Aug 12 2009
saul ewing makes its entry into china
Looks like yet another firm wants a piece of the pie in China: Saul Ewing. But instead of going through the process of applying for a license to open up a law office in China, they took another route: an alliance/partnership with a local office. So instead of taking on the overhead of opening up another office (which could be a boon, but also a huge profit loss), incurring real estate leases and other administrative costs, they handpicked Concord & Partners to be a regional partner. The article after the jump.
Saul Ewing has made official its ties to the Chinese market, creating an alliance with Beijing-based Concord & Partners.
Under the terms of the alliance, Saul Ewing clients with business operations in China and those contemplating doing business in the country will be referred to lawyers at Concord. Similarly, Concord will refer its clients to Saul Ewing on matters arising under U.S. law.
Saul Ewing’s managing partner, David S. Antzis, said the firm has a few lawyers with clients currently or potentially investing in China. Saul Ewing Executive Director Tim Stevens and partner Patrick Oakes went to Beijing and Shanghai to meet with firms about some sort of preferred provider arrangement.
“It’s a way for a firm like us, that isn’t going to open an office in China anytime soon,” to have a presence in the country, Antzis said.
Oakes, a partner in Saul Ewing’s business department, helped spearhead the effort.
“This provides a great benefit to our clients who are doing or planning to do business in China,” he said in a statement. “This collaboration will give them ready access to some of the top lawyers in China to provide technical and practical advice on issues that arise under Chinese law.”
Saul Ewing and Concord will remain separate legal entities and will keep separate fee structures, Saul Ewing said in a statement. The firms will share referrals and conduct joint marketing. Several Saul Ewing lawyers have already visited Concord’s office in Beijing and Saul Ewing is hosting one of Concord’s associates this summer to help familiarize her with U.S. laws and business practices. The two firms first agreed to the alliance in March 2009 and have recently finalized plans to move ahead with the agreement.
While many of the state’s largest firms have opened up one or more offices in China and other East Asian locales, smaller firms have found alliances as the better bet in order to avoid overhead and get a sense of possibilities in the market. Sometimes that has led to those firms opening their own offices in the country.
This actually happens quite a bit within the U.S. with mid-sized and smaller firms. My old firm was actually part of something called the U.S. Law Network which put together mid-sized firms in every state into one network. We actually did get some referrals through the process and it was nice to have someone local for our clients. But to do it in another country? Yes, I know some people have tried it, like Zelle Hoffman, but realistically, we are talking about a referral process. If I were a client, I might go with Concord & Partners because of the referral. But I might not. I would probably shop around to be honest.
So for Saul Ewing to market this as an “Alliance” is a mixed bag in my mind. It doesn’t give them a local office, and they aren’t prominently advertising it on their website either. (they do advertise ILF and Interlex) It’s just part of their press section. Maybe they have a separate flyer for their clients that advertises their newfound expertise. They say they will do some joint marketing… but really, how much can they do together? In my mind, this is just trying to create a win-win for 2 firms. For Saul Ewing, it’s just another way for them to say that they are taking care of client needs without having to do too much work. And that’s really it. So is this big news? Not really, but I just thought it worth commenting on before the marketing spin goes out.
I completely agree with you. Clients of Saul Ewing who are referred to Concord should wonder if it is because Concord is THE firm that makes sense for that matter or simply because of the alliance. Concord is an excellent firm but they cannot be the best for every matter in every corner of China….
Why not just have “strong relationships” with various firms, not a formal alliance such as this?
Dan,
Thanks for dropping by. My thought is also this: if a client can actually afford Saul Ewing, they can definitely afford to shop around for Chinese counsel. Since the China legal market is no longer the black box that clients once thought it was, I would think that information is easy enough to come by about who is (and isn’t) a quality lawyer in the major cities of China. I agree that the strong relationships, which are informal, and based upon relationships between partners at various firms, really is the way to go. (and what is already done in 90% of the legal world)
This article caught my eye because I’ve been tracking the increasing trend of collaborative arrangements between law firms and lawyers over the past few years. This arrangements strikes me as very different from US Law Network and other groups of that genre which are not much more than glorified bar associations. What Saul Ewing and Concord are doing is more akin to an of counsel or outsourcing relationship, and the benefit that SE receives is the ability to service clients in China while holding on to them at the same time. As the firms work together, the relationship will build.
Here in DC, I have similar relationships with a lobbying firm that does appropriations work in the energy industry. I routinely refer my clients to that firm because (a) it is successful and (b) I know that it will keep me in the loop so that I can continue to maintain an ongoing relationship with my clients even as their needs are being served by another group.
Of course, the risk to SE is that if Concord isn’t the right firm for a particular client, SE will lose that client as well.
Carolyn Elefant