UK & international
Clyde & Co
A UK-founded insurance and shipping specialist whose Hong Kong office, open since 1981, runs the region's marine casualties, aviation incidents and insurance disputes, and whose three-week summer vacation scheme is how almost every trainee gets in.
- Category
- UK & international
- Origin
- London, founded 1933; merged with Barlow Lyde & Gilbert in 2011
- HK presence
- Open since 1981, 45 years in 2026; hub of a Hong Kong-Beijing-Shanghai-Chongqing network of around 35 lawyers
- HK strengths
- Insurance & reinsurance, marine & shipping, aviation, dispute resolution & arbitration
The Hong Kong practice
What does Clyde & Co's Hong Kong office actually do?
Clyde & Co opened in Hong Kong in 1981, its first office outside the UK, and the office marks 45 years in the territory in 2026.Source ↗ That history explains what the office actually is. Richard Arthur Clyde founded the firm in 1933 out of a single room on London's Lime Street to act for Lloyd's underwriters, and Hong Kong today serves the same kind of client on a bigger stage: insurers, reinsurers, P&I clubs and shipowners working across Asia. The office is the hub of a Greater China network run alongside Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, and Chambers has ranked its Greater China insurance (non-contentious) practice for 16 years running.Source ↗
The client list tells you what the seats are like. Public materials name aviation, marine, construction, energy, professional practices, international trade and commodities, and insurance and reinsurance as the office's core sectors, with corporate and M&A, dispute resolution and international arbitration, and employment and regulatory work alongside. Simon McConnell, who chairs the firm's Asia Pacific board, leads on financial lines and insurance-fraud disputes; Matthew Lam and Fei Kwok (also Hong Kong's managing partner) spearhead a shipping team, with Michael Ng among its named contacts, that Legal 500 ranks in Hong Kong for charterparty disputes, marine casualties and bunker claims.Source ↗ The insurance bench has grown mostly through lateral hires, from Rosie Ng's move from Holman Fenwick Willan in 2021Source ↗ to the Hong Kong Insurance Authority's former acting general counsel joining as head of corporate late last year (more below).
For a trainee, that mix means less time waiting for responsibility. The firm's own recruitment page puts it plainly: sitting "at the heart of one of the busiest parts of Asia" means "greater responsibility earlier" than trainees typically get elsewhere. Hong Kong doesn't publish an exact seat-rotation structure, but a two-year training contract split across the office's core groups, insurance, marine and shipping, corporate work and dispute resolution, is standard for firms at this tier, and secondments to Shanghai or the wider network are, in the firm's words, "a real possibility" rather than guaranteed.
Trainee & vacation scheme programme
How do you get into Clyde & Co Hong Kong?
The route in is a three-week summer vacation schemeSource ↗, open to penultimate-year students with at least a 2:1 degree or equivalent. The firm asks for fluent English and prefers Cantonese and/or Mandarin on top, which fits a Hong Kong office built around Greater China work. You get exposure to live casework rather than a training exercise, and the firm doesn't publish a stipend figure, so treat any number you hear secondhand as unconfirmed.
Clyde & Co is direct about the funnel: the vacation scheme is its main early-careers route into Hong Kong, and most of the training-contract cohort comes in that way rather than by direct application. The published process afterward is a strengths-based one: a group exercise, then a partner interview, testing motivation, technical fit and cultural alignment as much as raw academics.
A training contract offer is conditional on passing the PCLL at the first attempt, and the firm sponsors the course for anyone who gets one.Source ↗ Beyond the 2:1 baseline, what the firm says it wants is closer to personality than pedigree: teamwork, enthusiasm and a willingness to take on a genuinely busy caseload sit alongside the grades, with personal qualities and extracurricular activity treated as "extremely important" in their own right.
Watch out
Deadlines move every cycle, so check the Elite Pathfinder deadline tracker instead of trusting last year's date. If you land the scheme, the Vacation Scheme Academy covers how to convert it into an offer.
Recent matters worth knowing
Where is Clyde & Co's Hong Kong bench growing?
Much of Clyde & Co's insurance and disputes work stays confidential, so the clearest public signal is where the office is hiring. These recent moves tell you which practices are growing and are the raw material for a good interview answer.
