News

From 30 November to 1 December 2024, the ‘2024 Lawyers’ Law Seminar and the Third Beijing-Shanghai Lawyers‘ Forum’ sponsored by the Lawyers‘ Law Research Centre of the China University of Political Science and Law, the School of Law of the Renmin University of China, the Lawyers’ Law Society of Beijing, and the Lawyers' Law Society of the Shanghai Law Society was successfully held at the China University of Political Science and Law (Haidian Campus). The event was successfully held in China University of Political Science and Law (Haidian Campus). With the theme of ‘Promoting the high-quality and sustainable development of the lawyers’ profession with new quality productivity‘, the event attracted the participation of legal experts, lawyers and representatives of related industries from all over the country to discuss the development path and social responsibility of the lawyers’ profession in the context of the new era.

Zhao cenghai, director/chief partner of JAVY law firm, was invited to attend the event. On 30th November, Zhao not only participated in the [Closed Meeting] 2024 National Provincial and Municipal Lawyers‘ Law Research Association Joint Meeting and Beijing Lawyers’ Law Research Association Annual Meeting, but also delivered a speech titled ‘Mining the New Productivity of Lawyer Industry from the Management of Law Firms’ Branches’ in the whole-day meeting on 1st December. --In addition, he delivered a keynote speech entitled ‘Tapping the New Productivity of Lawyer Industry from Branch Management of Law Firms’ in the whole-day conference on 1 December, which provided forward-looking insights and strategies for the future development of the lawyer industry.

The following is the transcript of Director Zhao's keynote speech:

Honourable colleagues:

Greetings to all! It is a great honour to do some sharing with you at this moment. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that ‘new quality productivity is the innovation plays a leading role, get rid of the traditional mode of economic growth, productivity development path, with high-tech, high-efficiency, high-quality features, in line with the new development concept of the advanced productive forces of the texture.’ In the new era of the construction of the rule of law in the journey, the lawyer industry as a comprehensive rule of law as an important force, how to tap the new quality of productivity has become an important issue in front of us. And the law firm branch management as a key link in the development of the lawyer industry, to promote the progress of the industry, to achieve high-quality development has a significance that can not be ignored.

At present, China's lawyer industry is developing rapidly, especially in the development of law firms, the scale level of law firms is rapidly increasing, showing a clear trend of echelon development and growth. But in the scale of the process also appeared some problems, which not only affects the development of the law firm itself, but also to a certain extent disturbed the order of the legal services market, with the new quality of productivity requirements. These problems are not caused by a single factor and cannot be generalised, but fortunately, the revision of the Lawyers Law is one of the legislative work plans of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) for the year of 2024, and I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some suggestions for the revision of provisions relating to the management of law firms‘ branches in the Lawyers Law from the perspective of tapping into the new qualitative productivity of the lawyers’ profession, and in response to the real problems of the firms' branch offices. Relevant provisions of the Lawyers Law.

Ⅰ, the establishment of law firms to explore the preconditions for the establishment of branch offices

At present, China's law firms set up branches of the threshold conditions are relatively loose, which to a certain extent led to some law firms have not yet developed and expanded, the system is not yet complete when the blind development of branch, not only affects the development of their own, but also disturbed the order of the legal services market. It is necessary for the Lawyers Law and related regulations to take into account the current situation and appropriately raise the relevant thresholds in order to promote the healthy and orderly development of law firms.

The Measures for the Administration of Law Firms set out two threshold conditions for the establishment of a branch office by a law firm: it must have been established for at least three years, and it must have at least 20 practising lawyers. However, from the perspective of strengthening the supervision of the lawyers' profession and enhancing the quality of services, these conditions should be further improved.

Comparing the lawyers' profession with the CPA profession, we find that they have a lot in common. First of all, both are professional skills to provide services; Secondly, most law firms and accounting firms are set up in partnership, with a high degree of integration; Thirdly, both have industry self-regulatory organisations and are subject to the leadership of the corresponding administrative organs. However, the comparison shows that the number of practicing lawyers in China is almost twice as many as the number of certified public accountants, and the number of law firms far exceeds the number of accounting firms, but the threshold standard for law firms to set up branch offices is lower than that of accounting firms. Therefore, the requirement in the Draft Revision of the CPA Law that an accounting firm must have more than 50 CPAs to set up a branch office is of high reference value to us.

Therefore, the new Lawyers Law and related regulations should adjust upward the lower limit of the total number of firms that law firms need to satisfy in order to set up branch offices to fifty. Considering the imbalance of China's geographical development, this standard can be appropriately relaxed for law firms in remote areas in the central and western regions, and the specific circumstances can be jointly formulated by the Ministry of Justice organising the local provincial-level judicial and administrative organs and promulgating separate standards. This will not only help to improve the quality and level of legal services, but also better meet the social demand for quality legal services, which is closely related to the development of the new quality productivity, and will provide a more solid legal guarantee for economic and social development.

