香港与内地，特别是珠三角地区，经济的加速融合促使香港律师更多放眼内地，积极寻求与内地同行更为紧密合作的机会。香港律所与国内领先律所之间的联营以及合并也正逐渐成为香港本地律师实现国际化的最新途径。

Traditionally, the international strategy for Hong Kong law firms has largely been characterised as working in association and merging with an international firm. Examples include Hong Kong powerhouse JSM's merger with US firm Mayer Brown and Kwok & Yih's merger with Australia firm Mallesons Stephens Jaques. Only in the recent past have they started using a new route to international expansion - joining forces with top-tier PRC firms and accompanying them on their globalisation path.

Arculli Fong & Ng and XJ Wang & Co are the first two Hong Kong firms to have implemented this approach, having recently fully merged into King & Wood and Jun He respectively, after a three-year association in Hong Kong. The mergers allow the two mainland high-flyers to become the first PRC firms permitted to practice Hong Kong law. Meanwhile, they offer the Hong Kong partners access to a vast pool of resources and clients in China.

"Increasingly the work we do is mainland-related and our connection with the mainland has significantly outgrown our connection with the US and UK markets. It has become imperative for us to adopt a 'Chinalisation' strategy," said King & Wood's senior partner in Hong Kong, Ching-Wo Ng, who was a founding partner at Arculli Fong & Ng prior to the merger. "The high-end corporate legal services market in Hong Kong mostly involves cross-border issues, and is very competitive. Local firms that have positioned themselves in this segment increasingly need to join forces with either a leading international firm, or a top-tier mainland firm."

Arculli's merger with King & Wood will bring many new opportunities for both firms. Ng noted that one of the immediate opportunities lies in China's outbound investment trend. "Our dual capability in Hong Kong/PRC law will give us an obvious edge over our competitors in servicing the financing and investment needs of globalising Chinese companies," he said. In capital markets, for example, he expected King & Wood would soon be engaged as both PRC and Hong Kong counsel for the Hong Kong IPOs of Chinese issuers.

Changing perception
The Hong Kong-mainland relationship has come a long way in the last few years. Five years ago, a merger with a PRC firm wouldn't have been viewed as strategically sound or practically necessary for a Hong Kong firm. But rapid development of the mainland legal market and its law firms has triggered the change in mindset.

"Hong Kong firms have been forging relationships with mainland firms for a long time, but the need has never been greater," said Huen Wong, president of the Law Society of Hong Kong and the managing partner of Fried Frank's Hong Kong office. "Things have changed so much in the mainland. Now China's legal services are more sophisticated, more lawyers are specialised in certain areas, and firms are managed and operated to a much higher standard. Cities like Beijing and Shanghai continue to be important financial and legal centres in the region."

On the other hand, the rise of China in the global economy and the growing international presence of Chinese enterprises are the catalyst for the closer cooperation between firms. Ronald Arculli, the chairman of HKEx and member of the Executive Council of the HKSAR, agrees that mainland China is the key to ensuring Hong Kong's legal profession remains relevant in the new economic era.

"Just as the attention of western economies has turned towards Asia - particularly China - as a relative safe haven in troubled times, so too should we as a profession be looking to China," said Arculli during his keynote speech at the 2009 ALB Hong Kong Law Awards held in September. "We should be looking to establish even closer ties with the mainland's burgeoning legal community and facilitate the flow of people, know-how and best practice between each other.

"This process is one which has already been occurring, but efforts to this end now need to be stepped up. China's relative resilience through a global financial crisis that has been so disastrous for so many economies across the world has actually served to accelerate the shift in the economic balance of power from the west to the east. We, as leading lawyers in Hong Kong, have a chance to have a fundamental effect on how that shift occurs and whether the end result takes a desirable form," Arculli said.

The Delta force
Having recognised the tremendous scope for cooperation, the Law Society of Hong Kong has shown its commitment to engage more with the corpus of lawyers across the border and form working groups on a range of subjects and projects which straddle the two jurisdictions. "We've been talking about cooperation for too long. I am not interested in signing any more MOUs and we've had enough of training programs and seminars. These things happened 20 years ago, and now we need to achieve something concrete for both sides to work together," said the Law Society's president.

The short to medium-term focus, according to Wong, will be working more closely with firms in Guangdong, particularly the Pearl River Delta region, which are closer geographically and have similar culture and language. "In the next decade, the integration between Hong Kong and the PRD will speed up and increase in breadth and depth. A tremendous opportunity for collaboration will be brought about by closer integration," Wong said.

Under his leadership, the Hong Kong Law Society has partnered with the Shenzhen Lawyers Association to form a large number of working committees, focusing on identifying and locating projects in Guangdong requiring legal services from both PRC and Hong Kong lawyers.

Many opportunities have already been identified in a host of large-scale, cross-boundary infrastructures that will spur the region's closer integration and create a world-class "PRD Metropolis". Among them are the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, and the Qianhai service park in Shenzhen's Nanshan District. "Many of the projects involve complex cross-border matters and require substantial financing. They will benefit all firms in the region, big or small," Wong said.

For the US$5.6bn Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge project, a consortium of law firms led by Pinsent Masons' Hong Kong office has won the bid to provide legal services. Jun He (Beijing), TeamWin (Guangdong), and DSL Lawyers (Macau) are the other members of the consortium for this complex project, which is jointly governed by the laws of three different legal jurisdictions in the PRC, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.

Hong Kong law firms have the potential to play an unprecedented role in aiding China's globalization and achieving strong inter-regional cooperation. For that reason, their relevance going forward, far from being questionable, could be greater than ever before.