In late 1990 Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton associate Jinduk Han, barely two years out of Harvard Law School, took a leave of absence from the firm, where he had been working in the New York-based capital markets practice. With Cleary’s blessing, he set off to work a yearlong stint at top Korean law firm Kim & Chang, where he had also worked as a summer associate during law school.
The move was prompted more by personal interest than by professional concerns. “I just really wanted to do something involving Korea,” recalls Han, who was born in Seoul but grew up mainly in the United States. However, he admits: “The timing turned out to be very good.”
