Appetite for opening offices in South Korea to service the country's growing legal market remains healthy with news breaking this week that Allen & Overy (A&O) and US firm White & Case are both set to open offices in South Korea later this year.

It is understood that A&O has already lodged an application for a licence with regulators in the country, and is hoping to have a base up and running within a few months if the application is approved.

Although the office is expected to span multiple practice areas, project finance will form a significant part of its work as the firm looks to service the market for outbound investment in overseas projects.

A&O is understood to have been considering opening in the country for several years.

South Korea will be the ninth Asia-Pacific country the firm has set up in. It currently has offices in Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, Myanmar, and China and Hong Kong.

A&O's Korea practice is currently run from its Hong Kong base and is headed by capital markets partner Walter Son.

Meanwhile, White & Case is in the early stages of preparing to launch in Seoul, adding to the six offices it already has in Asia.

The US firm is expected to open a multi-practice base in the capital later this year
and, like A&O, project finance will form a significant part of its offering.

A spokesperson for White & Case says: "Asia is a strategic priority and we continually explore options to support growth and better serve our clients globally.

"Korea is of special interest to us, given that we have been serving Korean clients for many years. There are several ways the firm and its clients could benefit from an in-country location."

Currently White & Case's Korea practice is managed from its Los Angeles office and is headed by commercial litigator James Lee.

Subject to regulatory approval, the firms will join a number of others that have opened in South Korea in recent years. These include Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, which have both launched there in the past year.

Jong Han Kim, chair of Paul Hasting's Seoul office, says the market is becoming increasingly competitive: "There are so many firms coming into Korea and there's a limited number of businesses. Deal flow is not accelerating that much."

He explains that Paul Hastings, which has been in the country for two years, was focused on the top five Korean companies but is now expanding its target clients to encompass the top 30 businesses.

Lewis McDonald, Herbert Smith Freehills managing partner for Seoul, says big clients in the country are increasingly expecting an "on-demand service", which necessitates an office in the country. "You are dealing with complicated things and legal regimes that they [clients] are not familiar with and getting all of that over the phone is confusing."

He also backs Kim's view that the market is becoming more competitive: "Korea is a large economy but it is dominated by a small number of big names. Three of those corporate groups – Samsung, Hyundai and Posco – make up around 50% of the GDP."

He points out that new entrants might find it hard to break into that client list, but says he is aware that A&O's Son has been working for Korean companies "for years" so he is "sure" the firm's Korean office will be a success.

McDonald believes that while the market is competitive there is still plenty of room for expansion, with smaller companies starting to do more overseas deals and the big names progressively increasing their deal activity. "Singapore has well over 100 international law firms and they all manage to survive somehow."

With Ashurst and Simmons & Simmons among those understood to be looking at options for opening in the country, it is only going to get busier.