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There are two realistic ways to practice internationally. One is to do transactions or (much less realistic) international arbitration at a big, multinational firm.

Another suboption related to this first option is to work as a foreign legal consultant at a Japanese or Korean firm. Japan has a few large homegrown firms, such as Anderson Mori, Nagashima Ohno (both in Tokyo), and Oh-ebashi (Osaka) (there are a couple of others that I just forget at the moment), and Korea has basically one megafirm for corporate work called Kim and Chang. All of these firms employ foreigners to facilitate work that they do in English. At the Japanese firms, though, you will definitely be a second-class citizen with less pay and less substantive work--more like a staff attorney at a US biglaw firm than an associate, although the roles don't quite map exactly onto each other. I suspect this is also the case at Kim and Chang, although it seems like you get more "real" work there as an FLC. (That said, Kim and Chang is notorious for hours that make NYC biglaw seem like the French civil service--it's a set 6-day work week, you'll often work that 7th day, and 12 hours at the office per working day is pretty standard.)

bhan87 wrote: I've heard that there have been cases where lawyers that went overseas directly out of law schools got stranded there because they had no valuable experience to contribute to domestic law offices. And due to their lack of heavy experience, they likely weren't that useful in the overseas office either.

Also note, if you're going to work for a biglaw firm satellite office overseas, you will be the most vulnerable to cuts if the financial situation of the firm goes sour.