II. Increase in provisions related to the establishment of branch offices/service outlets in the same city

General secretary Xi emphasised the comprehensive rule of law should adhere to for the people, rely on the people, grassroots governance is of great significance. As an important force in the governance of the country in accordance with the law, the active participation of lawyers in grassroots legal services is a concrete practice of implementing the people-centred development ideology. The Ministry of Justice has also pointed out that it is necessary to promote the integration of grass-roots legal services into all aspects of community governance, to help bring grass-roots governance under the rule of law, and to provide rule of law guarantees for sustained and healthy economic and social development.

However, according to the provisions of the current effective law, the law firm can only set up a branch office in each municipal district, which restricts the coverage of legal services, but also set up a certain obstacle to lawyers in-depth grass-roots level, and the ‘Management Measures’ as a departmental regulations on the ‘Lawyers Law’ to make additional restrictions is not quite appropriate. China's previous regulations have no provisions of the same city branch, in recent years some places by the judicial reform has allowed law firms to set up the same city branch, this is a good trend, but can be further improved. Reference can be made to the banking industry to set up a branch model, set up branches, allowing law firms to set up more than one branch in the same city district, to enhance service coverage and convenience.

Therefore, it is of greater positive significance to set up additional branch offices of law firms in the new Lawyers Law. Such a setting is conducive to the development and layout of law firms, and can enhance the quality of legal services. The flexible layout of branch offices can achieve a reasonable distribution of advantageous resources, enhance the coverage of legal services, and enable the public to enjoy legal services at their doorsteps, which is in line with the requirement of ‘people-centredness’. At the same time, allowing law firms to set up branch offices will not increase the regulatory burden on the judicial administrative organs. It also plays an important role in tapping new quality productivity, better meeting the people's demand for legal services and promoting the rule of law in grassroots governance.

Third, China's law firms to set up branches outside the policy support issues to explore

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed the need to promote the rule of law at home and foreign rule of law in an integrated manner, China's lawyers need to speed up the construction of foreign legal service institutions. With the promotion of opening up to the outside world, China's lawyers will continue to focus on serving the country's major development strategies, accelerating the construction of foreign-related legal service institutions, developing and expanding the foreign-related legal service team, enriching and improving the foreign-related legal service methods, improving the quality of foreign-related legal services, and steadily promoting the opening up of the legal service industry. How China's law firms ‘go out’ is undoubtedly an important element of the rule of law relating to foreign affairs.

In the world, lawyers engaged in legal services are attributed to the service industry, but the current stage of the national foreign investment management department in the introduction of regulations, but ignored the status quo of the legal service industry access. One of the reasons for this is that China's law firms have not yet been able to obtain the nature and status of an enterprise legal person, and thus are unable to provide the required enterprise legal person's business licence when applying for the establishment of a branch office overseas, thus encountering an embarrassing situation.

Therefore, it is urgent for the Lawyers Law and related regulations to reform the current system and implement supportive policies to incentivise law firms to set up service agencies abroad to expand their international influence and provide legal protection for multinational enterprises. At the same time, it is also necessary for market regulators to clarify the main status of law firms, as well as the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries and commissions to introduce supportive policies to put the strategy of supporting law firms to ‘go global’ into practice.

IV. Exploring the Naming of Law Firm Branches

The firm's trade name is an important part of its brand image for its market-facing clients, and firms that provide services across regions often do not want their names to be branded with a particular geographic region. Large global multinational corporations tend to emphasise the positioning of their global services and downplay the colour of the country in which they are located.

However, the current naming of law firms in China still has an administrative overtone. According to the relevant regulations, the name of the law firm consists of three parts: the name of the place of the provincial administrative division, the name of the law firm, and the law firm. This naming system has some problems. First of all, lawyers to provide legal services are not restricted by geographic area, regulations mandatory requirement to add administrative division meaning is small. Secondly, the central and western law firms by the name of the administrative divisions in the name of the impact of the development and talent pool is limited, which is also a lot of managers of law firms call. In addition, large law firms that are in line with international standards often use commercial names rather than names with administrative divisions in their public titles.

Therefore, the revision process of the Lawyers Law should respect the wishes of the lawyer managers group, it is recommended to adopt the international practice, no longer require law firms to indicate the administrative divisions in the name, only in the name of the branch firms to indicate the region can be. This will not lead to confusion in the legal services market, but also reflects the development of new productivity requirements, so that law firms in the national layout and development of more flexible and free.

The above is some of my personal opinion, I think, in the construction of the rule of law on the road, the lawyer profession shoulders an important mission. Falling steady pressure ‘new quality productivity’ this goal-oriented, do the party and the people satisfied with the good lawyer, is our future stage need to take a good step, take a long step, ‘the bright change with the times, know with the thing and system’, value this century has not been the big change, let us work together! Advance together, in order to create a more standardised, efficient, high-quality legal services environment and strive for the rule of law in all aspects of the great cause of contribution.