Feb 29 2008
reed smith opens shop in beijing
The Legal Intelligencer reported that Reed Smith, the large Philadelphia based international firm, opened shop in Beijing by taking away the office from New York’s Dewey & LeBoeuf, another international firm. After the merger of Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf, it appeared that the firm had two separate offices in Beijing. Reed Smith picked up the Dewey team.
I figured this would be a good closing article for the week:
Reed Smith continued its expansion into China with the addition of a Beijing office of recently merged Dewey & LeBoeuf.
The firm will get two partners and what it said was an additional “team of attorneys and legal professionals” including partners Sharon J. Mann and Hugh T. Scogin Jr.
Dewey & LeBoeuf has been operating two Beijing offices until the Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China approves their merger. Reed Smith is essentially acquiring the Dewey Ballantine side of the practice.
That office, according to Dewey & LeBoeuf’s Web site, had two partners, three associates, three consultants and one economist, and included Mann and Scogin.
The Beijing office of the former LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae still has two partners, three associates and one counsel.
Reed Smith’s acquisition in Beijing follows its Jan. 1, 2008, merger with Richards Butler Hong Kong, which gave the firm 110 lawyers and a license to practice in Beijing. Earlier this month, the firm also snagged Greenberg Traurig shareholder Jinshu “John” Zhang in Los Angeles. He was responsible for starting Greenberg Traurig’s China practice and now serves in Reed Smith’s corporate and securities practice as a partner.
“With more than 110 attorneys in Hong Kong and our expanded office in Beijing, we aim to make this firm the ‘go to’ legal resource for inward and outward capital investment in Asia,” Mann said in a statement.
The group is a perfect fit, he said, because it gives the firm senior partners who have strong ties to the market. The Hong Kong office, while servicing some work on mainland China, has really focused on corporate, securities, regulatory and litigation work for Western companies doing business in Hong Kong. He said the Beijing office would do similar work for clients doing business in mainland China.
Jordan said Reed Smith’s newest acquisition, which is already up and running, puts the firm in a unique position. Aside from the 110 attorneys in Hong Kong, the firm now has American-born and educated attorneys who have long-term ties to Beijing through Mann and Scogin, as well as a Beijing-born and educated attorney working for Reed Smith in the United States through the addition of Zhang.
The combined experience in trade, direct foreign investments and corporate work will be a specific benefit to the firm’s core banking, finance and pharmaceutical clients trying to navigate doing business in China, he said.
Prior to the addition, the Beijing office of Richards Butler Hong Kong was only used on occasion by the firm’s attorneys from other offices. He said it was an important step for the firm to have a real presence on the ground in Beijing and to begin to build that out.
So who’s next?
