On 1st March 2016, “Jurists’ round-trip to prestigious law firms”, which consisted of Jiang Ping and five other jurists, attended Zhong Yin Law Firm to interact and provide guidance for our lawyers. The executive partner of Zhong Yin Law Firm, Mr. Li Ju, Board Director, Mr. Liu GuangBin, Secretary and Honorary Director of Party General Branch, Mr. Zhao CengHai, and Zhong Yin (Nanchang) Law Firm supervisor, Mr. He Yan and Manager, Mr. Zhang Ai, participated in the event ,alongside approximately one hundred lawyers.

Professor Jiang Ping, a leading legal scholar, began by pointing out that the success of lawyers is not decided by the environment they are surrounded, but by their mentality and diligence. A practicing lawyer is all about trustworthiness and expertise in law. He emphasizes that a lawyer must possess two basic essential qualities: professionalism and moral attainment. He hopes all lawyers can spend more time learning new knowledge to enhance their awareness of providing services to litigants in good faith. As for recent concerns regarding parties being punished for their relations with IPO offenders, he accentuates that “there is only responsibility when there is fault; there is no responsibility when there is no fault”

The other jurists discussed in detail and expanded on their personal views on procedural system reform and the opportunities the reform brings for lawyers. They suggested that the difficulties encountered in the economy and during the reforms highlight the need for reform of the lawyer system. Lawyers should improve on the technological aspect to further optimize the system of criminal procedural evidence system and the legal system of criminal evidence to ensure the judicial process and judgement are more just. To enhance the team spirit amongst lawyers, lawyers must establish professional ethics and morality to form a legal community. The development of law firms cannot akin to a rental counters in a department store – each lawyer focusing on their own wants. The partner should bond and “stick” together and prioritize the honor of the law firms, as it is a prerequisite to its prosperity.

Judicial reform is the focus of this year in both the People's Congress of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese People's Political Consultative conference. Jurists suggested in the meeting that judicial reform should follow three main aspects of PRC’s general scheme.

The first aspect is to remove the localization of judiciary, allowing the finance of Local People's Procuratorate and People’s Court below the provincial level to be managed by the local government at the provincial level. The second aspect is to improve the administration of justice, in order to perfect judicial basis and operation rules. The third aspect is to strengthen judicial protection of human rights.

During the conference, the jurists also discussed topics regarding the management system of law firms, the future prospects of talented lawyers, democracy and lawyers, and internationalisation of law firms and lawyers’ businesses etc. Zhong Yin Law Firm also hired six jurists such as Mr Jiang Ping as senior consultants.

Lawyers are the biggest beneficiaries of the judicial reform because it is the greatest opportunity to strengthen and boost lawyers’ status and rights protection. However, as the legal profession will be facing restructuring and upgrading, lawyers who violate the law will also be bound to receive disciplinary sanctions and penalties. Few jurists suggested that although the lawyers’ rating system is present in the comprehensive plan of the judicial reform, how to change the rating system still requires further scrutiny.

The aim of a series of activities in “Jurists’ round-trip to prestigious law firms” is to propagate the doctrine, impart professional knowledge in law firms, engage and exchange ideas with majority of lawyers to clear up their uncertainties. The significance of beginning the trip at Beijing Zhong Yin Law Firm is that it is one of the first partnership law firms since China’s legal reform. It is also China’s first large scale professional law firm specializing in finance securities legal service, with nearly 2,000 lawyers and staff in 25 branches, ranking third in terms of scale in Asia as an integrated, leading law firm. The kick-off activity of this round-trip is organized jointly by Zhong Yin Law Firm and a Weixin account “Gui Ke Messages”, which law academics pays attention to.