On July 29, 2025, the 50th Chenggong Salon was successfully held at Guangdong Chenggong Law Firm. This session of the salon invited Lawyer Li Taijun, Assistant Director of the Professional Ethics and Industry Compliance Committee of the Shenzhen Bar Association and Equity Partner of Guangdong Chenggong Law Firm. Based on the high-frequency complaint types received by the Professional Ethics and Industry Compliance Committee of the Shenzhen Bar Association in recent years, Lawyer Li provided guidance to participants on lawyer professional ethics and practice risk prevention from three aspects: the inevitability of compliance construction in China's legal profession, professional ethics and ethics of lawyers, and prevention of common practice risks for lawyers.
Lawyer Li Taijun first clarified that industry compliance is an irreversible trend and a fundamental guarantee for the healthy development of the legal profession. Compliance construction acts as a productive force that drives high-quality growth in the sector. Lawyers should adhere to professional ethics in both their professional and non-professional conduct. Unlike professional discipline rules, lawyers are duty-bound to safeguard clients' legitimate rights and interests, uphold the proper enforcement of laws, and protect social fairness and justice. Additionally, lawyers must cherish and uphold the professional reputation of the legal community, strengthen their moral cultivation, set an example in abiding by public ethics, and proactively study and comply with the professional ethics and practice discipline regulations governing lawyers.
This salon mainly focused on the prevention of common practice risks for lawyers. Based on different stages of lawyers' practice, it shared how to prevent such risks:
一、Pre-consultation Stage. When handling legal matters, lawyers must have their law firms uniformly accept mandates, enter into written engagement letters with clients, collect fees uniformly in accordance with state regulations, and truthfully record such fees in the accounts. For clients who visit the law firm for simple legal consultations and have paid consultation fees, or those who consult via WeChat, the law firm must also enter into a written engagement letter with the client, collect fees uniformly in accordance with state regulations, and truthfully record them in the accounts. Additionally, the law firm may prepare a "Legal Consultation Registration Form" in advance, which should include information such as the client's name, subject matter of the consultation, name of the lawyer providing the consultation, fee standards, and duration of the consultation. All collected consultation fees shall be recorded in the accounts, and invoices shall be issued accordingly.
二、Business Expansion Stage. This section mainly introduced key points to note regarding law firm and lawyer business promotion. Combining with the current variety of online promotion methods, it emphasized that business promotion information released by individual lawyers should be prominently marked with the lawyer's name, lawyer's practice certificate number, and the name of the law firm where they practice. It may also include the lawyer's portrait, age, gender, academic background, degree, years of practice, lawyer professional title, honorary titles, the law firm's fee standards, contact information, the scope of legal services that can be provided to the public in accordance with the law, specialized fields, professional qualifications, etc. For business promotion information released by law firms, it should be prominently marked with the law firm's name, practice license number, and other relevant details.
Lawyer Li Taijun highlighted key points, emphasizing that when lawyers or law firms engage in business promotion, they shall not: engage in false, misleading, or exaggerated publicity; create inconsistency with registered information; explicitly or implicitly claim to have special relationships with judicial organs, government agencies, social organizations, intermediary institutions, and their staff; disparage other law firms or lawyers; or engage in comparative publicity with other law firms or lawyers—these are easily overlooked risk points.
三、Case Representation Stage. Lawyer Li Taijun pointed out key risk prevention points for practice during this stage, including: law firms or lawyers shall not accept cases privately; lawyers shall not engage in representation activities beyond the authorized scope of the mandate; lawyers shall perform their representation duties diligently; there are certain types of cases where contingency fee arrangements are prohibited; the contingency fee ratio shall not exceed the upper limit; and law firms or lawyers shall not violate conflict of interest rules.
Lawyers should establish correct career plans and practice law in accordance with laws and regulations with integrity; law firms should adhere to compliant operations, strengthen the construction of a community with a shared future for the legal profession, and jointly uphold the integrity and positive ethos of the Shenzhen legal profession.
In the future, Chenggong Salon will continue to focus on industry hotspots and deliver more professional insights.
Lawyer Introduction
