EDITOR’S NOTE
Last spring, Americans watched in horror as Japan was hit with the triple calamity of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. After- ward we were even more amazed by the toughness and resourceful-
ness of the Japanese as they coped with catastrophe. (Some of us couldn’t
help wondering if residents of the United States would do as well under
similar circumstances.)
For some U.S. lawyers in Japan, though, the earthquake and its aftermath
added to their long-running frustrations with the country. Japan’s economy
remains mired in the doldrums, while across the East China Sea, the legal
markets of Hong Kong and China are flush with deals and optimism. “We’re
a backwater now,” Simpson Thacher & Bartlett Tokyo head David Sneider
told chief Asia correspondent Anthony Lin this past summer. “It’s really
China that’s the story.”
Lin’s cover story examines how international firms are adapting to gloom-
ier prospects in Tokyo—from scaling back their offices, to tilting practices
toward Japanese law, to seeking out new clients in the tier of billion-dollar
Japanese companies that haven’t gone global yet. What he found is a compli-
cated picture, suggesting that there’s still plenty of opportunity for Western
firms in Japan that know the market well and have strong ties to Japanese
clients. And Tokyo may not seem like such a bad place to be, no matter what
the level of tectonic activity, if the Chinese boom goes bust. (Real estate
bubble, anyone?) To find out more, turn to “Sidelined,” starting on page 18.
American law firms have more obvious reason to be bullish about another
practice area in Asia, arbitration. The number of arbitrated disputes in the
Far East is shooting upward. Yet, when Asian Lawyer Web editor Ben
Lewis began looking at the firms that are most active in Asian arbitrations, he discovered that U.S. firms are being cautious
here, too. While some elite British firms have staffed
up with arbitration lawyers in their Asian offices, their
American counterparts prefer to run their Asian arbitration practices out of New York or London. Are the
U.S. firms missing an opportunity here? Read “The
Out-of-Towners,” beginning on page 28, and decide
for yourself.
And if you’re hungry for more news from Asia,
please remember that The Asian Lawyer lives online as well as in print. Visit theasianlawyer.com
for more coverage of law firms and legal matters
in Asia throughout the year.
Emily Barker
ebarker@alm.com
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