As 2010 unfurls, the job market is looking increasingly likely to return to its former glory and well-placed lawyers could be pleasantly surprised with the opportunities which await.
According to Ricky Mui, manager of the legal division at Robert Walters, although economic woes are far from over, the legal job market is looking increasingly healthy, as demand increases for many roles in both private practice firms and in-house legal departments.
"With the fall of major clients like AIG and Lehman Brothers, and the credit crunch in general, law firms and some companies had to impose different methods to limit outlays, including reducing working days per week and pay freezes. However, [several firms] have recently announced that in 2010 pay freezes have been lifted. [This suggests] firms are cautiously optimistic that the market is looking up again."
In private practice, Robert Walters sees key areas of growth as being corporate and corporate finance, at all levels. Firms are also continuing to hire for their dispute resolution, litigation, and restructuring/insolvency teams.
"More recently, recruitment in the financial services sector has also picked up and we are seeing a trend of various financial institutions recruiting equity derivatives and structured products lawyers on the back of strong trading activity and front-office business requirements for more legal support," said Miu.
Mui points out that in Hong Kong lawyers with securities, asset management and funds experience are also high in demand, as are qualified lawyers in the IT&T and FMCG sectors.
Research by Robert Walters also indicates that some international companies in Hong Kong are recruiting their first in-house counsels in order to reduce costs of external legal expenditure.
Demand for bilingual or trilingual lawyers is also increasing.
"As a general trend across all sectors, we are seeing a mandatory requirement for lawyers to have fluent Cantonese, English and now Mandarin language skill sets due to the business development with China," he said.