Abstract

Conflict of interest is regarded as one of the core significant issues in legal practice. Although some Chinese laws, such as the “Lawyers Law of the People’s Republic of China” and “Strengthen the Improvement of Lawyers’ Professional Ethics and Sense of Discipline”, have stipulated rules relating to conflict of interest in lawyers’ practice, the contents of which seem abstract and simplistic without further details on how to implement them. Even though some modern cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou have implemented some relevant regulations with details on lawyers’ conflicts of interest, these regulations are at the relatively lower level of the legal hierarchy and this issue still lacks standardized rules due to the wide variety of regulations in different regions. This leads to some difficulties which lawyers have to face in practice and it is not beneficial for lawyers to manage the conflict of interest in cases which are brought by clients in different regions. This paper tries to give a brief introduction to the laws on lawyer’s conflict of interest in China. Also, it analyzes the current situation and the potential problems regarding this issue and further provides some reasonable suggestions and measures for improvement.