(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

Happy Lunar New Year! We wish everyone good health, happiness and success in the Year of the Ox.

With the number of COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong declining, the government announced that civil servants will return to their offices by late February, and it is expected that other businesses, including law firms, will begin to see more of their employees back in the office in March.

Despite the recent COVID-19 restrictions from prior months, legal recruiting activity continued its steady increase, although active processes did slow down a bit – as expected – over the lunar new year holiday. But recruiting has quickly regained momentum with law firms looking for M&A, capital markets, finance and data privacy lawyers. Most of the openings are at the mid-level to senior level, but we have a handful of junior openings within the M&A and capital markets spaces.
  

CHINA

The Chinese New Year holidays have created the usual recruiting pause, but the end of February saw several law firms back in hiring mode with some firms having multiple openings in varied practice areas including FCPA, M&A and finance. Lawyers with overseas experience are highly desirable. Where relocation is contemplated, holding PRC citizenship status will be a critical decision-making factor due to the ongoing COVID-19 travel restrictions. 

SINGAPORE

The Singapore market continues to grow more confident and law firms are hiring more actively again. We are having conversations with multiple law firms who report hiring plans stemming from both replacement and growth opportunities.  

The active practices include M&A, venture capital, dispute resolution and project finance. The positions are available to mid-level and senior-level lawyer. A handful of junior openings are within the corporate practice.  

SINGAPORE - Interim Legal

After the lunar new year celebrations, we are back helping our clients look for the best interim legal talent in Singapore to support their urgent needs. There is increased demand from clients looking for mid-level lawyers with technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) experience. Also, seeking flexibility, several clients are requesting to hire interim lawyers for 12 months contracts instead of the traditional permanent hiring plan. Please reach out to have a confidential conversation if you are immediately available for work or are considering legal consulting as a career option. 

SOUTH KOREA

Despite ongoing COVID-19 concerns and precautions, law firms are operating mostly business as usual in Korea. Recruitment appears to be somewhat picking up with limited opportunities at major international and Korean law firms for highly qualified bilingual corporate and litigation associates. 

JAPAN

Due to the ongoing State of Emergency, many lawyers have returned to working principally from home. Despite the continuing uncertainty, there are quite a few associate-level recruiting efforts starting to move forward in areas such as project finance, capital markets and M&A. Strong language skills and credentials are a must for most roles. The in-house sector also continues to be active. 

AUSTRALIA

The legal recruitment market continues with unprecedented high levels of activity across Sydney where COVID-19 cases have remained low since the New Year’s break. Although Melbourne is currently going through another hard lockdown to stop the spread of a recent outbreak, it also has seen a heightened level of legal recruitment activity across the market. Brisbane and Perth, however, have remained relatively slow.  

Corporate/M&A remains the practice area with the greatest demand, and we are working with multiple top-tier, global and national mid-tier firms across both Sydney and Melbourne who are eager to meet with corporate M&A associates and senior associates. In the past couple of weeks, we also have experienced a material increase in the number of law firms approaching us for hiring assistance for senior associates in the infrastructure and TMT practices. Moreover, litigators with regulatory experience remain in demand at several top-tier firms.  

With Australia’s border remaining closed, law firms are still unable to consider foreign nationals at this stage.

Partner Moves