Over the past few weeks, I have been travelling across Asia, building Nishlis Legal Marketing’s presence in Southeast Asia and more broadly across APAC in concert with our exceptional global team. As well as spending time on the ground in these dynamic countries, which is invaluable in understanding what really makes a jurisdiction tick, I have had many meetings with general counsel and private practice lawyers across the region to get a clearer sense of how things are evolving in the legal industry.
We’re now about six weeks into the project. There is much still to be done, but I have travelled far enough and met enough exceptional people to share some broad takeaways so far from my time in Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Japan.
One of the more notable points, not just true for Asia but globally, is that full-service law firms remain in a relatively strong position compared to many other businesses when economic headwinds are strong. When markets are active, transactional work such as M&A and IPOs tends to increase. When conditions become more challenging, as they are now, disputes and restructuring work often take up the slack. That dynamic provides a degree of resilience which is not always present in other sectors.
Alongside that, the internationalisation of legal markets continues at pace. In Southeast Asia in particular, firms are expanding outwards, often through international affiliations or mergers, as they look to position themselves for cross-border work. What is striking is not just the direction of travel, but the pace at which it is happening, with firms that were relatively small a few years ago now growing quickly and taking on a much more international outlook.
There are differences within that broader trend. In Thailand, for example, Japanese firms have a particularly strong and still growing presence, whereas in Malaysia the picture is more mixed, with affiliations spanning China, Japan, Singapore and a range of Western firms. Japan itself is also shifting, with domestic firms increasingly looking beyond their home market and, in many cases, making up for lost time in terms of international expansion.
Market sentiment, meanwhile, varies depending on where you are and who you are speaking to. In Hong Kong, there is a noticeably more buoyant atmosphere among law firms, driven in part by a bumper year for IPO activity and a sense that the market has regained much of its momentum. There is a clear sense that Hong Kong’s legal market considers itself to be on the front foot again, particularly in contrast to the tone of previous visits.
Unsurprisingly, the longstanding rivalry with Singapore has not gone away. Both markets continue to position themselves as leading regional hubs, and that competitive dynamic is still shaping how firms think about their role in the region. One practical reflection of this is the volume of industry events. While the region as a whole is active, Singapore in particular now hosts a very large number of events aimed at both the in-house and private practice legal community, with Hong Kong not far behind. These range from massive, marquee events like the Singapore Corporate Counsel Association’s Asia-Pacific Legal Congress down to smaller, more intimate gatherings.
Conversations with corporate counsel have tended to be more measured. Across multiple jurisdictions, in-house teams are under pressure to do more with less, and legal technology and AI are central to that discussion. In-house teams being stretched for budget is a perennial complaint, but the tone does feel somewhat different now, with an air of inevitability. There is a broad expectation that teams will become leaner over time due to technology filling the gaps.
With that said, there is a sense that the legal tech market itself is maturing, with less differentiation between many of the major vendors than in the recent past. As a result, the focus is shifting away from adoption and towards how these tools are actually implemented and used in practice. This is not always successful. On more than one occasion, I heard of a GC dispensing with an expensive legal tech product not because it failed technically, but because the time and effort in upskilling the team to use it was not worth it for a team drowning in ‘business-as-usual’.
Many conversations took part against the backdrop of the current energy crisis. This was most prominent in the Philippines, which is particularly sensitive to energy shocks. Long waiting lists for EVs and personal solar panels were mentioned more than once in conversation, but these pressures are filtering into everyday decision-making for law firms in the country too. It is influencing how they think about costs, client demand and the broader commercial environment in which they operate.
Japan, meanwhile, presents an interesting combination of familiar and distinct dynamics. The relative weakness of the yen came up regularly, often in the context of broader economic concerns and the perception that change is needed. This perhaps links to the now more outward-facing nature of the country’s law firms, with many increasing their international visibility and investing heavily in marketing and business development as they expand, particularly into Southeast Asia but also further afield.
Japan is often described as a unique legal environment. In many respects that is true, but many of the themes raised by general counsel there felt very familiar from other jurisdictions. When I began researching the in-house legal community in Japan in earnest, half a decade ago, the in-house legal role really did seem qualitatively different to those in other jurisdictions. Now, that is not the case quite as much.
Perhaps the key takeaway from all this is that, while the markets themselves remain distinct, the pressures and priorities shaping the legal community are becoming increasingly aligned as time goes on and more efficient models are adopted.
Nishlis Legal Marketing has ambitious plans for the region, and remains committed to connecting legal communities globally. We’ll provide further updates and observations as we engage with new firms, new people and new jurisdictions in due course.
