When it comes to management, Chinese law firms face obvious and daunting problems. The China legal services market, while robust and growing, is still immature. It has been not quite 20 years since private law firms were first permitted, and the weaknesses of the law firm management structures in all but a handful of Chinese law firms reflect this short history.
The traditional partnership model in China is simply a collection of sole practitioners sharing costs on a shared platform. Many draw comparisons to barristers’ chambers, but even this gives the traditional Chinese model too much credit. In most Chinese firms outside the top tier in Beijing and Shanghai, junior lawyers, once qualified, are paid solely on a commission basis, meaning that even they have to scramble for work from partners in the firm or directly from clients.
