The last of the Big Four to offer legal services from an Asian base, KPMG recently established an affiliated law firm in Hong Kong named SF Lawyers. Shirley Fu (principal of SF Lawyers), Stuart Fuller (head of KPMG Law in Australia & Asia-Pacific regional leader for legal services) and Lachlan Wolfers (head of Legal, KPMG China) were in Hong Kong to talk about how technology sets their offering apart from traditional law firms.

ALB: Why launch a law firm in Hong Kong now?
Fuller: Our whole approach is asking, “Where do we see opportunities where clients want an integrated service, a combined service?” Also, “Where do we see business opportunities and where do we get great talent?” When you look at the critical role played by Hong Kong and China in the regional economy, but also the role of Hong Kong as a key regional market, and you connect that with the business opportunities – cross- border M&A, infrastructure, data privacy technology areas – and the talent we were able to source, led by Shirley, it all came together with really great timing.

Wolfers: When I first entered China eight years ago we were predominantly assisting multi-national companies going inbound, and what we’re seeing with the maturity and growth in the greater China market, is an opportunity to support Chinese clients going outbound. Hong Kong is a very international city, the legal profession here is mature and we believe that Hong Kong lawyers can play a key role in facilitating outbound legal services as well as the more traditional inbound services. The second aspect is that KPMG China, just over 12 months ago, established a digital innovation centre in Nanjing. We now have over 200 people based there who are software developers, technology engineers, technology architects and more, and that provides us with the ability to leverage those services. The delivery of legal services is a key point of difference that SF Lawyers will have over the more traditional law firms.

ALB: Can you elaborate on this? Will the firm stand out primarily through technology?
Fu: Technology is very important and obviously transforming our clients’ business, so by working in conjunction with KPMG, we really want to provide integrated business solutions by deploying cutting edge technology. That is one of the strategies of our law firm. We do want to be innovative and do things differently, and we do hire lawyers of diverse backgrounds and legal experience. For example, I have a mix of legal and accounting training, while one of our proposed senior hires is a recognized international expert in infrastructure projects. In that way, we can really combine our legal and business expertise. What clients really want is innovative and commercial legal solutions and we are confident that we have the right platform by leveraging KPMG’s investment in technology and tapping into the KPMG legal service network.

Additionally, when we hire lawyers, we want to hire people who are very adaptable to change, who have a team spirit, and are willing to collaborate with KPMG and other professionals so we can really work closely together.

ALB: Who do you view your competition as being?
Wolfers: I do not believe you would look at traditional law firms as being our competitors. We are not trying to compete with them. I will give you a very simple example; when the public typically thinks about the role of lawyers, they think about litigation, and SF Lawyers is not proposing to provide litigation services. So, then we talk about the other Big Four firms, if you look at it very simply, they are very new entrants into the market themselves. I would not necessarily say this is a situation where you are looking at what your competitors doing. If you look internationally you would see there’s a lot of studies being carried out that show that they spend on legal services in this part of the world is significantly less than in the more mature markets, say the United States, the UK, and many European jurisdictions, so you’re really dealing with an overall business market which is a lot less mature and has significant growth trajectory. Rather than say we are fighting with other firms for our share of the pie, I think the more accurate point is the pie itself is growing and growing at a fairly significant rate.

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