles, Sponsored Content

The Asia Chronicles: Tokyo to Texas

By  
on

Asia Chronicles logo.jpg
Tokyo subway.JPG[Ed. note: This post is authored by the Asia Recruiting Team at 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: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

This is Robert, writing jet-lagged after just having returned to Texas from Tokyo, where my partner remains right now prior to returning to Hong Kong in a couple of days for a stay of several weeks. I live in Austin, Texas because this is where I last practiced law, with Brobeck from 2000-2002, Austin is a nice place to live, and this is where our two children (ages six and eight) were born. The flight connections are surprisingly good – I had a full day of meetings on Friday in Tokyo and was home in time for dinner with my family the same day. Still, this is not a particularly convenient place to run one of the leading Asia-focused legal recruiting practices in the country. Thankfully, my partner in the region is able to spend a majority of his time in Asia these days (and he has the Executive Platinum status and bulging passport to prove it) and my wife is understanding of my four or five annual trips of one or two weeks each.

We make these trips for two main reasons. First, we believe in providing the most transparent possible service to our candidates and clients and in doing so with the highest value-add of any recruiting firm. We can’t add much value if all we do is make a few late night phone calls and send a few resumes, and we’re not going to exaggerate to make up for lack of actual experience. It drives me crazy to see the level of exaggeration and puffery that surrounds most legal recruiters’ advertising. Secondly, because of our success in the region we are now working on several strategic plays by law firms in Asia, involving potentially large shifts in the market. Appearing live is an absolute necessity to keep these deals moving.

Read more after the jump.


By listing the offers our Asia associate candidates have received in the last two years (most of them, anyway), we showed you a huge window into our activities in the region last week. Our strengths are pretty well known at this point, particularly to anyone who has spent time talking to us about a plan to enter the region or move between firms, or move back to the US. If you would rather have someone email around your resume in a limited way, you might be able to get one of our competitors to pay you a small portion of its fee as a kickback, but I think at this point it’s fair to say that you will get what you pay for. That said, if you are the kind of candidate who’s so motivated by the “bonus” that you would take your chances with that sort of service, please contact us first. Call me and mention this as an issue the first time we talk and, in many cases, we’ll also pay a bonus. And if we agree to help and pay a bonus, we won’t give you inferior service. Otherwise, if you have taken your chances with another recruiting firm, we’re generally unable to help for six months to a year.

So, this brings me to the final point of this article: we need help. We know we are well positioned to help our candidates in Asia who are interested in moving between firms. In view of the fact that our US competitors seem to be busy stealing each other’s people and advertising positions in Hong Kong (when the needs are actually quite well hidden, just as in New York), we must be doing something correctly. But we are keenly aware of our need to add to our network of recruiters in Asia. Our connections within US and most UK law firms in Asia are second to none, but our network could be better outside of law firms. If you are a very bright person, currently with a recruiting firm or with a law firm in Asia, and if you would like to consider the sort of platform and training in recruiting in Asia we could offer you, please get in touch with me at Robert at KinneyRecruiting dot com. If you know of someone else with whom we should speak, we’re all ears. And we’ll pay a referral bonus!

Please also get in touch with us regarding topics you would like discussed in upcoming issues of the Asia Chronicles.

Sponsored

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

* * * * *

The Asia Chronicles are sponsored by Kinney Recruiting. You can reach them by email at asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.

Sponsored

Topics