Interesting blog post on the Marketing Asia website arguing that the HK Law Society isn’t much help for local firms looking to expand their practices overseas..
Here’s what they say
Hong Kong Law Society must get it right
It’s not much fun being a law and accountancy firm these days, particularly if you are one of the smaller firms. Apart from some growth areas such as IP, forensic accounting, bonds in China, and bankruptcy related work, transactional type work has all but dried up in many instances. Smaller firms are doing all they can to save money and unfortunately training budgets and marketing are one of the first things to go out of the window.
The Hong Kong Law Society (HKLS), not exactly a bastion of progressive thinking, has done very little to help these firms aside from offer a few obligatory training courses free of charge, all technically oriented I might add. The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) has not done much better, except keep spending their own money on wasteful and perfunctory advertising (why, I don’t know)! The South China Morning Post quoted the president of the HKLS, Huen Wong, and he said that Hong Kong law firms should start looking at international markets, such as Russia. Interesting since Ikea just announced that it was pulling out of Russiadue to corruption and bribery demands. Perhaps he was suggesting Hong Kong firms could set up anti corruption practices in Russia?
It is all well and good for both the HKLS and the HKICPA to expect their member firms to go international but how do they expect them to do this when they neither have the know how when it comes to international marketing strategy nor the time and resources, since most small and medium sized firms (SMEs) are already tied up fighting fires on a daily basis. I personally approached both the HKLS and the HKICPA a few weeks ago and offered, free of charge, to help them set up practice management resources for their members in order for them to enhance their competencies in management and marketing skills. I was told by the HKICPA ‘that this was something that did not interest them at this time,’ I thought to myself, if it doesn’t interest you now when CPA firms are dying in the water, when would it? I wasn’t so lucky to get such a golden nugget from the HKLS, they just decided not to respond to my suggestions.
Full article at http://marketingasia.typepad.com/marketing_asia/2009/07/hong-kong-law-society-must-get-it-right.html
AALE can’t say it is surprised by the lack of interest from the HKLS.. having contacted them a number of times in the past .. they remind us of what law societies used to be back in the the mid eighties except that they now have websites. HK boutiques, especially commercial ones, will have skills and knowledge that would be of great help to businesses in jurisdictions worldwide who want an entry point to China. Why there aren’t representative offices of these firms in London, New York, Frankfurt, Sydney, Moscow is beyond us. Instead it’s the UK & US giants who command the lions share. Like everything else in HK, and as much as the locals deny it, the colonial legacy remains..and especially within bodies such as the HKLS where things are done as they always have been.
