Four years ago, Paul Mitchard QC’s firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, put him in charge of building an international dispute resolution practice in Asia. After trying–and failing–to find a suitable lawyer to head up an arbitration-focused team in the region, Mitchard decided to go to Hong Kong, where he had qualified in 1984, and do it himself. He moved to Hong Kong in 2009, and the following year was joined by litigation partner Frances Kao, who relocated there from Chicago.
Mitchard and Kao are part of a very small club. American arbitration lawyers are scarce on the ground in Asia. Many of Skadden’s U.S. competitors have no arbitration partners in Asia at all. Of the 10 firms that handled the most large arbitrations in 2009-10, according to The American Lawyer‘s 2011 Arbitration Scorecard, four–Shearman & Sterling; Debevoise & Plimpton; Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton; and Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle–have no arbitration partners at all based in Asia-Pacific countries. Other top-ranked firms have only a handful: White & Case, King & Spalding, Latham & Watkins, and Sidley Austin all have three or fewer.
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