CMS

The Hong Kong practice

What does CMS's Hong Kong office actually do?

Start with the name, because interviewers will expect you to have it right. From 2018, CMS practised in Hong Kong through an association: Lau, Horton & Wise LLP in association with CMS Hasche Sigle, Hong Kong LLP. In February 2025 the two operations combined into a single firm, CMS Hong Kong LLP — over 40 lawyers in the Nexxus Building in Central, led by office managing partner Steven Wise, and plugged into a CMS network of more than 80 offices in over 40 countries. Getting that history right in an application signals you did the work; getting it wrong signals you copied an old guide.

The practice is broad for an office this size: banking and finance, corporate/M&A, dispute resolution and international arbitration, insurance, intellectual property, funds, maritime and TMC all sit on the office's published expertise list. The recent hiring tells you where it is pushing hardest — a funds team from Mayer Brown in mid-2024, a corporate M&A and private equity partner from Morrison Foerster in January 2025, and an eight-lawyer construction and infrastructure team from BCLP in August 2025.

For a trainee, a fast-growing mid-sized office is a specific proposition: fewer trainees than the giants, closer contact with partners, and seats that follow the growth areas. The training contract structure — four practice group rotations with one seat in London — means you see both the local work and the international network from the inside.

Vacation scheme & training contract

How do you get into CMS Hong Kong?

Two published routes, both on the firm's CMS emerging-talent site: a direct training contract application — open with a deadline of 30 September 2026 when we last checked — and a one-week summer vacation scheme in July 2027, with applications open from 1 October to 31 December 2026. From the scheme, successful candidates may be invited to interview for a training contract.

• Route inDirect training-contract application via the graduate recruitment portal, or the one-week July vacation scheme, from which successful candidates may be invited to a training-contract interview.
• The contractTwo years: four practice group rotations of six months each, with one seat in the London office, leading to admission as a solicitor in Hong Kong.
• Key datesTraining contract: deadline 30 September 2026. Vacation scheme (July 2027): apply 1 October – 31 December 2026. Both per the firm's emerging-talent site at last review.
• The schemeOne week in July — short, so treat every day as assessed. The firm pitches it as hands-on experience of its work and culture across practice groups.
• Intake sizeNot published. The office is mid-sized and growing; expect a small, competitive trainee cohort rather than a Magic Circle-scale intake.

Recent news worth knowing

Which recent CMS Hong Kong moves should you know about?

CMS Hong Kong's public story over 2025 is expansion — a combination, then a run of senior hires. That is unusually rich interview material: it lets you talk about the office's direction, not just its history.

1. Two firms become CMS Hong Kong LLPFebruary 2025

   CMS combined its Hong Kong operations — the alliance firm Lau, Horton & Wise and the associated CMS Hasche Sigle practice — into a single firm of roughly 40 lawyers, including about 15 partners. Independent coverage framed it as a statement of intent in Asia. Source ↗

2. Corporate M&A partner Steven Tran joins from Morrison FoersterJanuary 2025

   Tran — 25 years on multi-jurisdictional M&A and private equity, most of it in Asia — joined to oversee deals across the region, with the firm calling Hong Kong "of strategic importance for CMS". Source ↗

3. An eight-lawyer construction team arrives from BCLPAugust 2025

   Partners Glenn Haley and Wayne Ma led a team of eight lawyers across Hong Kong and Singapore into CMS, building out construction, infrastructure and real estate on the back of what the firm called a boom in regional infrastructure investment — weeks after BCLP's Asia infrastructure co-head Ilan Freiman joined the same push. Source ↗

4. A funds team joins from Mayer BrownJuly 2024

   CMS hired funds partner Paul Moloney and senior associate Gigi Ma to bolster its funds and regulatory capability in Asia — the piece that connects the office's corporate and private equity work to the money behind it. Source ↗

Interview & selection intel

What does the CMS Hong Kong selection process look like?

CMS publishes the shape but not the detail: you apply through the graduate recruitment portal, and vacation scheme students who impress may be invited to interview for a training contract. No online test battery, video-interview stage or assessment-centre format is published for Hong Kong — so treat anything more specific you read elsewhere with caution.

When a firm publishes little, the safest preparation is the fundamentals interviewers at this level always test: a clean, specific written application; a real answer to "why this firm" — which the entity history and the 2025 expansion hand you on a plate; and structured commercial thinking about the office's growth areas, from regional infrastructure investment to Hong Kong's deal market. Our guide to the Hong Kong vacation scheme interview shows how these conversations run at international firms of exactly this profile.

And because the scheme is one week long, there is no warm-up period: you are effectively in a five-day assessment centre with a desk. Know what firms really look for in vac scheme students before day one, not after.

How to stand out

How do you stand out for CMS Hong Kong?

The candidates who win offers at growing mid-sized offices are the ones who can say precisely why this office, at this moment — and then behave like a colleague during a short scheme. Here is where to put your preparation.

• 1Build your application around the firm's actual trajectory: the 2025 combination, the London seat, the teams it has hired and why. Most applicants will write generic "global network" letters; our guide to the top mistakes on HK applications shows what that costs, and the Law Firm Application Academy drills the written craft.

  Law Firm Application Academy →

• 2Prepare for case-style commercial questions even though none are published — a firm hiring construction, funds and M&A teams will expect you to reason about exactly that work. Practise on real problems in the Online Case Study Centre and pressure-test yourself in the Mock Assessment Centre.

  Online Case Study Centre →Mock Assessment Centre →

• 3One week is a brutally short window to convert a scheme into a training-contract interview. Every task, question and coffee counts from the first morning — a rehearsable skill, and one-to-one coaching is the fastest way to sharpen it before it matters.

  In-person coaching →

Quick answers

CMS Hong Kong, in five questions