Washington DC-headquartered law firm Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer has opened an office in South Korea, after hiring two White & Case partners – James K. Lee and Kyungseok Kim. 

Arnold & Porter follows in the heels of Shearman & Sterling, which recently announced the establishment of a branch in Seoul. 

Lee and Kim earlier assisted White & Case in opening its own Seoul office back in 2015. Kim, a corporate partner specialising in cross-border transactions, was also involved when Linklaters opened its Seoul office in 2013; he left the firm for White & Case two years later.  

The seven-partner Arnold & Porter office in Seoul is expected to serve Korean clients in areas such as cross-border intellectual property, M&A, export control, US litigation, antitrust, international arbitration, and international trade matters.

Lee, who leads the office, focuses on cross-border business disputes, class action defence, arbitrations and investigations. 

The Seoul office is the fourth international outpost for Arnold & Porter, which has more than 1,000 lawyers. The other three are in Brussels, London and Shanghai. 

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