Jeff Leong
Senior Partner
A: c/o JLPW STRATEGIC CONSULTING SDN BHD
B-11-10 Level 11
Megan Avenue II
Jalan Yap Kwan Seng
50450 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia
T: (603) 2166 1108
F: (603) 2166 9728
E: jeff.leong@jlpw.com.my
W: www.jlpw.com.my
ALB: JLPW CROSS BORDER ASIA announced new offices and alliance agreements in Southeast Asia and beyond recently. Where are you expanding into?
JL: 2015 is a busy year. We signed with JLPW VINH AN LEGAL (Vietnam) in March, acquired a stake in NEWGRATA JLPW LLC (Mongolia) in April, and affiliated with SHEIKH & CHOWDURY (Bangladesh) and OCAMPO & MANALO (Philippines) in May and June 2015 respectively.
ALB: What has been the motivation behind this recent flurry of expansion? Why now?
JL: We were a cross border team from Singapore’s largest law firm in 1994 when Singapore companies went regional, and carried the cross border Asia DNA ever since. 20 years ago, it was 4am drives across the border to a Malaysian affiliate law firm in Johor. Now, it is still 4am drives to the airport for flights to regional affiliate offices in Yangon, Ho Chi Minh City or Dhaka. Knowing Asia exacts a heavy price – we faced the challenges of emerging Asia, survived the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis on our own and grew organically in the ensuing years. Already in the region for a few years, our recent signings formalised existing relationships for Asean Economic Community 2015 and to meet clients’ needs.
ALB: How does this fit in, in terms of the ability to service clients?
JL: Malaysia and Singapore were favoured FDI destinations for foreign investors and home to many MNCs and local companies operating businesses in the region. Our years of experience in servicing the needs of foreign investors remain useful for our clients and our collaborative approach with our regional affiliate partners in servicing clients is working well. The group numbers about 110 fee earners, with 50 in Malaysia. We are too small to be a threat to international law firms, but sizable enough to be useful, knowledgeable and connected collaborators in emerging markets for our foreign law firm friends and clients.
ALB: In 2015, JLPW Malaysia completes 16 years. What are some of its highlights during this time?
JL: We started in the depths of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis with 3 founders and a trainee in 1999. The worst of times, it demanded tremendous passion, sacrifice, commitment and nerves of steel with companies failing everywhere. They were the best of times too, forging strong bonds among our people and the financially troubled clients we helped rescue. Highlights include developing an industry standard due diligence system for capital markets, acting in various well known mergers and corporate rescues of banks, insurers, stockbrokers and listed companies, assisting numerous IPOs and listings on Bursa Malaysia and other stock exchanges around the world as well as acting for Lynas in one of the most complex public interest litigation in Malaysia. Others include our 10 years affiliation with international firm Deacons, Graham & James (later Deacons) and current affiliation with China’s largest law firm Dacheng.
ALB: In the Malaysian legal market, very few are looking at cross-border services like JLPW CROSS BORDER ASIA is aiming to offer. In what ways are you different from your domestic peers?
JL: There are many other good lawyers in Malaysia. Perhaps we may look “strange” with our cross border approach, but it is an invaluable and integral part of our founders’ experience, knowledge and skills. The founders remain passionately involved in servicing our clients and building JLPW CROSS BORDER ASIA. We are a teaching law firm with our own Econo Legal Studies research centre. Our lawyers teach in Kobe University and in universities in various parts of Asia, focusing on foreign direct investments, business expansion and M&As. Our training programs are made available to clients and linked to Kobe University via video conferencing. To date, under our Internship Program, we trained over 90 law interns from Japan and 10 from China since 2009. Few lawyers will know of economists such as John Commons, Oliver Williamson, Ronald Coarse or Marc Gallanter – we intertwine a strategic understanding of new institutional economics and legal realism with the law in structuring transactions, managing disputes and serving our clients with good business sense.
ALB: What practice areas would you say are JLPW Malaysia’s strengths at the moment, and which ones are you looking to beef up?
JL: We are primarily a corporate, M&A and capital markets law firm with strong teams in corporate finance, M&As, foreign investment, financial services and dispute resolution. Our teams across the region are fluent in regional languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese and Russian. We are adding capabilities in infrastructure and projects, environment and community engagement for deployment across Asia.
ALB: How does the next 12 months look like for JLPW CROSS BORDER ASIA?
JL: With the AEC, it will be a busy year for all the offices as we coordinate, manage and execute deals and transactions for our clients in the region.