the black China hand

In all honesty, I often question many of the UK/US lawyers-in-training who intend to start their professional practice in China and for whom that goal is paramount, because I haven’t yet heard a really good professional reason why they’ve chosen to set out their stand and declare for China so early in their career *** Essentially, my view is that the very best training and experience (with the greatest degree of transferability) is probably more easily found in the more mature legal jurisdictions, amongst those firms who consistently practice at the forefront of their fields of expertise.

This was the precise advice that I was given by a top law firm that I applied to in Beijing. I had lived in China before law school and tried to find a legal job after. In fact during the summer after my first and second year I took a road 90% of my classmates did not by interning in China rather then at home because I thought it would give me experience to use in my job search after graduation. In the end it proved useless. What the one partner told me was that while I had great “China” experience my lack of actual legal experience was the crucial sticking point and in a legal environment such as in China what his and most law firms want are lawyers that can hit the ground running legally. They can rely on Chinese lawyers or paralegals for the “China Skills” set. My advice then for those that are interested in going legal in China but can’t find a job…would be to try some non-traditonal positions that still have a connection to the legal world such as a firm’s office general counsel or perhaps consulting or if your daring enough, try starting out on your own by doing legal work for the many small to mid-size firms/ organizations/entrepenuers that big law firms generally don’t take on as clients or helping Chinese firms with American legal questions…the work won’t be anything glamorous (a lot of contract editing and general legal advice such civil procedure filing times) but you are doing legal work that gives you experience and pays the rent. Indeed, something that I have thought about is a couple of American lawyers getting together to pool resources and rent out a space while developing their individual practices. In any event, I think one can “get to China” but it won’t be easy and most likely it won’t be with a top named firm.

“How Do I Get to China?”

By way of Chinese Law Prof Blog