This is Robert again following up on last week’s introduction to the sort of people who become partners in firms in Asia. Before breaking down the specific categories of people who make partner as promised, it may be helpful to provide the common threads that connect all the people we have gotten to know in Asia who are successful partners in their firms. In the first place, whether you are a US/UK native, Chinese, Japanese, or some other nationality, there is no one we know in Asia who is a partner in a major law firm who does not have above average people and cultural skills. When we meet partners who may be candidates at law firm clients for lateral partner, we rate them on several criteria: language skill, legal skill (as evidenced by the type of work, clients, and our gut), client following, and people/cultural skill, each on a scale of one to five. If we can’t rate a person a four or five in each of these categories, we don’t view them as viable candidates for partner placement. Our experience at this sort of rating has been pretty successful. I can think of one candidate off of the top of my head whom we rated a five on the language and legal skills categories, but only a 3 and a 1, respectively, on the other two categories: client following and people/cultural skill. We did not work with him but he was hired as a junior partner by a firm that is a rung or two down on the league tables and does not get first grab at the better candidates. He did not work out in that position so far.
Clearly the client following and people/cultural skills are intertwined: people who are nerds normally don’t have many clients. The fact is that in Asia there are very few clients who do not expect to have personal relationships with their attorneys. Even the most high end firms have to work hard to maintain client relationships. So, if you’re a dork and can’t stomach the concept of selling your services every day, don’t expect to make partner in Asia on the basis of working for institutional clients.
Now, with regard to some useful stereotypes of the people who have seen make partner at firms in Asia, we have identified five categories:
1. Local specialist gwai lo/gaijin superstar
2. Non-local specialist foreign legal superstar
3. Locally connected rising star from a foreign office
4. Highly connected senior local specialist
5. Locally trained, not especially connected workaholic
These are obviously very loose categories, but we are confident that 90% of the partners we know in Asia fall into these categories. Since these categories are meant to cover more than just China, they are especially loose.
The local specialist gwai lo/gaijin superstar might be a dying breed. These are the attorneys who have come to Asia primarily because of their interest in the culture of the area or expatriate life. There are senior partners at major firms’ offices in Asia who have spent almost no time in the home offices of their firms or of any firm outside Asia. They have worked hard and may well have comparable skills to their US counterparts, but most of them would admit that their partnership chances were improved dramatically by moving to Asia and utilizing their cultural skills at the right time.
Non-local specialists who bring world class legal skill and training to the Asian offices of their firms continue to arrive and flourish in Asia. These are the lawyers who were superstars to begin with at their firms’ home offices but because of the firm?s commitment to Asia and its perception that the particular skills offered by the attorneys in question are needed in Asia, they have brought their best players out to Asia. To fall into this category, you have to remain in the US/UK office of your firm and succeed in the competitive environment you see around you until you are partner.
The locally connected rising star from a foreign office is an attorney who may have spent five to ten years in the US or UK offices of their firm and have will have developed very solid skills, but may not have the client following to earn a partnership if they remain in the US. But it is impressive how many young superstar attorneys of Asian background have outstanding local connections to Asia and natural cultural skill as a result of having grown up in an Asian country. Some of these people have direct connections to contemporaries who are in more and more important positions. Increasingly we find that these attorneys are our best candidates for partnership at Asian offices of major international firms.
The highly connected senior local specialist has been very important to many firms who have moved into Asia or who have sought to develop their Asia practices. These attorneys may not have the same levels of language or legal skills of any other partners at a senior level in the home offices of the firm in question, but because of their local knowledge and connections, they have the ability or perceived ability to turn a middling office into a very successful one. Some of these experiments have been successful and others have not.
Finally, there is a minority of partners in the Asian offices of major firms who have received most of their training locally, although they do have J.D. or LL.B. degrees from the US or the UK and some experience in a foreign locale. These people have worked their way up locally without an excessive number of political or business connections prior to beginning practice in Asia. These people are the local equivalent of the category 2 partner candidates the non-local specialists who bring world class legal skills to Asia. They have grown up in an Asia practice, have developed outstanding skills primarily through local work, have great client connections making their continued presence at the firm invaluable, and have worked hard enough and promoted themselves within the firm effectively enough that they have been noticed around the world. This partner category, it is safe to say, is the future of the growth of the practices in Asia.
Clearly we can think of examples of each type of person described with these coarse categories. But in order not to insult anyone, we will keep the specifics to ourselves. Hopefully this article will give those of you who see yourselves as future partners in Asia offices of international firms some ability to think systematically about both your chances of success and your best course of action. Please contact our Asia team at if you have any questions or want to discuss this article.
