Interview Record

Q: As an important component of the modern service industry, it is necessary to promote the development of legal services towards scale, integration, refinement, and digitization. There has always been a debate and reflection on the development path between law firms' scale and specialization. Could you please share your views on this.

Answer: Scale and refinement are different choices brought about by the positioning of law firms.

From a business perspective, any company must first consider what its business model and profit model are before engaging in commercial operations and market competition. At the beginning of our establishment or during the development of the law firm, we also need to constantly think about such issues. Partners need to carefully consider and make a choice regarding whether law firms should pursue the path of specialization or scale.

But whether it's scale or refinement, the essence remains unchanged. One is the control of professional quality. Professionalism is the foundation of core competitiveness, and only by strictly controlling the quality of business can it be more conducive to the sustained development of law firms and maintain a good reputation. The second is the collaboration between teams of different professional categories. If the collaboration between different teams within the team or within the entire law firm is not very friendly and harmonious, it may directly lead to the phenomenon of case source loss, making it difficult to smoothly undertake cases that could have been taken over due to various reasons, resulting in a reduction in business volume and waste of resources, which has a negative impact on the overall operation and development of the law firm.

Compared to relying on scale, relying on core business is easier to 'remember'.

In recent years, large-scale firms have emerged continuously, and the label of "largest" may be replaced by newcomers at any time. However, the professional ability of law firms is hard power and an irreplaceable core competitive advantage. In recent years, we have been advocating for specialization, but with the development of the times, specialization cannot be too narrowly understood as only deepening in one field. The scope of legal business is broad, requiring a richer knowledge system and business capabilities to complement it. As a lawyer, it is necessary to have moderate linkage with different businesses and form a team with lawyers from different fields of business to grow into a "comprehensive knowledge body". To become an industry lawyer from a professional lawyer, in order to provide clients with more comprehensive and high-quality services and efficiently empower legal services.

Being focused and professional is the key to the sustainable development of both a lawyer and a law firm.

Before joining the Gaopeng family to establish the Hangzhou office, I was a founding partner of two leading local institutions in Hangzhou. However, based on the following considerations, I resolutely led the team to join Gaopeng in 2010 and set up the Hangzhou office.

Firstly, the clients I serve are mainly large private enterprises in Zhejiang Province. Zhejiang businessmen have actual investment needs from all over the country and require legal services nationwide to ensure response. As a nationwide comprehensive law firm, Gaopeng has a reasonable regional layout, close linkage between its branches, cross disciplinary collaboration, resource complementarity, and inconvenient handling of cases in different regions. Under Gaopeng's integrated management model, regional cooperation problems have been successfully solved, and its advantages are particularly significant;

Secondly, I am a professional lawyer and my biggest demand is to focus on doing my job well. I do not want to spend a lot of energy dealing with various complex personnel relationships in a large institution;

Finally, it is also the most important reason why I chose to join Gaopeng. Gaopeng's boutique firm model is highly compatible with my personal practice philosophy and belongs to my ideal boutique firm model: low-key and introverted, everyone is focused on their business, and law firm colleagues jointly follow the principle of "integrity and excellence", with simple interpersonal relationships and no internal friction.

In fact, as early as 2010, boutique firms and large-scale firms have coexisted in the organizational structure of law firms, and there is no clear boundary between the two. The industry generally believes that in order to maintain upward development momentum, a large-scale expansion route is an inevitable means, and only law firms with a full industry chain scale can succeed. But I believe that strengthening oneself through enlargement is already a path that has been repeatedly verified as successful. However, the comprehensive nature of large-scale models provides a one-stop overall solution, while the differentiated development path of high-quality products and the provision of modular integration solutions are also feasible.

Our core advantages and unique differences lie in: firstly, our team focuses on and deeply cultivates professional fields. Before 2018, our Hangzhou office focused on real estate, corporate investment and financing, bankruptcy reorganization and other fields. Since 2018, we have shifted our focus to corporate compliance, major civil and commercial litigation, and bulk litigation of financial institutions, accurately grasping market trends and customer needs based on economic development; Secondly, our service model is flexible and not limited to the traditional process oriented and one-stop approach of large-scale institutions. Instead, we provide customized and modular professional solutions tailored to specific customer scenarios.

