In 2001 China practice for international law firms was all about inbound dealsadvising multinationals making investments in the developing economy. Most Western lawyers counted themselves happy to have the same clients in China that they had back home. Vinson & Elkins’s China-based lawyers were no different, representing regular clients of the firm such as BP plc, Coastal Energy, and the soon-to-be-infamous Enron Corp. in exploration and production deals. But at a strategy session held at the suburban Beijing home of then-partner Handel Lee, V&E’s China team decided to follow a different path.
"At that point in time we did zero work for the state-owned enterprises [SOEs]," recalls James Cuclis, Vinson & Elkins’s Hong Kongbased corporate head. The largest companies in China, the SOEs dominate sectors like banking, steel, and telecommunicationsand energy. "We decided at that meeting that our number one priority for the China practice was to target those companies."
