What a night!
Last month, Asian Legal Business welcomed a veritable who’s who of the region’s legal profession to our inaugural awards ceremony, held at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Hong Kong. With some 320 guests and a further 90 on the waiting list, seats were at a premium. Those of you that made the cut will no doubt have your own abiding memories of the evening. Maybe it includes Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison partner Fred Kinmonth’s impromptu karaoke rendition of ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ to MC Sharon Kwok. Or maybe Mallesons partner Paul Starr’s construction of a poem disparaging the firm’s fellow nominees sticks in the mind: To the tune of ‘I love Paris’: I love Lovells for injunctions
Bakers and Masons get me stressed
McKennas and Minters
Always end in Splinters
So Mallesons is Best. Maybe you sampled so much of Macallan’s premium scotch that your mind has remained untroubled by the evening’s events. “Never have your event sponsored by a whisky company again!” screamed one distressed attendee as he nursed a serious hangover the next day. Whatever the memory, the Asian Legal Business Awards proved a welcome addition to the Hong Kong legal calendar, with a significant sum of money being raised through an auction for the Against Child Abuse charity. The awards themselves were given in recognition of excellence in legal advice offered by law firms in the region. “It’s always interesting to see who’s winning the awards,” says Mark Johnson, whose firm Herbert Smith took the ‘Commercial Litigation Law Firm of the Year’ title. “It is certainly something that we would support and we value the award.” Despite losing the services of Martin Rogers to Clifford Chance in February this year, Herbert Smith still has one of the largest practices in Hong Kong with eight partners in its Dispute Resolution Group. “This is important in terms of having the resources to field big scale litigation,” says Johnson. “In other words, we like to be in the position to offer dispute resolution in connection with complex disputes before the courts or other tribunals in Hong Kong.” He adds: “Winning the award demonstrates that the reputation of the practice is bigger than one individual. It is a recognition from peers who spread the word, even though we are competitors, about who is good in the industry and who is not so good. And it shows that we’re doing something right as far as clients are concerned and probably means that they will be passing on that goodwill to others who might need our type of services.” “We have a top quality band of partners on disputes, all of whom will match up with the best in Hong Kong.” Another interesting category was the ‘Employer of Choice’ Award, with Clifford Chance only narrowly missing out to Allen & Overy. Chris Roberts, A&O’s delighted managing partner, says: “Accommodating the needs of your staff is one of the clearest indications that they are valued, both as professionals and individuals.” Initiatives by the UK firm include flexible working, a sabbatical policy, non-compulsory Saturday working, a busy pro-bono scheme and a popular international secondment programme. Andrew Keith, A&O’s Asia HR manager, says: “We have an innovative approach to graduate recruitment, including, this year, the inaugural Allen & Overy scholarship for third year LLB students of the University of Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, we have a mentoring process for all new starters and of course we invest heavily in our training and development.” He adds: “We also have a global appraisal process enabling staff at all levels to plan their own development. This allows us to plan the regional key training and development needs of the firm. We are very proud of our 360-degree appraisal for partners. The partners get feedback from their peers, associates, support staff and secretaries to ensure continued development and improvement.” “We believe that by incorporating our values into what we do on a daily basis, we have seen real improvements in our ability to attract, retain and develop our staff and therefore our ability to provide real added value services to our clients.” Although by comparison to its New York office, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood’s Hong Kong office is relatively small, it does still house over 50 lawyers and 100 staff, including Chinese, Koreans, Australians, Americans and English. In the eyes of the judges, this proved an important consideration as the firm took the ‘North American Law Firm of the Year’ Award. Managing partner Ken Cote, who on the evening accepted the award in person, says: “Our philosophy is very team focused and results oriented. We strongly believe that all of our staff have an important role to play in the success of our firm and everyone is given responsibility and credit for the work we achieve.” Baker & McKenzie was delighted to win ‘International Law Firm of the Year’. A man of few words on the evening as he accepted the award, managing partner David Fleming has since told ALB: “Like most firms, our focus is to consolidate our strengths. But what we hold most important is that, for law firms, it is not just the ability to advise on law, but to also understand the context of the social, political, and economic situation, and give advice with all those factors in mind.” While, over the next few pages, we have provided a detailed breakdown of the ultimate destination of each award, the night’s big winner was undoubtedly Johnson Stokes & Master. Taking home a record three trophies, including the coveted ‘Hong Kong Law Firm of the Year’, managing partner Simon Ip says: “Over the last 18 months, we have enhanced our internal support functions appointing directors of training, knowledge management, marketing and business development. A key pillar of our growth has been our customized extra-net for our clients. Every week we provide free legal updates on more than 30 topics to a subscriber base of more than 4000 clients.” He adds: “These are not gimmicks but serious products and they benefit not just our clients and their staff, but also us in the process.” “We are also recruiting now for 2005, targeting returning Hong Kong students, and are hiring the best by offering a very good training program and a very competitive salary scale.” “From a career development point-of-view,” he says, “they can see the benefit in joining our company, and it is awards like the ‘Hong Kong Law Firm of the Year’ that help to attract them to us.” Over the next few pages we document in more detail the lucky recipients of this year’s Asian Legal Business awards. |