A post like this has to generalize a bit and there are exceptions to everything I say below. But having worked with dozens of law firms in both Korea and China, I have noticed the following four problems in dealing with lawyers from those two countries, respectively:
1. KOREA LAWYERS
- Non-responsiveness is the norm. American lawyers generally see their role as helping clients achieve their goals and keeping their clients informed. Korean lawyers operate far more independently. They consider themselves the legal experts and they often get offended when questioned. According to their perspective, a client should trust them, not ask questions, and not expect updates. This obviously does not work well for American clients. Two excellent (and very international) Korean law firms have admitted to me that they “always get fired” when they work directly with American companies or with American lawyers inexperienced with Korea. If a Korean lawyer has a hearing scheduled in a case, I email that lawyer the day before to urge that we be provided with a full report by the next day, at the latest. I usually send another email reminder after the hearing concludes and if I do not have a timely report, I call.
- Your matter is not important. Most Korean lawyers — especially those that are truly fluent in English and handle international legal matters — have plenty of work and any one matter from an overseas client is not likely to be of great importance to them. This may mean your Korean lawyer will not fight hard on a particular motion where the chances of winning are low; they would rather stay in the good graces of a judge or a fellow lawyer than challenge the status quo. I try to get around this by hiring “outsider” lawyers if my client’s Korea case is going to be particularly difficult or contentious, or by attending the hearing if it is particularly important. I also always make clear, upfront, that a good result for this client will lead to more work from my law firm’s other clients.
- The Korean lawyer’s role is different. Korean lawyers tend to view themselves as “above it all.” I learned this once when trying to settle a case. We offered $900,000 and the Korean company on the other side offered to pay us $700,000. I asked the Korean lawyer to go back at $850,000 and I could feel his reluctance. I say “feel” because though he was telling me he would go back at $850,000, he was also asking me questions to let me know he did not think he should go back at $850,000. Weeks then passed with no updates and vague responses to my emails. Then, out of the blue, a US-educated paralegal from the firm called me to say the $850,000 offer had never been passed on to the other side because the Korean lawyer considered it beneath him to negotiate “as though at a flea market.” I do not know if that paralegal was put up to the call by the attorney or if he called me on his own, but I have since learned to control Korea settlement negotiations myself. It is not just in negotiations that Korean lawyers might see themselves as above the fray. If you do not put pressure on your Korean lawyer, you can pretty much assume that numerous time extensions will delay your case for years.
- Confidentiality? What’s that? Korean lawyers simply do not respect the attorney-client privilege the same way American lawyers do. I try to handle confidentiality problems by using the same few lawyers in Korea for all of my firm’s clients. Because I provide so much work to these attorneys, I have a personal relationship with them, which makes it less likely that they will hurt me by hurting my client. It also decreases the incentive for the Korean lawyer to hurt my client because doing so will cut off the regular stream of work my firm provides.
2. CHINA LAWYERS
There are many lawyers in China scrambling for work, but most of them have neither the experience nor the language skills to handle international clients. The problem is that most either do not know this or will not admit it. The four most common problems I see in retaining Chinese lawyers are:
- Chinese law firms often are not “firms” as Westerners understand the term. There are very few really good Chinese international law firms in China and many of them are not really firms at all; they are a collection of solo practitioners. Many American companies think they are using the best lawyer in a firm for a particular matter when in fact that lawyer has the case not because of his skillset, but because he or she is the one who brought in the case.
- Chinese lawyers are rarely power brokers. The importance of connections is not as strong as it once was, though it is still a factor in certain industries and certain parts of the country. Chinese lawyers are usually not well connected (even if they are reluctant to admit it) so hiring a lawyer as a power play is rarely recommended. China’s good lawyers are very smart and very well educated, but if they were truly well connected, they would most likely have a top position in the government or with a big company, and they would never have attended law school in the first place.
- The Chinese lawyer’s role is different. Chinese lawyers far too often see their role as doing what the client tells them to do, rather than telling the client what should be done. If a client calls me and says she wants to do A, my knee-jerk response is to ask why. The typical Chinese lawyer’s response is to say “yes.”
- Chinese lawyers do things the Chinese way. Chinese companies can get away with all sorts of things in China that foreign-owned companies cannot, and Chinese lawyers tend not to account for this. Chinese lawyers also almost never know the various foreign law strictures under which foreign companies must operate. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is a classic example. There are also many things that foreign companies can do legally in China that would be a public relations disaster back home were they to do them. This is particularly true regarding labor relations and environmental stewardship
What have you seen?
