With bulging workloads and a dearth of suitable lawyers, why are law firms stretching themselves to have a presence in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong? Dominic Carman speaks to China’s top lawyers about the three-office debate
“We opened our third China office in Shanghai this year, and I had to spend a lot of time internally explaining why that was necessary,” says Matthew Bersani, Shearman & Sterling’s Asia managing partner. “The simple explanation is that the bankers are in Hong Kong, the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are in Beijing and the private sector is in Shanghai. It is an unfortunate reality of the China market that it is dispersed like that. If you are missing one of those offices, you are missing a big piece of China.”
