Based on years of court work experience, the judge who resigned still chose to be a lawyer after his transformation, and he was a litigation lawyer. Let’s imagine that there are probably no one who immediately went to IPO business or the New Third Board, investment and financing

Author: Li Liang, founder of Guizhou Duiceng Law Firm, source: Civil and Commercial Facts.

My name is Li Liang. I have created several WeChat law public accounts such as the Presiding Judge's Home, Duicheng Legal Person, Civil and Commercial Affairs, and Criminal Legal Practice. In May 2015, I resigned from the Civil Court of the Guizhou High Court because of the ban on business and avoided it. At the same time, in order to better learn the advanced experience of the law industry, I chose to practice in Beijing after resigning, and in 2018, I returned to Guizhou to establish Guizhou Duicheng Law Firm.

Everyone has different choices, just see which one is more suitable for you. Based on years of court work experience, the judge who resigned still chose to be a lawyer after his transformation, and he was a litigation lawyer. Let’s imagine that there are probably no one who immediately went to IPO business or the New Third Board, investment and financing business after resigning from the court. Even if there is definitely an isolated case, most of us do not have this professional foundation and work experience. So our group chooses more areas of the field as it is best at litigation. Today mainly gives you a report on the thinking and practice process of establishing a lawyer team and choosing a business field in the past two years since I founded a law firm:

1. Lawyers are a profession that looks glamorous, trained and lifelong learning. We must be wary of being eliminated by the market due to backward professionalism

Everyone knows the path to advancement of lawyers

Everyone knows the path to advancement of lawyers

It is very tortuous. Starting from an internship, a lawyer, you have to accept years of exploitation from old lawyers and lawyers. I saw many graduate students from prestigious universities in law firms in Beijing. At the beginning, they could only get 2,000-3,000 yuan as a lawyer. Even transportation and lunch fees were not enough. Then after 9981 difficulties, they could grow into a practicing lawyer and then take the case source lawyer. This process took at least three years, and some lawyers who could not make it right changed their careers halfway. So it is not easy for every lawyer to succeed, and there is an indescribable sadness behind everyone who looks glamorous.

And our resignation as a judge is an exception. We have a natural advantage, that is, when we first transformed, we had our own case sources. This is also a reward for our old boss to contribute to the judicial system for many years. I have always been very grateful to our old boss. But at the same time, the halo given to us by the old boss is unsustainable, and we must have a clear enough understanding, otherwise the path of lawyers will become narrower and narrower, and they will deteriorate with the passage of time or the quality of legal services we provide. So we need to make good use of the court halo and create our own professional halo.

We must be vigilant not to be like a lawyer in the martial arts world. We have been a lawyer for half of our lives. We still label ourselves as we claim to know a certain judge. We never talk about professionalism. We take cases based on our feelings. We do not update our legal knowledge system, study the case. We randomly boast about the signing of an agency contract. We will make the decision after winning. If we lose, we will shirk judicial injustice and judicial corruption. Such lawyers will sooner or later be eliminated by the market.

2. Handle the relationship with the old boss correctly, and avoid crossing the line

We must make good use of our relationship with the old boss, and avoid not accepting cases under the banner of former colleagues or old bosses. Even if we receive cases from our old bosses, do not make random promises to customers. As for customers’ imagination and temptation, we must also stop illegal ideas with confidence. Our relationship with our old boss and former colleagues is very subtle, so don’t inquire or collude about the case, as everyone will be afraid of you and will look down on you.

If you are not business-oriented, it is okay to communicate more with your former colleagues. They are very profound and thorough in one field, and their thinking on many professional issues is worth learning from. In fact, they are also very curious about us and are also concerned about the work and life of our group. We can also better understand the current judicial practice, especially the policy-based judicial direction, through normal communication, which will be very inspiring for us to predict the direction of the case. I think such effective communication is very helpful for our practice.

3. Choice on the road to transformation: You can focus on handling cases, and start a business simultaneously

Due to our natural advantages of bringing our own case sources, we don’t have to start as an intern novices, but we also face choices. One is to affiliate with a branded law firm to be a full-time lawyer, and the second is to start a law firm to be a entrepreneurial lawyer. Both options for have their own advantages and disadvantages. Being a full-time lawyer can quickly go on the road, focus on cases, and save the energy of managing a law firm. However, when you develop to a certain level, the values ​​and professional philosophy of the law firm may become bottlenecks that restrict your development. Moreover, although the halo of the law firm brand replaces the halo of the court, this halo still does not belong to you; being an entrepreneurial lawyer can allow your values ​​and professional philosophy to be rooted in the law firm and break the ceiling that restricts the development of the law firm in a planned manner, but due to lack of management experience in the early stage, it will be very tiring, and will pay a lot of trial and error costs, and there will be many twists and turns and difficulties. Even so, I chose the latter.

Before I founded the firm, I had researched many law firms. There is a saying to describe a lawyer that impressed me very deeply. "Every lawyer is an individual businessman with its own production tools" . Everyone knows that lawyers are craftsmen and freelancers, which means that every lawyer can be self-sufficient and does not need to rely on any organization. Although this is the advantage of a lawyer, it is also a disadvantage, because every lawyer can support himself. , so it seems difficult to achieve joint development if the lawyer wants to transfer the interests of the lawyer to form a joint force. At that time, I was really a newborn calf and was not afraid of tigers. Without any experience in law firm management, I borrowed my classmates' qualifications to register a law firm. raised a few people in groups, raised 200,000 yuan in start-up funds, and rented a small villa. I started to build the according to the idea of ​​integrated operation, and difficulties followed one after another.

