Mayer Brown

The Hong Kong practice

What does Mayer Brown's Hong Kong office actually do?

For sixteen years the Mayer Brown name in Hong Kong meant Mayer Brown JSM, the 2008 combination of the US firm with Johnson Stokes & Master, a full-service local practice founded in Hong Kong in 1863. That is no longer how it works. On 2 December 2024 the two sides separated. Johnson Stokes & Master reverted to an independent Hong Kong firm (Legal Cheek and Law.asia put it at roughly 128 lawyers and 45 partners across Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing), and Mayer Brown Hong Kong LLP was set up as a separate office of more than 20 lawyers, led by capital markets partner Tom Kollar and aligned to the firm's international strategy.

So the office you are applying to now is deliberately narrow. Mayer Brown lists its Hong Kong focus as capital markets, M&A, finance, projects and infrastructure, insurance, energy, and IP and cybersecurity. The engine is debt capital markets. The Hong Kong team acts for the investment banks and issuers behind cross-border bonds across Asia and the emerging markets: sovereigns, financial institutions, structured and high-yield deals, and liability-management work. Legal 500 ranks it in the third tier for Hong Kong debt capital markets and lists clients including Bank of China and Prologis. This is not the HKEX-IPO machine that the Magic Circle offices run. It is an international-platform office built around US and English-law debt work.

For a would-be trainee, that shapes what you would touch and how much of it there is. A seat close to the capital markets team would put you on bond mechanics: verification, conditions-precedent checklists, drafting ancillary documents, and sitting on working-group calls with banks and trustees. The flip side is honesty about scale. A 20-plus lawyer office is a fraction of the old Mayer Brown JSM, and the large, traditional Hong Kong training operation went with JSM, which matters for how you plan your applications below.

Trainee & vacation scheme programme

How do you get into Mayer Brown Hong Kong?

Start with how Mayer Brown recruits trainees in general, because the firm is clear that the vacation scheme is its main door in. In the UK the firm runs spring and summer schemes with up to around 15 places each, two weeks long, sitting in a fee-earning department on real work, with an exit interview and automatic assessment for one of roughly 15 training contracts a year. Those trainees complete four six-month seats, usually one contentious and one transactional, with scope for a client or international secondment. The firm reported over 1,200 direct training-contract applications in 2025, so the funnel is narrow.

Hong Kong is the complication. After the December 2024 split, Mayer Brown's own early-careers site states it has no open student programmes in Asia Source ↗, and the large-scale Hong Kong vacation-scheme-to-training-contract route now sits with the independent Johnson Stokes & Master, which runs its own Hong Kong scheme across its commercial, dispute resolution and real estate departments. If your target is the traditional full-service Hong Kong training contract with the 1863 heritage, that is a JSM application now. If your target is the Mayer Brown international platform, watch the firm's careers page for any Hong Kong or Asia early-careers opening and be ready to move on a direct or lateral route.

On what the firm looks for, the published bar is a 2:1 or equivalent, genuine commercial awareness, and language range that fits a PRC and international client base. For a capital markets office, commercial motivation means being able to talk about why debt markets and cross-border deals interest you, not a general love of law.

Recent matters worth knowing

Which recent deals has Mayer Brown's Hong Kong office run?

Mayer Brown's public Hong Kong record splits in two: the reorganisation that redrew what the office is, and the debt capital markets deals that show what it does. Know the split first, then know one or two of the deals well enough to talk about them.

1. HK managing partner named Dealmaker of the YearSep 2025

   Tom Kollar, who leads Mayer Brown Hong Kong LLP, was named Dealmaker of the Year at the 2025 ALB Hong Kong Law Awards, and the firm was recognised in the Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific awards the same year. A signal that the reconstituted office is still winning high-end cross-border mandates. Source ↗

2. Mayer Brown separates from JSM in Hong KongDec 2024

   Mayer Brown split its Hong Kong operation into two firms: Mayer Brown Hong Kong LLP, a focused office of more than 20 lawyers aligned to the firm's international strategy, and Johnson Stokes & Master, which reverted to an independent full-service Hong Kong firm. The single most important thing to understand before you apply. Source ↗ Law.asia ↗

3. Republic of Indonesia US$2.05bn global bondJan 2024

   The Hong Kong debt capital markets team acted for the joint lead managers on Indonesia's US$2.05bn three-tranche SEC-registered bond, reported as the first Asian sovereign bond issue of 2024. Source ↗

4. Shriram Finance US$750m senior secured notesJan 2024

   The office advised Shriram Finance, the Indian non-bank lender, on its US$750m 6.625% senior secured notes under a US$3.5bn medium-term note programme, with the order book roughly four times covered. Source ↗

5. Mongolian Mortgage Corp liability managementJan 2024

   The team represented Mongolian Mortgage Corporation and MIK Holding on an exchange offer for their 2024 notes and a concurrent US$225m issue of 11.5% senior notes due 2027, the kind of structured liability-management work the office is built for. Source ↗

Interview & selection intel

What does the Mayer Brown Hong Kong selection process look like?

There is no separately published Hong Kong graduate process right now, so the reliable detail comes from Mayer Brown's UK recruitment, which sets the template for how the firm hires. Read it as the model, not a guarantee of the Hong Kong route.

The UK process runs in order: an online application form, then an immersive online assessment that mixes behavioural questions, numerical and verbal reasoning, and recorded video answers scored against the firm's benchmarks. Clear it and you reach an assessment day, which candidates report is built around a written test, a group exercise, a fact-find task, and a strengths-based interview with two fee earners.

Strip it back to what a Hong Kong international-firm interview at this tier actually tests. Why this firm and why Hong Kong, answered as a commercial question about the firm's capital markets strategy rather than a passion speech. Whether you can talk through a live bond or listing and hold your reasoning when someone pushes back. And whether you have the language range and composure to sit in front of PRC and international bank clients. Expect to be asked to walk through a recent deal or market trend, then defend how you read it.

How to stand out

How do you stand out for Mayer Brown Hong Kong?

Because the firm hires on an online reasoning stage and an assessment day rather than an internship, your edge is a capital-markets-specific application, a cleared reasoning gate, and structure under pressure. Here is where to put your preparation.

• 1Make the written application specific to Mayer Brown's capital markets identity. This is a debt capital markets and finance office, not a general-service giant, so a form that engages with Asian bond markets and cross-border deals reads as commercial rather than generic. The Law Firm Application Academy shows how to evidence real commercial motivation instead of listing tasks.

• 2Prepare for the online reasoning stage properly. The firm's immersive assessment includes verbal and numerical reasoning, and critical-reasoning tests in the Watson Glaser mould are standard at this tier. Our guide to mastering the Watson Glaser test shows the reasoning patterns to look for, and the Watson Glaser Academy builds them, so you clear the gate before a lawyer reads your form.

• 3Rehearse the assessment day and interview under pressure. A written test, a group exercise and a strengths-based interview all reward people who stay structured and commercial when challenged. Knowing how firms mark case studies tells you what the written work is graded on; drill it in the Online Case Study Centre and the Mock Assessment Centre, then pressure-test your answers with in-person coaching.

Quick answers

Mayer Brown Hong Kong, in five questions