Kinney Recruiting See Some Positive Signs In Asia Legal Market

In their latest post for the Above the Law site .. Asia based Kinney Recruiting see some positives in the Asia legal recruiting market..not much ..but some

Here’s what they say….

Ed. note: This post is authored by Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney of Kinney Recruiting, sponsor of the Asia Chronicles. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates and partners in Asia than any other firm in the past two years. You can reach them by email: asia at kinneyrecruiting dot com.]

Evan here. Things are getting busier for us in Asia, in particular in HK / China. Robert just returned from a trip to Hong Kong, where he typically met with numerous firms, as well as a number of impressive partner candidates that we are representing, including a few that we are in the process of placing. It was an extremely productive trip.

Robert and I plan to be in Beijing for the China Finance Summit, May 19-20 (http://www.chinasummit.org/) (Chinese version of website more up to date than English, or so I am told). Should be an interesting and informative conference and I am very fortunate that a friend is arranging a VIP pass, so another good networking opportunity. I will head back to HK and Tokyo in early June, followed by Dubai in late June. Alexis will be at home in HK throughout May and June. Robert will be back in HK at some point in June as well.

In today’s and next week’s posts, we will very briefly and in a basic manner go over the typical process of an associate placement in Asia in today’s market. In short, in many cases (not always of course) we work with associate candidates for months and even years before a job search begins. Further, in this tough market, job searches for even the most qualified and sought after associate candidates can take months. In this post we will focus on the process of working with the firm side of placements currently in the works, by giving two examples, whereas next week the focus will be on the candidate side.

But first, here is a sampling (not all of course) of 15 of our current US associate needs (please note that firms continue to be extremely selective, due to market conditions):

  • -proj. finance / energy – senior / counsel (Mandarin required) – Hong Kong
  • -finance – junior to mid-level (Korean required) – Hong Kong
  • -proj. finance / leveraged finance – junior to senior (Korean required) – Tokyo
  • -PE / M&A – mid-level (Mandarin required) – Hong Kong (several of these)
  • -PE / M&A – mid-level (English only ok) – Hong Kong
  • -M&A / cap markets – mid-level (Korean required) – Hong Kong
  • -IP Litigation – senior / counsel (Mandarin required) – Hong Kong and Shanghai
  • -IP Transactional – mid-level (Mandarin required) – Hong Kong
  • -M&A / cap markets mix – mid-level (Mandarin required) – Beijing
  • -cap markets – mid-level (Mandarin required) – Beijing
  • -PE / M&A – junior to mid-level (Mandarin required – Beijing
  • -cap markets – junior to mid-level (Mandarin required) – Hong Kong
  • -proj. finance / energy – junior to mid-level (Mandarin required) – Hong Kong
  • -M&A – senior / counsel (Mandarin required) – Beijing and Shanghai
  • -M&A / cap markets – mid-level to senior (Japanese required) – Tokyo

Read the full post at http://abovethelaw.com/2009/05/the_asia_chronicles_anatomy_of.php