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Patrick Peng joins as head of corporate, Greater ChinaNovember 2025
Clyde & Co hired Patrick Peng, formerly acting general counsel at the Hong Kong Insurance Authority and before that a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell, as an insurance partner and head of corporate for Greater China in Hong Kong. He is expected to focus on licensing, M&A and regulatory work for family offices and digital-asset clients working through Hong Kong's insurance rules. Source ↗ ICLG ↗
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Hermonie Hui made up to partner in Hong KongOctober 2024
Hui was promoted to partner in the Hong Kong insurance litigation team, where she defends personal injury, employees' compensation and property claims and advises life and non-life insurers on coverage and policy-construction disputes. Asia Pacific board chair Simon McConnell said the move would help the firm "capitalise on the vibrant regional insurance market." Source ↗
Insider tip
Moves like these only help if you can say what they mean for the market, 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 Clyde & Co Hong Kong selection process look like?
Clyde & Co publishes more about its process than most firms at this tier. On its own careers pages it describes a strengths-based route: written application, the vacation scheme itself (the main gateway), a group exercise, and a partner interview. What it doesn't publish is the detail candidates actually want: there's no confirmed word on psychometric or critical-thinking tests, and nothing on format or timing for the group exercise or partner interview, so treat anything more specific you read online as secondhand.
What is consistent across what the firm does say is an emphasis on personality over polish: teamwork in the group exercise, genuine motivation in the partner interview, and a real reason for wanting insurance, shipping and disputes work rather than the corporate deals every other applicant is chasing.
Strip away the uncertainty and a contentious-led Hong Kong process like this tests a specific thing: can you reason clearly about a live claim or casualty under pressure, hold a real position when a partner pushes back, and explain why you actually want this kind of legal work rather than defaulting to it because a Magic Circle firm didn't call back. 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 Clyde & Co Hong Kong?
Because the firm weighs personality and extracurriculars alongside grades, and screens with a group exercise and partner interview, your edge comes from a specific written case, rehearsed group-exercise behaviour, and a real reason for choosing this work. Here is where to put your preparation.
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1Make the case for insurance, shipping and disputes specifically, not law-firm-shaped enthusiasm. Clyde & Co's own application weighs personal qualities and extracurriculars alongside grades, and a generic "I want broad commercial exposure" answer reads like a backup-firm application. The Law Firm Application Academy shows how to build a written case a recruiter actually believes.
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2Treat the group exercise like the assessment it is. It tests how you behave under pressure with strangers as much as what you know, and a live-claim style scenario rewards the same structured reasoning as a written case study, so it helps to know how firms mark case studies. Rehearse both in the Mock Assessment Centre and the Online Case Study Centre.
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3Go into the partner interview with a real answer for why this firm over a Magic Circle name. Insurance and shipping candidates get asked this constantly, and "well-rounded practice" is not an answer. In-person coaching pressure-tests your reasoning before a partner does it for real.
Quick answers
Clyde & Co Hong Kong, in five questions
How do you get a training contract at Clyde & Co Hong Kong?
Through the three-week summer vacation scheme, which is how almost every trainee gets in. It is the firm's main early-careers route: most of the training-contract cohort comes in through the scheme rather than by direct application.
Who can apply to Clyde & Co Hong Kong's vacation scheme?
Penultimate-year students with at least a 2:1 degree or equivalent. The firm asks for fluent English and prefers Cantonese and/or Mandarin on top, which fits a Hong Kong office built around Greater China work.
What does the Clyde & Co Hong Kong selection process look like?
A strengths-based route: a written application, the vacation scheme itself as the main gateway, then a group exercise and a partner interview testing motivation, technical fit and cultural alignment as much as raw academics.
Does Clyde & Co sponsor the PCLL in Hong Kong?
Yes. A training contract offer is conditional on passing the PCLL at the first attempt, and the firm sponsors the course for anyone who gets one.
What does Clyde & Co's Hong Kong office specialise in?
Insurance and reinsurance, marine and shipping, aviation, and dispute resolution and arbitration. Chambers has ranked its Greater China insurance (non-contentious) practice for 16 years running.