Earlier this week somebody posted to China Law Discussion list asking…
What would be the prospects of US lawyers looking for work on mainland China..
As regular readers of AALE will be aware there’s been quite a lot of discussion via blogs and articles as to whether China & the Asia legal market in general will be an engine for growth and recovery of the legal market in general.
So we find this response on the China Law Discussion list this morning by a Canadian lawyer with China experience, to the question posed earlier in the week very instructive.
Basically as with all other areas of employment in China and this extends to Hong Kong to a degree. For one Gweilo you can get 10 locals and as he points out it’s the locals who are going to bring the business not the foreigner
“The question posed is a very interesting one. Large salaries in Chinese firms are for the most part unheard of when starting out. Right now, with the Chinese market being so bad, new Chinese lawyers with masters degrees are accepting 3,000 RMB a month. This has had a huge effect on Western salaries – I can hire 10 Chinese persons for 1 foreigner. Unless the foreign trained lawyer can bring in business, they cannot expect much at all. In most cases a Chinese law firm will ask the employee to assume the risk and prove themselves before they can gain much of a salary. 10-30,000 RMB a month would be a likely starting point.
If the person has business that they can bring with them and it is significant, they can become a partner immediately.
These were my observations during my recent firm change and they are IP-centric.
At this time, I would not want to be a lawyer looking for a job in China.”
