With Baker & McKenzie having just announced its joint operation in China with domestic firm FenXun Partners, global chair Eduardo Leite cut a very happy figure at the firm's EMEA partner conference in Prague last week.

The joint operation licence, which is governed under the law of the Shanghai free-trade zone, allows the firm to advise clients on Chinese law under its own name by working alongside FenXun's 20 lawyers, though the staff will remain on the payroll of their respective firms.

But it's not the only approach to one of the world's biggest emerging legal markets. You only have to look at Dentons' mega-merger with 4,000-lawyer outfit Dacheng, announced in January, to find a radical alternative to Bakers' small cooperative ethos. Meanwhile, others have opted to maintain looser arrangements with local firms rather than tie themselves to one partner.

Leite is convinced that it is Bakers' model that will win out. "The joint agreement works all over China," he says. "And the Shanghai free-trade zone is the pilot for similar zones across China.

"The size is not what really matters, but the offering of the firm. Our clients want us to have the best talent in the right jurisdictions."

You can't help thinking that he has rival US giant Dentons in mind when he goes a step further and argues that the process of bolting on a smaller partner will be smoother than undertaking a mega-merger. "You have to work hard to combine two big firms but with FenXun that collaboration is there [from the start] and that is very noticeable," he explains. "From day one we are in the same building."

In addition to sharing an office under the joint operation, lawyers from FenXun will be seconded to other areas of the business as part of Bakers' existing transfer programme.

Leite sees the deal as one of the keys to ensuring that Bakers – which reported record global revenue of $2.5bn (£1.7bn) last year, up by 5% on the year before – remains in the "global elite". He, like many in the industry, foresees the market polarising into global giants and local minnows, and he is keen that Bakers remains in the former camp – though given that last year it was the largest global law firm by revenue it would have to fall some distance to reach the latter group.

"The global elite is already taking shape and there is going to be a group of anything between 10 and 20 very large and powerful multi-practice firms," Leite predicts. "Our platform is already there."

Laying the groundwork for further expansion into China is in keeping with the firm's trajectory in recent years. Last July it opened an office in Brisbane, Australia, and in the 12 months before that it launched bases in Yangon in Myanmar and Dubai.
Leite is keen to point out that he is still looking to further expand the reach of the business. "We may be present in nearly 50 countries but we have clients that do business in 180 jurisdictions so we obviously have a long way to go."

Although he won't be pinned down on areas or regions earmarked for future expansion, Leite says India and Cuba are among the markets the firm
is interested in breaking into in the long term should regulations permit.

In order to stay ahead in the competitive global legal market Leite says you have to look further than just your competitors: "We do not benchmark ourselves against what the other law firms are doing but what other industries are doing, such as consulting, to find innovative ways to serve our clients."

Leite is setting his sights high. "If I have a dream it is for Bakers to be leading the global elite. I'm sure that is what any decent global chairman would dream of."