UK & international
Bird & Bird
A UK-founded, technology-and-IP-led international firm whose small Hong Kong office punches well above its headcount in intellectual property and TMT work, and whose four-week summer internship is effectively the only route into one of the roughly three Hong Kong training contracts it offers each year.
- Category
- UK & international
- Origin
- London, founded 1846 as Bird & Moore; renamed Bird & Bird in 1901
- HK presence
- In Hong Kong since 1995; part of a seven-office Asia-Pacific network; Legal 500 puts the office at around 44 lawyers and legal professionals
- HK strengths
- Intellectual property (Tier 1), TMT & data protection, employment, a growing disputes bench
The Hong Kong practice
What does Bird & Bird's Hong Kong office actually do?
Bird & Bird was founded in London in 1846, originally trading as Bird & Moore, and took its current name in 1901 when a second Bird joined the practice. It has grown into an international network of more than 30 offices and over 1,700 lawyers, built around a pitch that it is the law firm for organisations built on technology. Its Hong Kong office opened in 1995 and sits inside a seven-office Asia-Pacific network running from Beijing and Shanghai to Singapore, Sydney and Tokyo, with a formal association with Lawjay Partners covering PRC litigation. Legal 500's firm profile puts the Hong Kong office at around 44 lawyers and legal professionals, a fraction of the headcount at the Magic Circle and larger US firms covered elsewhere on this site.
What that smaller office does well is specific rather than broad. Legal 500 ranks its Hong Kong intellectual property team Tier 1, sharing that top tier with only Baker McKenzie and Deacons Source ↗, and Chambers Greater China ranks the same team Band 1 among international firms too. Source ↗ The group is built around partners Hank Leung, Alison Wong, Ted Chwu and Victor Tse, working alongside Matthew Laight, who heads the firm's wider Asia-Pacific IP practice. Publicly named clients include Maxeon (global solar-patent enforcement), Tam Jai International (cross-border trademark and franchising protection), Merck KGaA, Anker Innovations, Riot Games and Razer. Source ↗ Alongside IP sits a technology, media and telecoms practice co-led by Wilfred Ng and James Gong, doing data-compliance, localisation and security-assessment work that spans the PRC, EU, UK and Hong Kong, Source ↗ plus corporate and commercial instructions and an emerging AI and data-protection advisory line. Disputes is the newest push: the firm hired Katherine Cheung, dual-qualified in Hong Kong and England & Wales, as a Hong Kong disputes partner in January 2026. Source ↗
None of that makes Bird & Bird a volume M&A or capital markets shop in Hong Kong. Legal 500 lists its equity capital markets work only as "Firms to Watch," one rung below a ranked practice, Source ↗ and the corporate mandates it does win tend to arrive through an existing technology, healthcare or institutional client relationship rather than a broad panel pitch. That is the trade a trainee makes here: a smaller, sector-specialist office over a full-service one.
Trainee & vacation scheme programme
How do you get into Bird & Bird Hong Kong?
The route in is the Hong Kong Summer Internship, a four-week placement each June or July open to students from any academic discipline, not law alone. The firm’s own recruitment guide is blunt about the funnel: trainees are only selected from its interns, so there is no separate open training-contract round to apply into later. If you want a Bird & Bird Hong Kong training contract, the internship is effectively the audition, and the same guide has put the summer intake at anywhere from four or five students up to eight to ten, depending on the cycle. Source ↗ Applications run through the firm’s Greater China early careers page.
The firm's own recruitment material puts trainee intake at up to three trainee solicitors a year in Hong Kong, small enough that Bird & Bird doesn't feature on most Hong Kong training-contract league tables built around the Magic Circle and the larger US firms. Source ↗ Wilfred Ng, a Commercial partner with more than a decade in technology, media and telecoms work, fronts graduate recruitment for the office and runs the firm's campus talks at Hong Kong law schools (HKU hosted one in October 2025). Source ↗ The training contract itself runs the standard two years, with seats rotating across the office's core groups: IP, TMT and data protection, corporate and commercial, and disputes.
On what it wants, the firm's own language stays broad: outgoing, articulate, "well-rounded" team players who are genuinely interested in progressing, not a specific degree class or subject. Treat that as an invitation to bring a real interest in technology, data or IP to the table rather than a generic law-firm answer.
Watch out
Deadlines move every cycle, so check the Elite Pathfinder deadline tracker instead of trusting last year's date. If you land the internship, the Vacation Scheme Academy covers how to convert it into an offer.
Recent matters worth knowing
Which recent matters has Bird & Bird's Hong Kong office run?
These are the matters the Hong Kong office has publicly led or advised on, and they are the raw material for a good interview answer. They lean toward the office's technology, healthcare and institutional client relationships rather than volume M&A.
