37 Asian Legal Business | November 2024 to receive the ALB HK Law Awards for Dispute Resolution Lawyer of the Year for two consecutive years. This recognition reflects not only my dedication to my clients but also the collaborative efforts of my exceptional team.” The AS Watson Group took home the Innovative In-House Team of the Year award. Tracey Turner, general counsel, commented, “Winning the Innovative In-House Team award is a wonderful recognition of the commitment, expertise, effort and execution of AS Watson Group’s legal team. As we celebrate this milestone, we also look forward to the exciting projects that lie ahead.” Norton Rose Fulbright celebrated success in multiple categories. Partner Becky Tai, who was named Young Lawyer of the Year, expressed her excitement: “I’m thrilled to have been named Young Lawyer of the Year at ALB Hong Kong Law Awards 2024. I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my clients, colleagues and peers for their ongoing trust and support.” Haldanes, which won the Criminal Litigation Law Firm of the Year award, stated: “It is a privilege to be trusted by law firms to look after their clients in times of need, and we thank them as well as ALB and the judges for your continued support of our criminal litigation practice.” The Construction & Real Estate In-House Team of the Year award went to CLP. Katrina Sardi, accepting the award, said: “The CLP International Legal Team’s success in winning Construction & Real Estate In-House Team of the Year is fabulous recognition of the valuable work done by this team and its successful collaboration on key projects for the business.” CMS was recognised as the Transportation & Logistics Law Firm of the Year. Andrew Horton, partner at CMS, remarked: “The partners would like to thank the clients that have supported us for many years and our hard-working team without whom providing our quality and cost-effective legal services would not be possible.” Cooley was named the Rising Law Firm of the Year. Michael Yu, partnerin-charge of Cooley HK, commented: “We are truly honoured to be recognized recognised as Rising Law Firm of the Year by ALB Hong Kong Law Awards. This accolade is testament to the remarkable growth of our Hong Kong office and China practice over the past five years.” Dorsey & Whitney celebrated winning the M&A Deal of the Year. Simon Chan from the firm said: “We sincerely thank our client and fellow law firms for their trust on our team to handle Hong Kong’s largest corporate deal.” A Q&A with Chris Lambert, Robertsons As sponsors of the Investment Banking In-House Team of the Year award, what trends or innovations are you seeing which will shape the future of investment banks’ in house legal work? Without doubt, the most significant innovation has been the adoption of generative AI tools, which have been rapidly embraced by many in-house legal teams, arguably more so than their peers in the private sector. Certainly many investment banks have prioritised progress in this space in recent years and the in-house teams’ familiarity and effective use of these tools are a natural extension of this drive. As for business trends that we have seen, the most obvious has been the massive each of which was required to complete for final closing and which were logical as deal points but presented unique challenges in practice. Sometimes it is not so much the higher level issues, but physically getting the nuts and bolts of the deal done where law firms can show their greatest value to the in house teams. Looking ahead to 2025, what do you anticipate will be the most significant challenges facing investment banking in-house legal teams in Hong Kong, and how are you positioning yourself to support these teams in addressing these challenges? There is no doubt that the biggest challenges will continue to be market-driven in a highly uncertain geopolitical and economic climate. In such situations, the pressure to get deals done can be intense and the in-house team - as the interface with their own deal people - will be at the forefront of these challenging situations. Without doubt the best support that can be given by the external law firm is practical, market specific advice rather than routine box ticking, and that is certainly how we prefer to position our support in such cases. expansion of private credit deals led by the investment banks, which was largely unheard of a decade ago, but which have now filled the gap left by the traditional banks, and are now appear to be as common as M&A deals. How do you see your firm’s role in assisting in-house legal teams and can you highlight a recent significant matter or transaction that Robertsons has handled for an investment banking client? Without disclosing confidential details, what are the key challenges involved, and how did your team address these? Despite the significant changes in the industry, in many respects our firm’s actual role in supporting in-house legal teams remains largely unchanged. The in-house teams are the bridge to the deal-focused professionals in the banks and expect tailored advice and support to compliment this role, and not simply to be told what they already know. As an example of how law firms can provide this support, in a recent transaction, the largest challenge ended up being physically getting the deal done on the ground where there were a number of sequential transactions Chris Lambert Managing Partner Robertsons
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