Abstract

In the last 25 years, prompted by rapid economic growth and the demands of the World Trade Organization, China has had to create a legal system and a legal profession out of whole cloth. The development has been dramatic indeed with 300 new law schools and over 200,000 law students. These students will help: to populate the vast Chinese and international law firms that are springing up in the major cities; to service the demand for legal services from China's growing newly affluent middle class; and, to serve in the courts and the government under the leadership of the Communist Party. But the Party's embrace of the rule of law has been somewhat ambivalent and the Chinese tradition of valuing social harmony make litigation and the assertion of rights a somewhat unwelcome intrusion. The problems of corruption and influence pedaling are far from solved. Modernization runs forward and the Party, the government and the legal profession try to keep pace. This piece is an introductory survey of the profession as it was found during a one semester stint at Tsinghua University in Beijing in the Spring of 2007 as a Fulbright lecturer.