Evan here, writing from Hong Kong, where we just made two more US associate placements last week and expect another one this week. I just arrived back in Hong Kong late last night, after a family holiday in Bali, and planned to return to US today, but a couple of pending partner level placements in Asia by our team has caused a stay in Hong Kong for another 10 days. Robert is heading back here on Friday. Before Bali, Robert and / or I had been in Tokyo and Hong Kong all of November, for the usual meetings with firms and candidates. Actually, you can catch a photo during my last week in Hong Kong in Sunday's NY Times: Lawyers Wanted, Abroad That Is

Robert here. Evan had intended to follow up on his article from last week regarding expat packages, but he's stuck in a hotel in Hong Kong that our travel people chose, called the Garden View, which has a great location on MacDonnell Road but nothing else to recommend it. Not only is the internet down, but the toilet was not even flushed when Evan arrived. Once he's flushed and reconnected, we'll get the expat discussion back up on the web...

This is Evan from Hong Kong, writing on the fly for about 20 minutes, at 2am, after a long day of meetings, late client dinner and before an early flight to Jakarta. We have recently been asked, by both firms and candidates, whether the downturn is changing the landscape of cola / housing / expat allowances ("expat allowance") in Asia and the Middle East. I have been hit with this question several times this week in meetings and Robert heard it as well two weeks ago in his meetings as well.

So this post will deal with the basic expat allowance rates for associates without children. A follow-up post on Wednesday will deal with school tuition subsidies / reimbursement, expat allowance increases for children, and tax related windfalls (in some markets), as well as some commentary as to whether the current high expat allowances are sustainable for the long-term in Hong Kong and Tokyo, as firms expand in Asia and considering the reality that profit margins can be lower in Asia per billable hour than in US markets.

Robert here. ...

80+ US associate offers in Asia in the past year! This post space will be a shameless advertisement of Kinney Recruiting's recent accomplishments in Asia. Why? The information we have presented about the market over the last couple of years has been spread around and there are some slick recruiters out there who do not have nearly enough to do in their home markets these days. How do YOU determine whether a smooth talker has real experience in Asia before you put your trust in him/her? Our first recommendation: don't focus on flashy banner ads highlighting a couple of placements made in Asia. By all means, listen to whether the recruiter really knows what he is talking about.

No one who talks to our Asia team, led by Evan Jowers, is going to have any doubt he is dealing with someone who knows his business. Evan's been named one of the 15 most important recruiters to know by LawDragon.com, for gosh sakes (see our related flashy banner ad coming soon). But since a lot of us focus on the recent offers and placements above all else, and because so many recruiters are claiming expertise in Asia now, we think it is time to go "open kimono" and give you some specifics. Without further ado, here is a list of some of our recent, in the past year, associate placements and offers received in Asia. We have left partners out of this list (who are my focus) and a few of the recent offers were probably missed, but we still couldn't fit all of it in a banner advertisement. We'll edit this to add about 10 more offers as we pull the information together.

This is Robert, writing jet-lagged after just having returned to Texas from Tokyo, where Evan remains right now prior to returning to Hong Kong in a couple of days for a stay of several weeks. I live in Austin, Texas because this is where I last practiced law, with Brobeck from 2000-2002, Austin is a nice place to live, and this is where our two children (ages six and eight) were born. The flight connections are surprisingly good - I had a full day of meetings on Friday in Tokyo and was home in time for dinner with my family the same day. Still, this is not a particularly convenient place to run one of the leading Asia-focused legal recruiting practices in the country. Thankfully, my partner in the region, Evan Jowers, is able to spend a majority of his time in Asia these days (and he has the Executive Platinum status and bulging passport to prove it) and my wife is understanding of my four or five annual trips of one or two weeks each.