新年快乐!
Robert here, writing from the Miami airport, about to head off to London. Happy Chinese New Year to all of our readers! Let’s hope the Year of the Tiger is a good one. It has been a very busy few weeks, mainly due to a relatively hot lateral recruiting market in HK / China (also, my hometown Saints winning the Super Bowl here in Miami was quite a wonderful distraction). Robert and I were in Hong Kong earlier this month and we will be visiting our Moscow offices and making the rounds at our firm clients there (along with our colleagues, Yuliya Vinokurova, our resident Moscow recruiter, and Daniel Roark) later this week for seven days. Robert was also in Shanghai earlier this month and I was in Tokyo and will be heading to Singapore from Moscow. Robert and I will be back in HK and SHG in March. 
In Hong Kong, Robert and I have been very much involved with the recent US firm rush to take on HK practices and that recruiting at the partner / group level has been fun, but quite intensive. Next week we will write about how this new important trend will affect US associate and counsel recruiting in HK in 2010. The HK / China biglaw US attorney lateral hiring market has most definitely picked up to the highest levels we have seen since mid ‘08. For example, in the past week, I made two placements in HK, one associate and one counsel. In January and February, I have 12 new associate hires starting their new jobs in HK / China. However, there are still far too many very qualified candidates on the market for the growing number of positions available. Thus, all major US and UK firms in HK / China can be extremely selective when filling openings. Also, there are still a handful of top US firms that remain on hiring freeze and a number of US and UK top firms in HK / China that are off hiring freeze but do not have the green light to hire for all their current needs. Firms falling into that latter category are typically focusing on cap markets hiring because of all the IPO deal flow that has been occurring in HK / China, although IPO work could fall off a little bit, temporarily, while the SHG and HK indexes have hit a snag recently. We believe there will be a further up tick in US associate lateral hiring in HK / China for the next month or two, as many partners we talk to were waiting until after the Chinese New Year holidays to ramp up recruiting efforts. Please do not be fooled though with what seems like a red hot lateral market in HK / China. It may seem the market is hotter than it really is because so many biglaw recruiters are trying to figure out how to break into the HK / China, the only hot biglaw lateral markets now. Surely, you have had a dramatic increase of cold calls recently, especially if you happen to be Chinese and / or have Mandarin fluency listed on your firm web bio. However, keep in mind that the biglaw deal flow in HK / China has been strong since last summer, especially in cap markets, and many firms have been understaffed by one or two associates for months. Now that most of these firms are relaxing their hiring freezes, at least somewhat, there is a spurt of hiring going on, due to pent up demand. I do not think this rate of hiring will continue for more than a few months before tapering off a bit. Since last fall, most top US firms in HK / China have been following a pattern of coming off hiring freeze and within one month hiring 2 to 4 new US associates, but then slowing down hiring substantially. For example, I placed 4 associates at one US firm’s HK offices from July to September last year; made 3 placements at another US firm’s HK and BJ offices in November and December; and made 3 placements at another US firm’s HK and BJ offices from December and January. There are a few more firms that we predict will come off hiring freeze soon and make similar hiring runs. Even with all the hiring going on in HK / China, as long as the US and other Western markets continue to be very slow biglaw lateral markets, there will be too big of an influx of qualified candidates in the HK / China markets for the amount of openings that exist. Thus, while in ‘06, ‘07 and ‘08, we were placing in HK / China US associates from a big variety of top US firms, in ‘09 and thus far in ‘10, the vast majority of US associate placements have been those coming from top 15 firms (more than half from top 5 firms). Further, all of our placements in ‘09 and thus far in ‘10 have had fluency in Mandarin, Japanese or Korean (while in the previous four years we were placing numerous English only associates in HK / China).
Robert 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.