Asia Pacific Legal Market Summary And Partner Moves - March 2019

(As excerpted from our monthly Associate Newsletter - Asia Pacific)

Associate Newsletter – Asia Pacific is a monthly resource that reports current legal market news, trends, partner moves and active opportunities in the Asia Pacific legal markets.

Legal Market Summary

HONG KONG

The Hong Kong market is busy with opportunities across different areas and at mid- to senior levels. The busiest practice areas include corporate, capital markets, funds and finance. There are a few opportunities in the M&A, capital markets and finance space for mid-level lawyers with at least three years of post-qualification experience that do not require Mandarin language skills, which do not often appear in the market. We foresee the market remaining busy for the next couple of months.

CHINA

The Hong Kong market is busy with opportunities across different areas and at mid- to senior levels. The busiest practice areas include corporate, capital markets, funds and finance. There are a few opportunities in the M&A, capital markets and finance space for mid-level lawyers with at least three years of post-qualification experience that do not require Mandarin language skills, which do not often appear in the market. We foresee the market remaining busy for the next couple of months.

SINGAPORE

The Singapore market has picked up. Law firms had a big year in 2018 for corporate teams and continue to hire those with corporate experience. They have pre-empted the growth and are hiring the best people in the market rather than being reactive.

Funds is another busy area where a lot of hiring activities has occurred in the past month. Hiring on the banking team has slowed down, but talent with UK experience is still in need for firms.

SOUTH KOREA

Korea remains steady with opportunities focused around corporate M&A and PE, as well as more general transactional practices. There is still a strong preference for US-qualified talent with fluency in Korean who are looking to return to Seoul. A small handful of firms are open to candidates being based in Hong Kong. English fluency is important for drafting, sometimes preferred over Korean fluency. High-quality training and academics are essential for the market at the moment.

JAPAN

A need for Japanese companies to look to overseas markets for investment opportunities persists, and the market is being driven by a keen interest in international expansion into outside markets in the US, EU, Southeast Asia, China and India. There is a strong appetite for transactional lawyers across domestic and international firms. Japanese lawyers and bilingual foreign-qualified lawyers with 2-5+ PQE experience are highly sought after.

SYDNEY & MELBOURNE

As we look to close out the first quarter of the year, we see continued demand from top tier and international law firms in Sydney and Melbourne for banking & finance, corporate/M&A and infrastructure/ major project lawyers.

Demand is normally at the 2+ year PQE through to senior associates with 8 or 9 years’ PQE. The demand is currently focused on Australian qualified lawyers; however, firms are open to sponsoring UK, New Zealand and South African qualified lawyers with high level experience who wish to relocate to Australia.

Demand for commercial litigators continues to be high across Sydney and Melbourne. Technology, real estate, financial services and regulatory lawyers are also finding the market relatively favourable.

Partner Moves