Baker McKenzie

The Hong Kong practice

What does Baker McKenzie's Hong Kong office actually do?

Baker McKenzie opened in Hong Kong in 1974, one of the first international firms to set up in the market, and the office now runs at more than 150 lawyers. It is full-service rather than specialist, and its defining feature is cross-border work between Hong Kong and mainland China: coordinating listings, acquisitions, restructurings and disputes that touch both sides of the border for multinationals, mainland issuers and the banks around them.

The engine of the office is corporate: HKEX IPOs, M&A and private equity, and capital markets across equity, debt and convertibles. Around that sits the firm's global bench in tax, intellectual property, employment, restructuring and insolvency, real estate and dispute resolution, which is why a company can run most of its Asia legal work through one office. The China dimension is handled through Baker McKenzie FenXun, the firm's joint operation with a PRC firm, giving Hong Kong teams a route into mainland-law capability on the same deal.

For a trainee, that breadth sets what you touch. The training contract rotates you through up to five practice areas, including a compulsory contentious seat, and the firm pushes you toward a transactional seat because corporate work sits at its core. On a capital markets or corporate seat you work close to live IPOs and acquisitions: due diligence, verification of the prospectus, drafting ancillary documents, and the mechanics of signing and closing. A three-month secondment to one of the firm's international offices is open to trainees who want it.

Trainee & vacation scheme programme

How do you get into Baker McKenzie Hong Kong?

The summer clerkship is the main route in, and the firm is open about that: it calls the clerkship the stepping-stone to a training contract, and clerks who perform well join as trainee solicitors once they finish their legal studies and the PCLL. It runs as two four-week programmes in June and July in the Hong Kong office, with up to 20 places a year (subject to review). You sit in two different practice seats with an assigned partner and associate mentor in each, work on live client matters, attend client meetings, and complete a group legal research exercise alongside training sessions and a pro bono project. The clerkship is paid a competitive market wage. Source ↗

Convert the clerkship and you join as a trainee solicitor. The firm's graduate FAQ puts the training-contract intake at eight to ten a year in Hong Kong, which, set against a clerkship of up to 20, makes this one of the larger graduate pipelines among the international firms in the market. The training contract itself is two years, rotating through up to five practice areas for three to six months each, including contentious law, opening with a three-day induction and live work from the start, with the option to apply for a three-month international secondment. Source ↗

On selection, the firm asks for a strong academic record (a 2:1 or on track for one) and runs a contextualised recruitment system that still looks at candidates who narrowly miss the standard bar. It recruits penultimate- and final-year law students and final-year qualifying law students. Chinese language ability is not a stated requirement, but it is genuinely useful given how much of the work is mainland-facing. Source ↗

Recent matters worth knowing

Which recent deals has Baker McKenzie's Hong Kong office run?

These are the deals the Hong Kong office has publicly led or advised on, and they are the raw material for a good interview answer. They cluster where the office is strongest: HKEX IPOs, capital markets and cross-border M&A.

1. QingSong Health's HKEX IPODecember 2025

   Baker McKenzie acted as Hong Kong and US legal adviser to QingSong Health on its global offering and Main Board listing in Hong Kong, with net proceeds of around HK$513m; the H shares started trading on 23 December 2025. Source ↗

2. Chery Automobile's US$1.17bn HKEX IPOSeptember 2025

   The firm was Hong Kong and US counsel to Chery on its Main Board listing, with H shares trading from 25 September 2025, raising roughly US$1.17bn, described as the largest automotive IPO in Hong Kong that year. Source ↗

3. China Pacific Insurance's HK$15.56bn convertible bondsSeptember 2025

   Baker McKenzie advised on CPIC's HK$15.556bn zero-coupon convertible bonds due 2030, listed in Hong Kong and convertible into H shares, billed as the biggest zero-coupon HKD convertible in history and the first offshore convertible by a state-owned financial group listed on domestic and foreign markets at once. Source ↗

4. Bain Capital's US$3.3bn pharma carve-outSeptember 2025

   A Hong Kong-led team (lead partner Derek Poon) advised Bain Capital on its US$3.3bn carve-out acquisition of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma from Mitsubishi Chemical Group, a reminder that the office runs serious private equity and M&A, not only listings. Source ↗

5. Mirxes Holding's HKEX IPOMay 2025

   The firm acted as Hong Kong and US legal adviser to the joint sponsors and underwriters on the Main Board listing of the cancer-diagnostics group Mirxes, which began trading on 23 May 2025. Source ↗

Interview & selection intel

What does the Baker McKenzie Hong Kong selection process look like?

Baker McKenzie's Hong Kong graduate site does publish the shape of the process, and it runs in a specific order: online application, then a recorded video interview of pre-recorded questions, then an online critical-thinking assessment, then a Clerkship Day. Source ↗ The critical-thinking assessment is the Watson Glaser-type reasoning test the firm uses widely; treat it as a real gate.

The Clerkship Day itself is built around a group exercise (a mock business scenario you read alone, then discuss as a group) and a one-hour drafting exercise, where you write a brief advice and an executive summary based on the group case study, plus a Q&A. It rewards structure under pressure and confident drafting rather than a set-piece exam.

Strip out the specifics and the pattern is clear. A Hong Kong assessment at this tier tests whether you can reason cleanly under time (the critical-thinking test and the case study), whether your drafting holds up when it is measured directly (the one-hour advice exercise is real), and whether you can explain, commercially rather than as a passion speech, why this firm and why Hong Kong. The client base is heavily mainland-facing, so language range and the ease to work with Chinese clients help.

How to stand out

How do you stand out for Baker McKenzie Hong Kong?

With a clerkship of up to 20 places against a much larger pool and a hard Watson Glaser gate, your edge comes from a sharp written application, real test preparation, and a rehearsed assessment centre. Here is where to put your preparation.

• 1Win on the written application and the video interview. With a clerkship of up to 20 places against a much larger applicant pool, most candidates are cut before a lawyer meets them. Structure every answer around achievement and commercial reasoning, avoid the top mistakes on HK applications, and record the video like it counts. That is the core of the Law Firm Application Academy.

• 2Treat the critical-thinking test as a hard gate. Baker McKenzie's Hong Kong process includes an online critical-thinking assessment, the Watson Glaser-type reasoning test, and it screens hard. Learn the method in our guide to mastering the Watson Glaser test, and the Watson Glaser Academy builds the exact reasoning patterns the test rewards.

• 3Rehearse the Clerkship Day, and be able to talk a Hong Kong deal cold. The group exercise, the one-hour drafting exercise and the Q&A all reward structure under pressure, confident drafting and real commercial knowledge. Drill the format in the Online Case Study Centre and the Mock Assessment Centre, then pressure-test your answers with coaching before the day.

Quick answers

Baker McKenzie Hong Kong, in five questions