International Law

Two More Korean Law Firms Merge

On the heels of last month’s merger between Horizon Law Group and Jisung Law Group, today I get news that two more mid-sized Korean law firms have decided their hope for survival and prosperity in the marketplace lies in achieving greater mass. DeRyook International Law Firm and AJU International Law Group have announced their own mergers as well.

DeRyook and Aju in total have 90 attorneys, plus a few dozen allied professionals including foreign legal consultants, patent attorneys, and advisors (former government officials). Thus, this can be seen as part of the larger trend in the marketplace toward size. For several years now, it’s been obvious that 100 has become the smallest size firm considered credible by Korean business, the Korean power elite, and many foreign investors. So 100 has been the target toward which so many firms have built their merger activity.

But as more firms achieve the century mark, not all of whose members can actually do the kind of sophisticated business work which used to be the exclusive province of the 100 Club (but I’m not commenting here on the skill levels at Horizon, Jisung, DeRyook, or AJU), one can expect that size will continue to stand as a proxy for quality—with the new cutoff falling somewhere around the 200 level.

And smart consumers of legal services know that size doesn’t guarantee quality at all. Sadly, very few Korean enterprises are smart consumers of legal services, although it is definitely much better now than when I started my career in 1997. But that’s for another day.

Full post as published by Korea Law Blog on June 20, 2008 (boomark / email).