P&K Interview: Introducing Hyunyang Yoo

We welcomed Hyunyang Yoo to the Peter & Kim partnership in April 2026. We took an opportunity to learn more about Hyunyang’s experience and expertise and why she joined the firm

Welcome to P&K. How do you see your practice complementing and enhancing the services we provided to clients?

Thank you for the warm welcome. Peter & Kim is well regarded in the international arbitration market for its excellence, and I am genuinely excited to be a part of it.

Having spent time early in my career as in-house counsel at a major construction company before moving into private practice, I hope to assist the team in building and maintaining a stronger client relationship. Beyond that, with my experience in construction and infrastructure/energy disputes that I have built for the last decade, I hope to further deepen the firm’s offering in these sectors.

I am equally committed to contributing internally. Twelve years in this field has given me a great deal that I am keen to share —  whether through knowledge sharing, or supporting the development of more junior practitioners. Having benefited enormously from mentors earlier in my career, I feel a genuine sense of responsibility to pay that forward — particularly to junior practitioners entering what remains a challenging, but deeply rewarding field.

You were previously in-house counsel at Samsung C&T for several years. What makes a successful long-term relationship between external counsel and in-house legal teams?

Having worked at Samsung C&T at an early stage in my career, those years fundamentally shaped how I approach my role as external counsel today.

I would say responsiveness is a key start. And I don’t mean that in a grand sense. It starts with the small things: acknowledging an email promptly, confirming receipt of instructions, providing updates even when there is nothing new to report. In-house teams are often managing multiple cases, and they wish to be assured that their external counsel is on top of things.

Equally, I believe it is important to engage with the commercial reality when providing a legal advice to the client. Legal advice does not exist in a vacuum. In-house counsels are not just looking for a (legally) correct answer — they need an advice they can actually work with. I noticed that some external counsel delivers their opinion and consider their job done, whereas some external counsels understand what the client is trying to achieve commercially and navigate a solution together, even when the legal landscape was not straightforward.

What advice would you give to in-house counsel who may be managing an international arbitration for the first time? Are there opportunities to be innovative in approach?

My first piece of advice would be do not underestimate the value of what you bring. In-house counsel managing an international arbitration for the first time often assume their role is largely administrative — coordinating documents, liaising with external counsel, managing timelines. In reality, their contribution can be far more substantive than that, and the best outcomes I have seen are almost always the product of deep collaboration between external and in-house counsel teams.

International arbitration is, at its core, a battle of facts and narratives. The legal framework matters, of course, but what often determines the outcome is how well the underlying facts are organised and presented.  Nobody can understand those facts better than the in-house team: the history of the project, the personalities involved, the commercial pressures that were at play, the decisions that were made and why. That institutional knowledge is valuable when it comes to building a case theory, identifying the strongest arguments and anticipating the other side’s position. My advice is to be generous with that knowledge — share it early, share it in detail, and stay engaged throughout.

Hence, I think there is more room for innovation than people realise. As mentioned, I find particularly interesting is the way in-house teams can help shape the narrative of a case at an early stage, rather than leaving that entirely to external counsel. Bringing in-house perspective into the earliest strategic conversations — before positions are entrenched — can lead to more creative, commercially grounded approaches to how a dispute is framed and pursued.

You have been and continue to be involved with young arbitration practitioner member groups to foster and support the next generation. What role do you see mentorship playing in a practitioner’s professional life, and how has it influenced your career?  Please also share your experience as a young female practitioner in international arbitration.

When I think about the early years of my career, what stands out is not just the work itself, but the people who were working together with me. My generation saw a real surge in junior practitioners entering international arbitration field, and it was genuinely reassuring as I engaged in many young arbitration practitioner groups, such YSIAC and HK45.  I shared the challenges of long hours, the steep learning curve, the moments of self-doubt, with others who were just as determined to push through. That sense of community played a role for me.

Mentorship, in that context, was more than a formal programme or a structured initiative. I have been fortunate to have had mentors who taught me the importance of driving excellence in everything you put your name to, the discipline of diligence, and the power of kindness. In a profession that can sometimes prize toughness above all else, watching senior practitioners lead with both rigour and genuine care for the people around them left a strong impression on me. Their encouragement, their candid feedback, their belief in my potential at moments when I was less certain myself — all of that shaped not just the lawyer I became, but the kind of mentor I try to be someday.

In such aspect, many young female practitioners, including myself, are also navigating the demands of building a family alongside building a practice. I will not pretend it was easy, because it is not. There were moments that were genuinely hard — professionally and personally. But what I have come to believe, and what I try to convey to the young female practitioners I work with today, is that it is possible, and that it is worth it.

How has the international arbitration landscape evolved in recent years, and where do you see it heading next?

International arbitration has changed considerably over the course of my career, and the pace of that change has only accelerated in recent years. Procedurally, we have seen a genuine shift towards greater efficiency — shorter timelines, and expedited procedures — driven in part by institutional reforms and in part by client demand.

Another significant shifts I have observed is on the client side. In-house legal teams are considerably more sophisticated than they were a decade ago. Many have practitioners with dedicated dispute resolution experience, and some have themselves sat in arbitration proceedings or come from external counsel backgrounds. They understand the process, they ask sharper questions, and their expectations — of transparency, of strategy, of value — are correspondingly higher. This is, on balance, a very healthy development for the field. It pushes external counsel to be better, and it makes for stronger collaboration when both sides are operating at a high level.

Looking ahead, I expect AI to continue to reshape how we manage document-heavy cases, and I anticipate further growth in arbitration across Asia and other emerging markets. But at its heart, international arbitration remains what it has always been — a human process, built on advocacy, judgment and trust. Those fundamentals, I do not see changing.