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Sale of The Women's Clinic Group to TemplewaterMarch 2026
Bird & Bird's Hong Kong office acted for the largest shareholder of The Women's Clinic Group, one of Hong Kong's largest private women's healthcare groups, on the sale of its controlling stake to Asia-based investor Templewater. Partner James Fong led, supported by senior associate Philip Chui and associate Ivan Wong. Source ↗
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HKU's first European campus, in BarcelonaSeptember 2025
Bird & Bird advised the University of Hong Kong on acquiring a newly built property in Barcelona's 22@ technology district, more than 8,000 square metres that will become HKU's first campus in Europe; the firm's Madrid real estate team led, with corporate partner James Fong running the Hong Kong side. Source ↗
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UBTech Robotics' landmark HKEX IPODecember 2023
Bird & Bird advised UBTech Robotics, the Chinese humanoid and smart-service robotics maker, on its initial public offering and Main Board listing, which raised about US$130m and was the first ever listing of a humanoid-robotics company on the exchange. Partner James Fong led the team. Source ↗
Insider tip
Matters like these only help if you can say what they mean, so learn the framework in our commercial awareness guide. Weekly deal breakdowns like these, what happened, why it matters, and how to talk about it in an interview, sit at the core of the paid Weekly News Digest.
Interview & selection intel
What does the Bird & Bird Hong Kong selection process look like?
Bird & Bird's Hong Kong process has left almost no public trail. There is no Chambers Student or Legal Cheek Hong Kong write-up to draw on, and the office is too small for the volume of Glassdoor reviews that build up around the Magic Circle and the larger US firms. Read what follows as a reasonable structural account, not a candidate-verified play-by-play.
What is public is the shape of the pipeline. Shortlisted applicants sit an interview before being offered a place on the summer internship, and because the firm says trainees are only selected from its interns, the four weeks in June or July function as an extended, paid audition rather than a resume-building placement done on the side. Graduate recruitment for Hong Kong runs through Wilfred Ng, the Commercial partner who also fronts the firm's law-school talks.
Strip away the specifics and a small, specialist office is testing for something distinct from the Magic Circle model: not just whether you can survive a rotation through unfamiliar practice areas, but whether you actually want to build a career around technology, IP or data protection specifically, in an office where three trainee spots means every seat matters and there is nowhere to hide for a month. Our guide to the Hong Kong vacation scheme interview walks through how these conversations actually run.
How to stand out
How do you stand out for Bird & Bird Hong Kong?
Because the intake is tiny and won on genuine sector fit, your edge comes from a specific written case for this firm, treating the internship as the interview it is, and a real reason for choosing a specialist office. Here is where to put your preparation.
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1Make the case for Bird & Bird specifically, not law firms generally. The firm's whole identity is built on technology and IP, so a generic answer about M&A cycles or Magic Circle prestige will not land the way it might elsewhere. Our guide to the top mistakes on HK applications shows the fixes, and the Law Firm Application Academy shows how to evidence real interest in a specific sector instead of asserting it.
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2Treat the four-week internship as the actual interview. With trainees selected only from the intern pool, you are being assessed on live work from day one, not auditioning for a separate assessment centre later. Build the structured, commercial-writing habits that hold up under that scrutiny in the Online Case Study Centre and the Mock Assessment Centre.
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3Have a real answer for why a specialist office over a Magic Circle name. At roughly three training contracts a year, the firm can afford to select on fit as much as raw academics, and a rehearsed line about "international exposure" will not survive follow-up questions. Pressure-test your reasoning with in-person coaching before you are in the room.
Quick answers
Bird & Bird Hong Kong, in five questions
How many training contracts does Bird & Bird offer in Hong Kong?
The firm's own recruitment material puts trainee intake at up to three trainee solicitors a year in Hong Kong, a cohort small enough that Bird & Bird doesn't feature on most Hong Kong training-contract league tables.
How do you get a training contract at Bird & Bird Hong Kong?
Through the Hong Kong Summer Internship, a four-week placement each June or July open to students from any academic discipline. The firm draws its Hong Kong trainees from that same intern pool, so there is no separate open training-contract round and the internship is effectively the audition.
What seats does the Bird & Bird Hong Kong training contract cover?
The training contract runs the standard two years, with seats rotating across the office's core groups: IP, TMT and data protection, corporate and commercial, and disputes.
What does Bird & Bird look for in Hong Kong applicants?
The firm's own language stays broad: outgoing, articulate, well-rounded team players who are genuinely interested in progressing, rather than a specific degree class or subject. A real interest in technology, data or IP helps.
What is Bird & Bird's Hong Kong office known for?
Intellectual property and technology. Legal 500 ranks its Hong Kong IP team Tier 1, sharing that top tier with only Baker McKenzie and Deacons, alongside a technology, media and telecoms and data-protection practice.