Carving out law career in Vietnam

Oliver Massmann could have taken an easier route, joining his father as an academic in the industrial Ruhr Valley in Germany, where he grew up.

But Massmann had an adventurous spirit, fueled by a keen intellect, and after graduating from Ruhr-University Bochum, he persuaded his father to pay for several years of studying Vietnamese in Hanoi.

He soon became one of a handful of Western lawyers fluent in Vietnamese and well-connected to senior Vietnamese government officials.

In the mid-1990s, as the Vietnamese laid the groundwork for attracting Western investment, Massmann helped them write the nation's first commercial code, and he later assisted the government in gaining entry to the World Trade Organization, a move that lowered trade barriers for the nation's exports around the world.

Now, Massmann, 41, is head of the Hanoi office of Duane Morris, a 650-lawyer Philadelphia firm seeking to grow in Southeast Asia.

The story of how he came to join Duane Morris says a lot about how big law firms in the region are staking out new turf well outside the Philadelphia area.

It also says a lot about how these firms, which once had distinctly regional identities, can take on a far more polyglot character as they break into international markets.

In addition to Massmann, Duane Morris' Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City offices have lawyers from New Zealand and the United States. Moreover, Massmann says, another German lawyer wants to join Duane Morris in Hanoi.

"I got a feeling that the people of Vietnam had real potential," Massmann said of his early interest in making a career there. "If you go to Vietnam, everybody there is starting a business, implementing a business idea or a vision, everybody."

In addition to representing American clients in Vietnam, Massmann represents German companies seeking to do deals there.

"The point is, if you have the [knowledge] and you are sitting in an American law firm, you are sitting in a triangle [serving European and American clients], and that is [an ideal situation]," he said.

More and more, large law firms with high hourly billing rates must be able to offer services on a global scale to match the business plans of their clients - or risk losing out to competitors. In addition to offices in Vietnam, Duane Morris has offices in London and Singapore.

Other Philadelphia law firms also have an overseas presence, including Dechert L.L.P. and Morgan Lewis Bockius L.L.P., both with offices in Europe and Asia.

Massmann, who sat down for an interview during a visit to Philadelphia last week, joined Duane Morris last July, after months of talks.

At the time, he was a partner in Hanoi with Baker & McKenzie, the sprawling, 3,000-lawyer Chicago firm.

But he was chafing under the firm's management in Vietnam, which he said had hindered business development. He took his complaints to a senior Baker partner in Hong Kong, whose proposed solution was to hire separate psychologists for Massmann and a rival lawyer in Hanoi.

When that didn't work, Massmann contacted a Singapore-based headhunter, who put him in touch with Duane Morris.

"I complained; I cannot be micromanaged," Massmann said of the friction at Baker & McKenzie. "I could not develop anymore, and I was feeling oppressed."

Duane Morris had been prospecting in Southeast Asia for more than a year. It wanted a presence in Asia, but firm leaders had decided that the booming China market, at least in relative terms, already was saturated with lawyers.

So it opened a Singapore office and was looking to expand it. But when the firm learned of Massmann's availability - and his client list - the idea of opening in the thriving Vietnam market took hold.

"You have a highly educated and highly industrious population, and those are the conditions that new capital likes," Duane Morris chairman and chief executive officer John Soroko said of the Vietnam market. "They are obviously coming out of a communist regime, so it is like a perfect storm in a positive way."

Duane Morris has five lawyers and four support staffers in Vietnam, which boasts enormous oil and gas reserves and is looking for help from Western energy and telecommunications companies to build out its infrastructure.

Itching to do something different once he got his law degree, Massmann, a large, athletic man with a ready laugh, landed a job with two German foundations helping the Vietnamese redraft their civil and commercial codes. That led to a request from a senior Vietnamese government official that he help the nation with its application to join the World Trade Organization.

"He said, 'Ollie, we want access to the WTO,' " and I said, 'Oh, WTO, well, you are going to need to fill out 20,000 pages - this is a process; it is not easy,' " Massmann said, chuckling at the thought that the Vietnamese didn't comprehend the long bureaucratic slog in front of them. "He said, 'We'll fill it out today,' and I said, 'Well, maybe not today, but I can help.' "

Once his foundation work was complete, Massmann returned to Germany to bolster his legal resume by signing on with a midsize firm in Berlin on that city's legendary commercial boulevard, the Kurfuerstendamm.

Massmann had no clients. But he began circulating a monthly commercial newsletter on legal developments in Vietnam, and within a month he landed his first. Before long, he was traveling back to Vietnam to hammer out deals and was recruited by Baker & McKenzie.

In Vietnam, Massmann has had a central role in a string of important energy deals and commercial transactions, including a $90 million cement plant, a $400 million power-plant deal for Siemens AG with the Vietnamese government, and many other energy projects.

These days, Massmann seems fully embedded in Vietnamese life. He has a Vietnamese wife and two children, ages 6 and 4. He says that, for a Westerner, surviving in Vietnam means overcoming tough cultural barriers. There is no nightlife in Hanoi, and a multiscreen movie theater is one of the few diversions.

The language is exceedingly difficult ("they have six main tones and three subtones," he says), and differences in customs are sometimes not readily apparent.

"If you lose your calm, you are gone; if you shout at people or act rudely or aggressively, they lose respect for you and start to work behind your back," Massmann said.

Most Westerners assume they are under constant government surveillance, but Massmann says it doesn't bother him because "my life is an open book."

Many Western lawyers find the cultural differences insurmountable, and they are typically gone after a few years.

"You have to live with a certain degree of insecurity because you have to climb over a wall; you get culture shock," Massmann said.