Henry Lipschutz, Inc. (HLI) was started in New York in 1996 by Henry Lipschutz with the purpose of assisting US and UK law firms and investment banks as they expanded in Europe, Asia Pacific and subsequently in the Gulf (Middle East) and more recently in Sao Paolo as well. 

 

The expansion efforts by these institutions have continued up to date and HLI has had a clear and major emphasis in Asia Pacific, followed by the Gulf and then Europe.  In addition to help recruit dedicated skilled US lawyers and Common Law solicitors in these jurisdictions, from time to time, HLI has also been engaged in placing lawyers with an international orientation at US offices including New York (such as a Mandarin speaking US banking lawyer working for PRC financial institutions which need regulatory approval and compliance for their US operations), Silicon Valley (like a Mandarin speaking emerging company lawyer working with VC funds out of Northern California investing into Greater China as well as inbound transactional work on behalf of PRC technology companies as they invest in US technology companies), Houston (including a Mandarin speaking lawyer in the energy transactional area working with PRC developers investing in Latin America).

 

With respect to Asia Pacific, the history of placements has included the full spectrum of practice areas relevant to firms focused in raising and managing capital, firms involved in M&A, firms involved in the technology space and firms involved in natural resources and power development.  A typical placement for a US practicing lawyer would be one in which a well established US firm needs a native Mandarin speaker to build relationships and do execution for PRC sponsors and developers as they invest outside of China, or a Fund Formation lawyer who can apply the expertise gained in the US or London and help PRC sovereigns and institutions pool their capital into general partnership agreements and expand the platform with limited partners, among many others.  In Hong Kong there has been significant activity in the last several years in building up and expanding Hong Kong Law expertise particularly among US firms to bind in relationships with investment banks and offer dual listing capability, and with issuers as well with the longer term view of providing HK Law Regulatory expertise to post IPO issuers and from them originate and execute their outbound M&A deal flow and in the near future in HK Public M&A expertise.  Along with the wider bandwidth within US firms with respect to executing HK documented deals, there is a recent interest, and HLI remains actively involved in several searches, to add on international arbitration both in the financial services area as well as in the upstream project development areas.  These types of searches, along with Energy and Finance are active in Singapore as well where HLI has a good profile in both practice areas working with two of the major Wall Street firms involved in Energy and Finance.   With respect to Japan the activity is substantial and HLI’s history of placements there goes back to the late 90s as firms built up offices from representative status into execution offices and thereafter expanded as well into Japanese Law (Bengoshi).  More recently, HLI has been involved in searches largely focused in representing Japanese developers in outbound Projects, Finance and the international arbitration associated with this outbound work. 

 

HLI limits its client base to five clients so that each client has access to a larger pool of prospective candidates without breaching ongoing agreements with other clients.  Illustratively, if a search firm, specially if it employs a number of search professionals, were to have ten active clients it would either have a limited pool of firms to recruit from, or it may breach agreements it has with some of its current clients in pursue of a specific candidate, causing a breach of contract.  By limiting the client base, HLI is sending out a message that respecting its contractual obligations drives the firm’s marketing approach to recruitment.