Legal services (CPC 861)

• Upon accession , foreign law firms can provide legal services in China, but only in the form of representative offices and in the following designated areas: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Haikou, Dalian, Qingdao, Ningbo, Yantai, Tianjin, Suzhou, Xiamen, Zhuhai, Hanghou, Fuzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Shenyang and Kunming.

• Representative offices in China shall be no less than the number established upon the date of accession. A foreign law firm can only establish one representative office in China.

• The above geographical and quantitative limitations will be eliminated within one year of China's accession to the WTO.

• Representative offices can engage in profit-making activities.

• The business scope of foreign representative offices is restricted to the following:

  • to provide clients with consultancy on the legislation of the country/region where the members of the law firm are permitted to engage in lawyer's professional work, and on international conventions and practices;

  • to handle the legal affairs of the country/region where the members of the law firm are permitted to engage in lawyer's professional work, when entrusted by clients or Chinese law firms;

  • to entrust Chinese law firms with Chinese legal affairs on behalf of foreign clients;

  • to enter into contracts to maintain long- term entrustment relations with Chinese law firms for legal affairs;

  • to provide information on the impact of the Chinese legal environment.

Entrustment allows the foreign representative office directly to instruct lawyers in the entrusted Chinese law firm, as agreed by both parties.

The representatives of a foreign law firm shall be practitioner lawyers who are members of the bar or law society in a WTO member country and have practised for no less than two years outside of China. The chief representative shall be a partner or equivalent of a law firm of a WTO member and have practised for no less than three years .

All representatives shall be resident in China for no less than six months of each year. The representative office shall not employ Chinese national registered lawyers outside of China.