GUIDE TO LIVING AND WORKING IN HONG KONG

Making the move

In recruitment terms, the ideal candidate for any law firm here is a locally qualified Hong Kong resident with Chinese language skills. Unfortunately for the firms, there are not enough candidates, with the right skill sets, training and experience, to go around. So they are forced to look further afield.

Prior to the Handover of Hong Kong back to China, there was an easy route to the old colony for English lawyers, who had the right to work here and who could easily become locally qualified. Those days are now over and the numbers of lawyers coming from the UK has reduced accordingly. It is still common for the City firms to send secondees over, usually for two years, but actual recruitment from overseas is more typically from Australia, New Zealand or Singapore.

Local Qualification

To practice Hong Kong law, a lawyer must be locally qualified. Therefore, firms will almost always expect overseas recruits to sit the overseas lawyers' exams, which can be taken only once a year in October/November. Things to bear in mind about the exams include,

		To be eligible to sit the exams you will need to have at least two years of either formal training or post qualification experience (or a combination of both) in your home jurisdiction
		You must register for the exams by July
		There are exams on conveyancing, criminal and civil litigation, company law and professional conduct
		Exemptions are available for all heads, effectively save for conveyancing, for lawyers with more than five years relevant experience

Prior to qualifying, overseas lawyers will work as either a highly paid paralegal or as a Registered Foreign Lawyer.

Areas of Practice

The City based firms have typically established full service law firms in Hong Kong, as have certain US firms. On the other hand, the majority of the US firms in town only practice in more limited areas, commonly China practice, US securities and projects. Therefore opportunities exist in most practice areas for lawyers coming from common law jurisdictions, the exceptions being property law (where the law is such that overseas experience is not considered relevant) and criminal law (where language skills are essential and overseas recruitment is generally not deemed necessary). The biggest demand for overseas lawyers is usually in the following disciplines:

		Corporate
		Banking and Finance
		Projects
		Construction
		IP/IT/Telecoms
		Funds
		Insolvency
		Litigation