FEATURE | am law 100 >>
Mullin Richter & Hampton’s move to China in February of last year, where it represents a number of banks, electronics and consumer products companies. “We had quite vibrant China and Korea practices in our US offices, and the decision to open in China was a reflection of our clients urging us to follow them into Asia,” explains David Huebner, the firm’s office administrative partner in Shanghai. Today, he says, half his office’s work is outbound, in keeping with the firm’s business model for expansion. Not everyone is seeking hefty tranches of outbound work, however. With over 1,400 lawyers around the world, Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis first started thinking about opening an office in the Far East in 2004 – though they did not cut the ribbon on their Hong Kong operation for two more years. Interestingly, the firm did not go into Asia with an eye toward developing a broad mix of inbound and outbound work, but rather with a sharp focus on serving private equity fund clients such as Bain Capital, Oaktree Capital and Sun Capital, which had themselves started to make inroads in China. “Our concept is a unique one,” admits David Patrick Eich, Kirkland’s senior partner in Hong Kong. “There are already a lot of people in [the generalist] space, and we decided that we would focus entirely on inbound private equity work.” Among other things, this means that there is little need to think about any sort of strategic partnership or alliance with a local firm. Kirkland’s clients, quips Eich, “want a Kirkland product that speaks Chinese”. American firms are taking other approaches to China as well – such as that of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, or WilmerHale. Founded in 1918, this venerable American firm is also a relative grey hair in the China market, having first opened its Beijing office in 2004. WilmerHale’s China practice is not so much oriented around deal work as helping clients navigate the tricky intersection between commerce, government and regulation – a crossroads as intimidating to the newcomer as any peak-hour crosswalk in Shanghai. With its office in Beijing, WilmerHale joins other American firms such as Akin Gump www.legalbusinessonline.com
► BIG US FIRMS – OFFICES IN ASIA (CONT) 2006 Rank 50 51 52 53 54 55 56
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Arnold & Porter Wachtell Fried, Frank Squire, Sanders Alston & Bird Wilson Sonsini
Firm
57 58 59 60 61
Sonnenschein Howrey Kaye Scholer Katten Muchin Bryan Cave
62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 82 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 92 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
2006 gross revenue (US$) 499m 475m 474m 470m 465m 462m 460m
Hong Kong Yes No No Yes Yes No No
China
S’pore
Japan
Elsewhere
Beijing No No Shanghai Beijing, Shanghai No Shanghai
No No No No No No No
No No No No Yes No No
Taipei No No No No No No
459m 457m 426m 420m 411m
No No No No Yes
No No Shanghai No Shanghai
No No No No Yes
No No No No Yes
Dewey Ballantine Covington & Burling Wiley Rein Nixon Peabody Seyfarth Shaw McGuireWoods Schulte Roth Perkins Coie Duane Morris
408m 408m 407m 392m 391m 387m 369m 356m 336m
No No No No No No No No No
No No No Shanghai No No No Beijing, Shanghai No
No No No No No No No No Yes
No No No No No No No No No
Cooley Godward Dorsey & Whitney Jenner & Block Troutman Sanders Edwards Angell Sheppard, Mullin Baker & Hostetler Quinn Emanuel Steptoe & Johnson Fish & Richardson Blank Rome Dickstein Shapiro Shook, Hardy Stroock & Stroock Finnegan, Henderson Buchanan Ingersoll Venable Kilpatrick Stockton Womble Carlyle Wilson Elser Kramer Levin Cahill Gordon Mintz, Levin Sutherland Asbill Pepper Hamilton Patton Boggs Chadbourne & Parke Faegre & Benson Drinker Biddle Ballard Spahr
335m 329m 320m 307m 305m 301m 300m 298m 293m 286m 284m 281m 281m 275m 272m 271m 268m 266m 265m 265m 262m 260m 260m 259m 259m 255m 254m 248m 246m 243m
No Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
No Shanghai No Shanghai No Shanghai No No No No Hong Kong No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Beijing Shanghai No No
No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
No No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
No Taipei No No Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Makati, Philippines No No No No No No No No Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Taipei No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Source: The American Lawyer, May 2007 ** Gross revenue includes a significant contingency fee or fees
in making a conscious decision to be where the political decision-making happens. This has allowed them to service an increasing number of clients in everything from winning approval for foreign investment to fighting intellectual property and dumping claims. According to local WilmerHale partner Lester Ross, while the assumption was that most of the Beijing office’s work would be inbound, “since opening we now do about 25% of our work on outbound matters”. Still, if any consensus exists about the right model for American law firms
doing business in China, it is that there is no consensus. “I think people are wrestling with what is the best model for dealing with the considerable differences between how US law firms work and where the Chinese legal model is,” notes Eich. “Certainly McDermott’s strategic alliance with MWE China Law Offices [the firm set up by exAllBright partners John Huang and Kevin Qian] is one data point that a lot of attention was paid to last year.” Above all, American firms looking to open in China must remember that one size does not fit all. ALB 57