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business planning. Navinder Singh, founding partner of boutique shipping practice Navin & Co in Singapore, agrees. “Being a compact practice, we give our clients direct and personalised access to the partners’ combined experience of 25 years.” “Being flexible isn’t all about size,” argues Matthew Laight, the Greater China managing partner at Bird & Bird. “Flexibility, especially in the current climate, means being able to offer clients different solutions to problems; solutions which may not have been previously considered.” For Nishith Desai, managing partner of Nishith Desai & Associates, flexibility and innovation are inextricably linked: “Innovation breeds flexibility. Building an innovative mindset is the way that smaller players can challenge the larger players in the market. Innovation is a global mindset;
“Our strong team of partners working across four offices in Asia are developing innovative services and fee structures that are designed to save costs for clients” Matthew Laight, Bird & Bird
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it’s something that can cross borders.”
Leveraging location
“Things are not easy at the moment,” says Zhang Zhi, a founding partner at Chinese firm V&T. “But in many ways it’s not as tough as the situation confronting lawyers in the West. It has been said that it’s a good time to be a lawyer in China, and I have to agree.” A good time to be a lawyer in Asia, in fact, a point on which the lawyers interviewed for this article concur. “People have been talking about the rise of Asia as a sort of bloc for a while, now,” says Gagie. “The economic troubles in Europe and the US have only served to focus people’s attention more on Asia, looking to it as a sort of saviour. This should benefit lawyers when things bounce back but, as always, it’s more easily said than done.” It is not simply a case of setting up shop in Asia and bringing lawyers on board, according to Gagie, or ‘going on undirected growth’, as Desai notes. To succeed, firms must leverage a number of factors: location; technical knowledge and industry expertise; the age-old issue of client care; and, in some cases, their home jurisdiction. The latter is arguably most important to offshore law firms. Edwards, whose firm advises on Isle of Man (IOM) law to its Asian clients, explains. “The IOM is not a particularly well-known jurisdiction in Asia at the moment. It has definitely been a well-kept secret, but it is a leading international financial centre.” “The IOM’s profile has been raised significantly by our entrance into Singapore, but we have something of an extended role to play here. Not only do we have to sell ourselves and develop our brand; we also have to promote our home jurisdiction.” “People have talked about the rise of Asia for some time,” says Gagie. “The economic troubles in Europe and the US have only served to focus people’s attention more on Asia, looking to it
“In 2009, we will be looking for more high-calibre people to join us. When the IPO market comes back, we want to compete for the headline transactions” Michael Gagie, Harney Westwood & Reigels
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