Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati will launch a new office in Hong Kong, its second in Asia after opening a Shanghai office in 2008. The new office will include Weiheng Chen, recently hired from Milbank, who has been named as the Co-head of Wilson Sonsini’s China practice. Mr. Chen will work in collaboration with the firm’s current head of China, Carmen Chang, in opening the office in the coming months. The expansion into Hong Kong is due to the volume of Chinese cross-border transactions and the move of many US client operations of China, said Wilson Sonsini CEO Steve Bochner.

Minter Ellison has officially opened its third office in Greater China, with the recent opening of its Beijing office. Minter which has had offices in Hong Kong since the early 1980s and a Shanghai office since 1999, will focus it’s Beijing practice on outbound M&A and inbound and outbound investment opportunities. The team in Beijing will include partner Sam Farrands, as well as lawyers Tim Knowles, Andrew Thomson and Kevin Zhou.

Gibson Dunn is planning to expand into mainland China following the launch of its Hong Kong office yesterday. 
The firm’s latest office, which will initially focus on corporate transactions, compliance, regulation and investigations, is being headed by former General Electric International lawyer Kelly Austin It will act as a springboard into mainland China, where the firm is looking to shore up its client base. Gibson Dunn also plans to open an office in either Beijing or Shanghai.

PRC firm Dacheng has opened an office in Hong Kong, following its merger with fellow PRC firm Guangdong Xin Yang. After finalizing its merger agreement in April, Dacheng received its license to operate from the Law Society of Hong Kong in May. Xin Yang also has offices in Beijing and Guangzhou and advises on capital markets, private equity and venture capital, international trade, M&A, IP, and project finance. Partners from Xing Yang were absorbed into Dacheng’s Hong Kong operations, with Yang Jinzhu, the previous Co-Managing Partner of Xing Yang, now the Managing Partner of Dacheng’s Hong Kong office. Arrangements have been made for 15 partners to move from Dachen’s mainland branched to the Hong Kong office, meaning it will have one of the largest Hong Kong offices among PRC firms.

Bird & Bird is set to open an office in Abu Dhabi, its first in the Middle Eastern region.  The firm hopes to be licenses by the end of the summer and will begin by focusing on the TMT, healthcare and life sciences, aviation and aerospace, clean technology and energy sectors. Corporate Partner Mark Pinder will lead the office, assisted by Telecoms Partner Tim Schwarz and a group of three associates. Abu Dhabi developer Mubadala has already employed the firm. Pinder has confirmed that there are no plans to open an additional regional office in the next two to three years and that the Abu Dhabi office will serve as a hub for the wider region.

Ropes and Gray has announced that it will be boosting its corporate offering to clients with interest in China by opening a new office in Shanghai. The firm currently advises international clients, including Chinese companies, from its offices in Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, and throughout the United States. The firm recently acquired Arthur Mok, previously managing partner of Hogan & Hartson’s Shanghai office, which he launched in 2004, who will be a partner in the firm’s private equity and life sciences practices. The planned Shanghai expansion reinforces Ropes & Gray’s commitment to growing its practices in Asia and advising clients in the world’s most dynamic economies and further strengthen its place as a leading Asian firm, handling some of the region’s largest and most complex transactions. In April, Asian Legal Business honored the firm’s Hong Kong- based lawyers for their role in China’s “M&A Deal of the Year.”

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Eversheds and NCTM are prepared to open new offices in China, looking to tap the potential of the country’s legal market.
Eversheds is ready to expand its practice in China with a new office in Beijing, following the three-year probationary period on its Shanghai office. Chinese law requires that international law firms wait three years before opening a subsequent office.

Eversheds Shanghai Managing Director Peter Corne said, “We are definitely looking to expand into Beijing now that we are eligible to apply to open a second office, and as with all of our international expansion, it will be client-led. Beijing and Shanghai are very distinctive. Shanghai does not have the prominent position of Beijing, but at the moment most of our clients are here so we will probably only start with a small operation when we open.”
Italian firm NCTM is set to launch this summer in Shanghai, with the firm’s license application approval due in the coming months. The office will be the firm’s first outside of Europe and will join bases in Italy, London and Brussels.

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Thorp Alberga, a Cayman Islands boutique firm, has opened a branch in Hong Kong which will be headed by former Maples and Calder partners Richard Thorp and Harriet Unger. Thorp has vast experience in the debt and equity capital markets in addition to securitization and banking. The firm will be competing with the major offshore players in Hong Kong as it is one of the world’s more competitive offshore legal markets.

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Shanghai firm Haworth & Lexon has recently opened an office in Beijing which will focus on capital markets, PE investments, overseas investment and listing and M&A work, along with helping current clients communicate with government ministries. The objective for the new branch is to provide more comprehensive legal services to a broader base of clientele, and Shanghai partner Tong Zhong will be relocated to head the new office and accomplish the goal. Zhong will be joined by four other lawyers.

“As firms seek growth, it becomes necessary to form a national network to provide better service for clients. Beijing is definitely one of the locations firms have to take. More and more Shanghai firms will seek to establish themselves in Beijing because many clients are growing their national businesses and would therefore encounter increasing regulatory problems,” said partner Bailey Xu.

“Beijing is where there are most SOEs and these companies are very active in investments so there are lots of business opportunities,” said Xu. “In Shanghai, most of our clients are MNCs, that is to say, foreign companies or foreign-invested companies in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces. Our Beijing office will target domestic companies, especially SOEs. The new branch would also explore other business opportunities in foreign invested funds and be a service base to us to provide services for foreign companies doing business in northern China,” he added.

Latham & Watkins has allied with former White & Case Saudi sponsor Mohammed Al Sheikh and how has a branch in Riyadh. Al Sheikh’s departure from White & Case to Latham & Watkins is the fifth senior-level defection from White & Case’s Middle East operations this year, and all have been to Latham & Watkins. This will be Latham’s fourth branch in the Middle East.

Although White & Case still lists the Riyadh branch on its website, there are no local lawyers and no active search for a local sponsor either.

Clayton Utz has surprisingly decided to open up a Hong Kong office. However, the firm has stated that the move does not mean that it is abandoning its relationships-based approach to international operations. “This move doesn’t derogate from what we’ve done with Lex Mundi or PRAC -  it’s a logical extension of the construction and major projects work we’ve done in Asia,” commented CEP David Fagan. “We remain committed to our relationships with local Hong Kong firms. In fact, we expect there will be more opportunities to work with local firms in the region as the result of our having a presence on the ground in Hong Kong.”

The office will be managed by Glenn Haley, who had headed Deacons’s Hong Kong construction practice, and partner Colin Dodd, who has been based in Hong Kong for a number of years. The office will concentrate on construction and major projects and international dispute resolution, but developing other areas of practice is a possibility.

Over 45 law offices opened in 2009 and already 10 international law firms have opened up shop in 2010. The following is a list of the major openings in Asia, Middle East and Australia.

2010

March

* Steptoe & Johnson LLP, a Washington-based international trade law firm, has established its first foothold in Asia with the opening of an office in Beijing.

*Lovells has expanded its presence in Asian though its associated law firm Al-Yaqoub Attorneys & Legal Advisers. AYALA has opened up a branch in Jeddah to complement its office in Riyadh. Lovells now is one of the few international law firms to have an office in both lf those two major Saudi Arabian city

* K&L Gates LLP, an established global law firm, has opened an office in Singapore its fifth office in the Asia region. With locations in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei, the Singapore office will bolster its rapidly growing South East Asia presence.

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