Just a decade ago, China’s rise as an economic superpower still seemed distant and uncertain. For Chinese lawyers able to study or work abroad, the United States seemed a safer bet than their homeland. Back then, the China practice of major international firms was still mainly the province of the Old China Hands — lawyers in the mold of Jerome Cohen and Owen Nee, who co-founded the first foreign law office in Beijing for Coudert Brothers in 1979. These early practices, which attracted many lawyers who perhaps had a deeper affinity for Chinese language and culture than the practice of law, were mainly “inbound” practices, focused on representing U.S. and other multinationals in opening factories and shops in China.

But with the country’s economic rise, the face of the China practice at international firms has grown increasingly … Chinese. Unlike their predecessors — who were mostly white males — New China Hands are largely of Chinese descent. Many, like Gao, left China to study abroad, joined top global firms, and are now heading back to take on leading roles at their firms’ Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong offices. They are joined by a new generation of expat lawyers with a far stronger mix of language and legal skills than their predecessors had.

“In five, seven years, there will [probably] be someone from mainland China sitting in this seat talking to you,” says William Barron, the decidedly non-Chinese senior partner in the Hong Kong office of Davis Polk & Wardwell. “And that’s as it should be. The group of Chinese lawyers we have in their 20s and 30s is just outstanding.”

via The New China Hands.