In addition to our regular Annual Meeting, we also had a special session for our Asia Pacific delegates to discuss the strengths of the firms in the region, recent cases they had been handling, and the interesting and important question of "How has the 2009 world economic downturn affected the Asia Pacific Region?" This question prompted a discussion of the current marketplace that may be of greater value than just to the attendees.

Scott Guan from Jade & Fountain in Shanghai kicked off the discussion with an update from China, saying that they hadn't been hit as hard by the global financial crisis as some of the other markets. The effects that they'd seen were mostly in the areas of cross-border work, as well as foreign-related financing, M&A, and capital markets work. He'd seen a greater impact of the crisis on multinational law firms in China, who have had to lay off a lot of lawyers.