I always believe that the law firm model that is most suitable for one's own development pace and best meets the needs of clients is the optimal solution. In the future, we will continue to uphold this philosophy, continuously improve our professional capabilities and service levels, and create greater value for our customers.

Q: As a grassroots representative of the National People's Congress engaged in the legal service industry, you have always remembered your identity and mission as a representative, adhered to the distinctive characteristics of "professional performance", and upheld the concept of "using emotions to connect, giving heartfelt suggestions, and working hard to serve". You have actively leveraged your professional advantages in legislative supervision, optimizing the legal business environment, and put forward many constructive opinions and suggestions on major issues such as technological innovation and social governance, fully demonstrating the mission and responsibility of legal workers in the new era. We hope to gain a deeper understanding of the efforts and significant achievements you have made in promoting the construction of the rule of law. At the same time, we also look forward to your sharing on how you maintain an efficient work state and a continuous spirit of innovation in balancing the responsibilities of a lawyer and a representative.

Answer: Lawyers have unique professional advantages, expertise, and practical advantages in participating in politics and deliberation.

The process of lawyers providing legal services to various market entities is a scene of individual research and a process of understanding social and public opinion. Lawyers have extensive contact with various social classes and are able to perceive the development and changes of society first. They have a deeper understanding and cognition of various problems, contradictions, and challenges that exist in society. Therefore, lawyers can predict many trend phenomena in advance during social development.

Secondly, as legal professionals, lawyers are problem solvers, which is precisely the duty of lawyers to provide suggestions when participating in politics: to discover problems, and more importantly, to propose solutions to problems. Lawyers are individuals who have received specialized legal training, and their thinking is a normative one that emphasizes logic, induction, deduction, and other basic skills. Therefore, they have natural advantages in social governance and the construction of the rule of law.

At present, the rule of law has deeply penetrated people's hearts, and the so-called "performance of duties" is nothing more than providing opinions and suggestions on government work, making governance behavior more standardized and effective. That's why people often say that lawyers are people who are "naturally close to politics". In fact, as a member of the legal community, lawyers are able to achieve targeted and evidence-based performance in their duties, which is our unique value and advantage in participating in politics and deliberation.

I always adhere to several principles on how to balance professional activities with fulfilling responsibilities: firstly, I believe that doing one's job well is a prerequisite. Secondly, identifying and analyzing problems during the case handling process. Once again, be good at summarizing, think more and use more pens. Of course, obtaining relevant information through traditional media and various new media, paying attention to the details of daily life, and caring about the concerns of the people are also very important.

Habits are important. Maintaining enthusiasm and interest, organically combining enthusiasm with rhythm, can find a balance between busy professional activities and fulfilling responsibilities, achieving a dual reflection of professional value and social responsibility.

Q: Recently, the Hangzhou office officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Thailand's Shengye Law Firm. This strategic cooperation coincides with the key node of the comprehensive implementation of RCEP. It not only provides professional escort for regional economic and trade cooperation, but also creates a new paradigm of in-depth collaboration of transnational legal service institutions. It is of exemplary significance in the joint construction of the "the Belt and Road" rule of law guarantee system and the construction of China ASEAN cross legal service system. Could you please share the original intention of this cooperation, as well as the positive significance of the four core service matrices that we have focused on building in upgrading cross-border services and promoting the coordinated development of cross-border legal service institutions.

Answer: The original intention of this cooperation stems from the practical demand of Zhejiang private enterprises for high-quality "going global" services in the context of the current global landscape changes. From the practical needs of breaking through the bottleneck of domestic growth, actively integrating into the global industrial chain reconstruction strategy, and avoiding trade barriers and geopolitical risks, it can be seen that Zhejiang's private enterprises going global is an inevitable choice for the deep integration of regional economic transformation and upgrading with the national opening-up strategy.

