THE ARGUMENTS PUT FORWARD BY THE AMERICANS
The Americans argue:—
(i) that adoption of the proposal would be in the best interests of their international and multi- national clients in that under the current system, those clients must go to Hong Kong firms for advice on those aspects of a particular transaction which are governed by Hong Kong law, that this is inevit- ably much more time consuming, duplicative and expensive and is therefore detrimental to the clients' interests.
Law Society's Comment: This is the corner stone of the Americans' argument and assumes:-
that there are such things as "international legal services". In reality there are not, lawyers being able to advise only on the laws of the legal systems in which they are qualified. As any international or multinat- ional corporation will know, they must consult a locally qualified lawyer in each juris- diction in which they do business.
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that notwithstanding that re- presentatives of the U.S. firms have stated that they will em- ploy only one or two Hong Kong solicitors per firm, the Hong Kong qualified employ. ees of the U.S. lawyers will be capable of advising on every aspect of a particular transac- tion including property, com- pany and commercial, tax and stamp duty matters and will be able to litigate any disputes which arise therefrom without qualified supervision. In prac tice, as any experienced lawyer will know, each of these arcas requires the services of experi enced specialists.
- that the present arrangements are much more time consum- ing, duplicative and expensive notwithstanding that under their proposal it will still be necessary to involve a foreign lawyer and, separately, a Hong Kong lawyer. In reality, it is most unlikely that the fees charged by the foreign law firm in respect of the combined services of one foreign lawyer
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