by Paul Reynolds

The May 10th meeting of B.C.’s Legal Marketing Association was on building practice with Chinese clients needing advice on Canadian law. The writer carried out case studies of how several smaller firms and practice groups had succeeded. Ronald Josephson, founder of litigation boutique Josephson & Co. directly shared his firm’s success. The program started with an outline of one firm’s four-year record.

In 2000, Michael Shore was an IP litigator in Dallas who had recently founded a four-lawyer firm. At the same time a Chinese university had a patent which a Texas party was infringing. They had no clue about U.S. litigation but had alumni in Dallas who called Shore. Shore proposed visiting China to explain about suits, jurisdiction, and costs. During that first long meeting the idea emerged of selling the patent to the infringer. They liked this and Shore had his first Chinese client!

He helped the University get the consent from ministries. Meeting the ministries provided an opportunity to give seminars to staff. He made ten trips and some work came during those first few years. Some sixty per cent was not paid (such as commentary on IP policies and court procedures), but forty per cent was charged at premium fees. His firm now does considerable profitable Chinese work.

Building a legal practice with Chinese clients is very achievable and B.C. lawyers enjoy some great advantages such as being closer to China than almost anywhere in North America; government support of Chinese investment; and a rich local pool of educated Chinese speakers.

Success depends on goals, strategy and action plans but the key criterion is a partner or two who are really committed. Strategy means thinking about what you are offering long-term. Is it a named lawyer; a practice group or the entire firm? Then consider the issue of going after clients directly or via relationships. Mr. Shore was approached by a client but his strategy was to build relations with the ministries and through them to state-owned companies. Ron Josephson seeks referrals from Chinese laws firms and doesn’t try to market directly to Chinese clients. The third strategic step is to decide to market to clients based in Canada or China. For some types of practices it is quite possible to target local Chinese entrepreneurs, build relations with them and get work connected to their businesses back in China. Finally, consider the trade offs. If you are doing China, what are you NOT going to do and have your partners bought in?

The key action item, unless you are marketing locally, is to travel to China a few times a year for a few years. The first trip might be to join a Canadian trade delegation or go see lawyers in China in your practice area. [Find them at www.legal500.com].

You do not need to visit every major city. Focusing on one or two is a viable strategic option. The key is sustained effort in between multiple trips.

While it certainly helps to speak Chinese, you do not need to. You are marketing Canadian legal expertise and most of the case studies were non-Chinese speaking lawyers. However, most firms have some key website pages, brochures, and practice descriptions in Chinese. This can be inexpensively outsourced.

The bottom line is that building a China practice is very doable and several B.C. lawyers, even small firms, are already succeeding.

Paul Reynolds, consults on legal marketing and legal risk management via 2nvision.com.

This article was published in the June 2006 issue of BarTalk and is subject to the copyright by the British Columbia Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, 2006, all rights reserved.