Legal Week research found that all, bar one, of the global firms with a Hong Kong office responding to a survey, had increased the number of Mandarin-speaking lawyers in their Hong Kong offices since 2011.

Lawyer count

The increase took the average percentage of Mandarin speakers employed by the 16 responding law firms to 60 per cent of their total Hong Kong lawyer count.
Ashurst, DLA Piper and Davis Polk & Wardwell were among those who had significantly increased their Mandarin-speaking recruits, with Ashurst trebling the number of partners and lawyers fluent in the language in the last two years.

China

‘Chinese language capability is now essential and a requirement in most of our practice areas, as our work is often mainland China related. Most of the mainland clients prefer to communicate in Mandarin.’ said Kevin Chan, managing partner of DLA's Hong Kong office – which has increased its Mandarin speakers by 54 per cent in the last two years.