At the same time, Zhejiang has taken the lead in promoting the "coordinated pattern of foreign-related rule of law work", requiring legal service institutions to match the needs of enterprises going global throughout the entire chain, and putting forward higher requirements for legal service institutions.

This cooperation focuses on building four core service matrices, deeply integrating the political and business resources of local Thai law firms with the foreign-related service experience of the Hangzhou office through strategic alliances, directly responding to the deployment of "building an overseas legal service center platform" in the "Special Action Plan for the Development of Foreign related Legal Services" of the Provincial Department of Justice, and reducing the cost of trial and error for enterprises going abroad through proactive risk prevention and control.

Q: Time flies like a shuttle, and in the blink of an eye, Gaopeng (Hangzhou) Law Firm has entered its 15th year of establishment. In the past fifteen years, the branch has not only nurtured and cultivated numerous talented young legal talents, but also undertaken and handled a large number of complex and thorny cases, making indelible contributions to resolving numerous major disputes. As the leader of the firm, you must have profound insights. Please share them with us.

Answer: In terms of team management, as the head of the Hangzhou office, I have a clear understanding of my role. I am not a teacher who is good at theoretical knowledge, but a legal worker who solves problems. In my nearly 30 years of practice, I have evolved from being a specific handling lawyer for individual cases to being the overall commander of each project and case. I have mobilized and coordinated various professional lawyers to jointly verify the optimal solution, while maintaining sufficient communication with the client's senior management and legal department. My main responsibilities at present are to seize the opportunity, accurately grasp the objective situation, development laws, and opportunities of the times, and to build a systematic ecosystem for cooperation among lawyers from all parties. Excellence refers to three aspects: verifying the best tactics.

To complement each other's strengths and weaknesses is the invincible fleet, platformization is our organizational model, and ecologicalization is our practical scenario. For many years, I have consistently emphasized the importance of both legal service products and legal services (humanistic care, responsiveness, problem-solving ability, satisfaction), as well as individual execution efficiency and overall team collaboration efficiency. With a customer-centric and goal oriented approach, I aim to deepen, penetrate, refine, accurately, and strengthen my business.

Adhering to the concept of 'integrity and professionalism' is of paramount importance for law firms and individual lawyers to maintain competitiveness in the complex and ever-changing market environment.

In my 30 years of practice, I have always believed that as a lawyer, the first priority is to obtain cases, the second priority is to handle cases well, the third priority is to summarize case handling experience, and the fourth priority is to form one's own brand. This philosophy coincides with the current trend in the legal industry that emphasizes both "customer expansion and maintenance" and "product output and delivery".

The core essence of the concept of "integrity and professionalism" lies in emphasizing that lawyers should not only adhere to the basic moral and behavioral standards of "integrity", but also tirelessly strive to enhance and shape their professional skills. Specifically, this means that lawyers not only need to possess noble professional ethics and upright code of conduct, ensuring that they always uphold the principles of fairness and integrity in their practice, but also continuously improve their professional competence and practical operation ability in the legal field through continuous learning and practice.

From a macro perspective, the era of dividends brought by reform and opening up to the legal industry is now nearing its end. Like other industries, the legal industry has also entered an extremely competitive era of internal competition.

In the current practice environment full of uncertainty and complexity, the demands of client groups for legal services are increasingly inclined towards pursuing certainty and stability. They are no longer satisfied with basic legal consultation and agency services, but pay more attention to the comprehensive abilities of lawyers, such as professional level, practical experience, problem-solving, and emotional value supply, in order to ensure that their rights and interests are maximally protected. In this context, market share will inevitably further concentrate on mature lawyers and their law firms with stronger business capabilities and richer experience.

Therefore, I believe that in the future, lawyers should not only actively participate in social governance and political activities, but also pay attention to differentiated competition in legal services, focusing on specialized and refined paths. We must have a deeper understanding of our clients' real needs and continuously bring unique value to them. This value is reflected in our professional depth and business level, the efficiency of our services, as well as the trust and influence brought by the platform's support and social activity. Only in this way can we reshape the true value and significance of lawyers.

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