Tim Mak

Tim Mak joined Herbert Smith as a paralegal in 1995. After a couple of months he was offered a training contract which he accepted, “without hesitation.” From 2000 to 2002, Tim worked in-house at the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. He is now a partner in our litigation and arbitration division in Hong Kong.

“In a nutshell, it’s the people, the atmosphere, the work and the opportunities that I like about Herbert Smith. It’s a great place to work and to learn. So far as I can tell, there isn’t a Herbert Smith ‘type’, as such. It really is very diverse, but there is a commonality. Wherever we are in the world, we have a collection of bright, business-savvy individuals who all share the same goal – to do the very best for our clients. We try to put ourselves into their shoes, anticipate what lies ahead and clear the path for them.

“My practice focuses on advising investment banks, financial services regulators and other market participants on contentious and noncontentious financial services regulatory matters. Financial markets are global, so whilst we advise on local rules, the issues on which we advise often involve a cross-border dimension and context.

“It’s hard to single out any one case that I have worked on as each delivered unique challenges and successes. However, we recently persuaded a regulator to conclude in our client’s favour in relation to a very lengthy market misconduct investigation, by deploying, mid-investigation, oral and written advocacy skills. With the client (a global financial institution), we conducted a parallel, swift and thorough internal investigation. We then persuaded the regulator to meet us informally to hear what we had done and what we had found. After the meeting, the regulator asked us to provide a written report, which we did, in draft. Within a matter of days after receiving that draft report, the regulator informed our client that the investigation was over and thanked the client for its exemplary co-operation.”