Western lawyers could learn a thing or two from their Asia counterparts. When it comes to billing practices and service delivery, Asian general counsel (GC) rate their external law firms more highly than GCs in the West. 

And although there is obviously a degree of variation between countries and firms, external advisers to Asian in-house counsel are seemingly better at delivering legal advice than those firms servicing GCs in Europe and elsewhere.

But in terms of pure technical legal capabilities, advisers to Asian companies lag their counterparts elsewhere. Asian GCs give higher satisfaction ratings to their external law firms on three of the six categories we measure: cost/billing practice; service delivery and use of IT/knowledge management. On the other three areas – personal/partner relationships, quality of legal advice and quality of commercial advice – it is advisers elsewhere that lead the way.

An entirely different band of law firms come to the fore in our inaugural Client Satisfaction Report (CSR) Asia league table as compared to the main CSR report, demonstrating that law firms' strengths are not necessarily being replicated across their networks.

The Asia top five comprises King & Wood Mallesons, Clayton Utz, Ashurst, WongPartnership and Linklaters. However, the economics of the world are such that any global, large national or niche law firm which neglects the Asian market in future could well find that it falls down the rankings in its traditional markets. 

Overview

The 2012 Chinese-Australian merger which produced King & Wood Mallesons is a prime example of the new players emerging as eyes turn to Asia. With 1,800 lawyers led by a team of 380 partners, the firm aspires to be the leading practice in Asia-Pacific. It has got off to a strong start in the CSR Asia report, taking first place among the 16 practices in our rankings. 

But it is not simply a case of opening for business in Asia and the work flooding in: several firms still face a challenge getting their Asian practices to run as smoothly as their domestic offices. 

Nicola Lynch, business development director at UK-based Wragge & Co, talking about the firm's office in Guangzhou and other locations abroad, says: "Different markets have very different approaches to selling. That's a big challenge for a business development department that might be trying to support overseas sales from a UK base because sales is all about communication and how you communicate varies enormously across different cultures."

But drawing broad comparisons across Asia has limited benefit, with different countries within the region targeting different areas of expertise. Japan – a mature legal services market – resembles the West with its top score on the quality of legal advice. 

India, however, may have less of a culture of clear, efficient judicial decision-making. But it does have pronounced strengths in its use of IT and personal/partner relationships. 

Singapore is racing ahead to try to become the Asian equivalent of the UK with the hope that its laws and arbitration centre will be used for cross-border matters in the region.

Methodology

This report is based on findings from the Legal Week Intelligence Client Satisfaction Survey 2012 and additional research in Asia. It addresses mainly qualitative issues – for example, legal department perceptions of law firm performance and attitudes towards the management of relationships with external counsel.

The survey was conducted with senior in-house legal personnel in Asia between September 2012 and February 2013. The data was compared to that collected globally between September and November 2012. The research was conducted by Incisive Research under Market Research Society guidelines, and comprised telephone interviews, online and postal questionnaires.

A total of 1,204 companies responded to the global data, including 214 responding about Asia, across 14 main industry sectors and the public sector. All respondents confirmed that they are responsible for the appointment of law firms.

Respondents were asked to rate grade six categories – cost/billing practice; service delivery; use of IT/knowledge management; personal/partner relationships; quality of legal advice; and quality of commercial advice – on their importance out of 10. They also marked the capabilities of their top four most used legal advisers out of 10 against the same criteria.

Key findings

• Asian scores are higher than global ones on service delivery/responsiveness; use of IT/knowledge management and cost/billings. Fixed fees are the preferred billing method in Asia (preferred by 45%) 

• Asian firms are more likely to prefer hourly, capped rates (31%) than companies based elsewhere

• Chargeable hours get the vote of 10% of Asia GCs as their preferred billing method

• The most marked difference between Asia and the rest of the world is in the area of cost/billings practice, where Asia leads with a score of 7.37 compared to a global score of 7.22

• Mainland China is the highest-rated jurisdiction of the five countries we examine closely. Its top rating in absolute terms comes for the quality of legal advice (8.9). In order, the remaining five are India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan

A client's view

Yifei Wang, head of the media organisation Eurovision China, describes her priorities in the client service area as "understanding my needs and understanding the market in China and its local laws and regulations". She adds a "quick response and competitive price" is another crucial element. 

"The most important aspects are know-how (local knowledge) and English language skills (to be able to communicate with our head office legal department). Local knowledge, with a local practice, is crucial."

She has suffered a disappointing setback with an international firm, as she recounts: "I did have a difficult experience with an international law firm which claimed to have a local partner in China. It turned out that their partner was not even a law firm: it was an accounting firm." 

The firm comes top of the rankings – 4% ahead of its nearest rival with an average satisfaction score of 8.67.  

For more information, contact Paul Birk on 0207 316 9864 or [email protected].

• Click here for profiles of the top-rated law firm from the Client Satisfaction Report Asia