Forum on “The Similarities and Differences of Management Mode between Chinese and Foreign Law Firms”

A forum on “The Similarities and Differences of Management Mode between Chinese and Foreign Law Firms” was successfully held at Shanghai Bar Association in the afternoon, July 14th, 2009. The meeting was hosted by lawyer Qiao Wenjun, vice president of Shanghai Bar Association. Peter Corne, partner of Eversheds LLP, Douglas Clark, partner of Lovells LLP and Winston Zhao, partner of Jones Day LLP shared their views on management mode, framework, emolument mode, training, quality control and client management of law-firms. They also had a warm and in-depth discussion with partners from Jun He Law Offices, AllBright Law Offices, Llink Law Offices, etc.

The topic of this forum is the management and development of law firms, which is an issue partners concern about. For me, it is very helpful to have the gold opportunity to communicate with managing director from top international law firms. As far as I am concerned, the management mode, framework, emolument mode of a law firm is closely relevant to its scale, philosophy, culture and some other factors. It is inappropriate for domestic law firms to copy the modes of international large-scaled law firms. As for the emolument mode, such as Lockstep, Performance-based, Eat what you kill, or modified mode of these, even top international law firms also don’t have a consistent mode. Domestic law firm partners shall take into consideration how to modify the primary “Eat what you kill” mode while reconsidering the disadvantages of "Eat what you kill" mode and exploring the "company mode". After about a hundred-year development, there must be rationality of existence that the “Eat what you kill" mode did not step down from the stage of history. If domestic law firms adopt the “throes therapy” without reconsideration, the result is possibly opposite. But in the aspects of specialization, training, quality control and client management of a law firm, I advocate learning the ripe mode and experiences from top international law firms. And I'm looking forward to learning the successful experiences of practice risk control, conflicts of interest, blueprint of development in the process of scale and specialization from those top international law firms, especially the experiences and lessons in the development process of expanding and strengthening.