The Lawyer has launched a new survey and research report covering the 50 largest global firms operating in the Asia Pacific region as well as the 100 top independent firms headquartered there.
As The Lawyer’s Asia editor Yun Kriegler says:
“The inaugural edition of The Lawyer Asia Pacific 150 is an in-depth guide to the most exciting legal scene in the world. As the world enters the so-called ‘Asian century’, in which the region is predicted to account for more than half of global GDP by the mid-21th century, the Asia Pacific is of strategic importance to the global legal profession.”
According to the report, there are 9,207 lawyers in the top 50 international firms in the Asia Pacific, and 30,000 lawyers in the region’s largest 100 independent firms.
Chinese firms Yingke and Dacheng, along with King & Wood Mallesons, are the three largest independent firms in the region by lawyer numbers, while Herbert Smith Freehills, Baker & McKenzie, and Ashurst are the largest international firms.
There’s a lot more interesting analysis and insight here for anyone interested in this part of the world.
Various excerpts can be read free of charge here, although there is a fee to order the full report.
(Pictured: Vientiane, Laos – taken by Lloyd Pearson in 2003)
Great blog, enviable career.
I’m a corporate lawyer at Kim & Chang and am very interested in firm management issues and the legal industry generally (as well as my work in finance/corporate law, of course).
It’s encouraging that the trend of publicly quantifying law firm metrics is slowly making its way into local firms in Asia. For better or worse, the legal industry has crossed the line from “profession” to “business”, and at least in Korea open discussion of business metrics (and debate on whether/how to improve them) is required to take local firms to the next level.