The Vietnam Business Lawyer Club (VBLC) held its first 2017 workshop “Law Firm Management” on 24 February in Hanoi. The highly anticipated workshop, sponsored by 10 leading law firms in Vietnam, was in strong demand by Hanoi lawyers following a similar workshop held in Ho Chi Minh City in January 2017. The workshop’s more than 100 attendees were comprised primarily of senior partners of local law firms with some participation from practitioners at the Ministry of Justice and in-house counsel.
The first session, an overview from international practice, was presented by Adam Moncrieff of Allen & Overy. Mr. Moncrieff shared Allen & Overy’s management structure and compared firm models, as well as discussed the drivers of strategic competition in legal services and major trends in the market. As law firms seek to do more with less and the resulting implications on how lawyers work, many local lawyers were surprised by the expected number of billable hours per year at an international firm such as Allen & Overy, although Mr. Moncrieff stressed the billable hour target for each law firm will differ from firm to firm. Questions raised for him when he discussed the basic business model included how to account for WIP movement, personnel cost of 40% of turnover and big investment on IT.
The second session on client development was presented by a panel from VILAF, YKVN, Allen & Overy, Bizlink, and Baker & McKenzie. The final sessions were a panel discussion on lawyer retention and billing and cost management. Panelists included Quang & Ha of YKVN, Duong Anh & Phong of VILAF, Duc of Allen & Overy, Hung & Nicholas of Baker & McKenzie, Hai of Bizlink, Quang of NHQuang & Associates, Hang of Russin & Vecchi, Minh of LNT & Partners, and Quang of Leadco. Among other issues, they discussed how to recruit and retain talent, KPIs, success fees, and profit sharing based on lock step or eat what you kill models.
The workshop was followed by a cocktail networking reception with Mr. Do Ngoc Thinh, the President of Vietnam Bar Federation (VBF).
The VBLC’s second 2017 workshop will be on the topic of case law to be held in Hanoi on 17 March 2017. More information can be found at the following link: https://vblc.com.vn/hoi-thao-an-le-o-viet-nam-thuc-tien-ap-dung-3/
VBLC is dedicated to developing a collaborative group of Vietnamese lawyers engaged in cross border commercial practice and well versed in foreign languages in order to meet the increasing demand for cross border legal advisors. Membership includes in-house counsel from both Vietnamese and foreign companies with offices in Vietnam and practitioners at local, regional and international law firms. The VBLC was initiated by the Ministry of Justice and is affiliated with the VBF.
