Morrison Foerster was ranked #8 in the Most Innovative Law Firm Headquartered Outside Asia-Pacific Region
The Financial Times named Tokyo Managing Partner Ken Siegel the Most Innovative Legal Practitioner in the Asia-Pacific region as part of its FT Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific 2022 Awards. The award recognizes the region's leading legal innovator who has changed the way legal work is done and had a major influence on their firm, the legal industry, business, and wider society. Morrison Foerster was also ranked in joint eighth place in the Most Innovative Law Firm Headquartered Outside Asia-Pacific category, reflecting its position as one of the region's top law firms in Asia.
Head of the MoFo's 50 lawyer Tokyo-based M&A team, Ken was selected for his work establishing Morrison Foerster as the most active M&A practice of any international law firm in Japan and his role leading innovative transactions, including recently advising SoftBank on the proposed $65 billion sale of UK-headquartered multinational semiconductor and software design company Arm Limited to U.S. chip company NVIDIA. This deal was also recently selected by LexisNexis as "Deal of the Year." Ken is consistently ranked as one of the leading U.S. lawyers in Japan. Among other notable accomplishments, he is the only lawyer to be ranked as a "Star Individual" for M&A in Japan (the level above Band 1) by Chambers Global for twelve consecutive years (2011–2022 editions); he was also ranked in the Band 1 category for the prior decade. Morrison Foerster's M&A team was also ranked #1 in deal volume among international law firms in Japan on Mergermarket's 2021 league table.
As one of the preeminent law firms in Asia, Morrison Foerster provides integrated local and U.S. law advice. The Tokyo office is now the largest office in Japan of any global firm and one of the largest law firms in Japan, domestic or international. With offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, the firm has a strong presence in China, handling major matters in the region for more than 35 years. The Singapore office, which opened in 2013, features lawyers with many years of experience in South and Southeast Asia and has recently been named by The Legal 500, as Law Firm of the Year, 2020 and 2021.
In partnership with RSGi, founder of the report and award series, the FT 2022 Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyers Report began nine years ago and is dedicated to recognizing the most innovative lawyers, private practices, and in-house legal departments in the region. As part of the FT's special report on innovative lawyers in the region, Ken spoke to the FT team about trends driving investment into Japan.
You can view the full list of winners on the Financial Times website.