Haldanes, Solicitors and Notaries

When it all started 45 years ago, we had an abacus to do our accounts, an air conditioner which saw its main function as being to drip on people, and a filing system held together by sticky tape and goodwill.

With a staff of fewer than 12 people, including the lawyers, we spent our days running between our tiny law firm and the courts, fighting the antique typewriters in the office and dragging ourselves out at all hours to help clients in distress.

We’ve come a long way since then.

From making our reputation with mainly criminal defence, we now excel in a wide range of legal areas - matrimonial and family, media and entertainment, competition law, civil litigation and dispute resolution, intellectual property, corporate and commercial, fraud and asset, property and conveyancing, securities, regulatory and discipline and private clients.

Not only are we the first Hong Kong law firm with two criminal and one civil solicitor advocates with the right to appear in High Court jury trials and all appellate courts, but we also have partners who are practicing in England and Wales, Dubai International Financial Centre, and the Greater Bay area of mainland China.

And with the implementation of the new National Security Law (NSL) we’ve been advising international press and social media organisations on NSL-related matters, as well as providing seminars to international press agencies and companies on the law’s implications.

But through all the changes, the multiple-legal awards, the installation of a wonderful team of dedicated lawyers, the media recognition, and the precedent-setting legal wins, one thing hasn’t changed.

That’s our ethos.

Without it, we couldn’t have become one of the top law firms in Hong Kong.

It’s simple.

But it defines us today, just as it did 45 years ago.

“Put your clients first.”

It’s something we’ve kept at the forefront of everything we do as a law firm and as lawyers.

And because we’ve never lost sight of this one essential, our talented team now have a reputation that is second to none for providing our clients with the help they need, when they need it, across all practice areas.

So, it’s been an eventful four decades and more.

We’ve learned a lot and come a long way.

Our air conditioning is better for one thing, and we’ve stopped using the abacus.