Mori Hamada & Matsumoto has plans to launch a San Francisco Bay Area office, setting out to provide an Asia practice to clients based on the West Coast to tap technology and startup-related legal needs.
“Last year, when we opened our New York office, we received a lot of good response from clients and US law firms with the results being better than expected, so we have decided to open a new office in the San Francisco Bay Area in order to expand the Asia and US connecting functions of our US base,” Mori Hamada told Asia Business Law Journal.
With the aim of commencing its San Francisco Bay Area office operations next year, Mori Hamada, one of Japan’s four largest law firms, is eyeing a potential pipeline of legal work in the Silicon Valley different from matters its New York outfit handles.
Working with local US law firms to also service clients outside the US including those in Japan and other Asian countries through its San Francisco Bay Area office, Mori Hamada is seeking potential legal mandates arising from fast-growing areas of business activity including life sciences, climate technology and generative artificial intelligence.
To achieve this, the Tokyo-based firm has appointed partner Mikito Ishida, a New York Bar and Japan-qualified lawyer specialising in startups, venture capital as well as cross-border M&A and private equity funds, to co-lead the new US office.
The other co-leading partner will be Stephen Overton with nearly three decades of experience advising on M&A and cross-border transactions and has been based in San Francisco since 2015. Mori Hamada also plans to permanently station Japan-qualified associates in the new US office.
But the Japanese firm told Asia Business Law Journal that, until the new US office opened, only Overton would be permanently stationed. Mori Hamada added that, as the firm attached importance to its collaboration with local US law firms, it did not plan to increase the number of US attorneys for the new office.
In addition to the San Francisco Bay Area branch, Mori Hamada now has overseas offices, association and member firms in New York, Jakarta, Manila, Yangon, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Singapore, Bangkok, Beijing and Shanghai.