4. The road to entrepreneurship is to constantly solve old difficulties, discover new difficulties, and then repeat it over and over again, enjoy it

The first difficulty is cooperation and trust. At the end of 2017, the law firm registered and officially started my transformation. As soon as the law firm opened, the combined strength formed by teamwork was obvious. We successfully signed a big order. When we didn’t know how to divide the cake, we had the cake. In order to solve the problem in front of me, I formulated an allocation rule overnight. The idea at that time was very simple. The person who was the case, the person who talked about the case, the organizer, the assistant and other participants all participated in a certain proportion of distribution, so that everyone's labor value was reflected. However, each participant retained half of the distribution quota as a public fund for the brand building of the law firm and the basic guarantee of the team. The retained part was replaced by personal points, and each person shared the future results of the law firm in portions according to the proportion of the points they held.

is supposed to be a good thing to register as soon as it is opened, but it is really "if you lose your horse, how can you know the good and bad luck?" Good things will always be mixed with bad things, and good luck and good luck will be mutually relied on. As soon as the allocation plan came out, I encountered the first failure of being an entrepreneurial lawyer. Leaving the opportunity for the future. Although it sounds like a good idea, it is difficult to implement if the partners you work with lack a trust basis. everyone only pays attention to the amount they allocated, and then simply compares it with the entire lawyer's fees. They all feel that the score is too small. After all, the value of points must be left for the future. There are too many uncertainties in the future. Why should I believe you and believe in the system you designed? The lack of trust directly led to the team falling apart, and it was only then that I realized the importance of trust, especially during the early days of law firms. In fact, the capital demand for entrepreneurial law firms is not large, and success depends on the cooperation of people rather than the cooperation of capital.

The second difficulty is the trade-offs in the business field. When I started my office, based on my professional experience, I determined that the law firm only conducts high-quality civil and commercial litigation, and I will not accept any small cases.There seems to be no problem in taking the road of high-quality and professional law firms, but this positioning brings two difficulties as soon as it is operated. The first is that large clients also have small cases and other cases, which leads to rejecting small cases and other cases of large clients, and may lose the opportunity for large cases at the same time; Second is that young lawyers do not have large cases. When large cases have not yet reached saturation, one-sided refusal to accept small cases will limit the growth of friends. The professional positioning of is suitable for me alone, but if you enlarge it to a law firm, you will not be able to adapt to the local conditions.

This has triggered my rethinking of why law firms should be professional and high-quality. In fact, we want to polish the legal service products we provide by pursuing the ultimate craftsman spirit and professional spirit. The ultimate goal is to ensure the quality of case handling, so as to shape a professional brand and form a good reputation to expand the market. Specialization is not that the law firm only has one professional field, and quality is not simply evaluated based on the amount of fees, but refers to the legal services provided by the law firm. Whether it is criminal business or other special projects, they are professional and reliable. is exquisitely polished and is a legal service that can maximize the legal rights and interests of customers. wants to understand this point, and we no longer rigidly choose to only work in one professional field, but provide customers with more and more high-quality legal services more comprehensively.

Entrepreneurship is really a path of no return, and new difficulties are always arising. The third difficulty of is the limitation of professional thinking. lifts restrictions in professional fields, and a bigger problem is coming, because the civil and commercial trial or agency thinking that has been formed over the years is difficult to break through. When receiving criminal or administrative cases, even if you make up for your homework, you are still very nervous about the prediction of the results. Without certainty, let alone doing a good job in the case, you will have no confidence even when negotiating. At the same time, with the increase in the types of case sources, many difficult and complex civil and commercial disputes are resolved. It is difficult to effectively resolve disputes between the parties by relying solely on civil and commercial means. Many relief plans require the use of criminal and civil and civil and commercial intersecting relief measures to solve customer problems in a package.

Based on these practical difficulties, I looked for a partner again. Two good friends, good colleagues and classmates from many years are also preparing to resign. We have both intimate relationships and hit it off. We also engage in civil and administrative trials and criminal investigations in the court. We work together to not only solve the trust foundation of people-to-people cooperation, but also solve the limitations of professional fields. We have a high understanding of cases and handling cases together, and we can learn from each other's strengths and weaknesses. Especially when encountering cross-criminal, civil and commercial cases, we can always make accurate predictions quickly. No matter which relief method is adopted or cross-use, we can find an effective breakthrough. Through several attempts in cases, we all decided to hand over the side we were not good at to the other party and fight back to back.

5. Both commission and corporate systems have their own advantages and disadvantages. We learn from the advantages and disadvantages of the two. The third way we create: Dynamic Partner System

For the joint entrepreneurship, this time we spent almost two or three months discussing the system of law firms together. We deeply realize that although the number of commission law firms is large, the number of lawyers and law firms is only an affiliated relationship, and it is impossible to form a unified force, and it is difficult to create an effective and stable professional brand. Although the corporate law firm has solved the problem of synergy, the basic interests of the original partners have been solidified, and young lawyers rely on the law firm to survive. Once the resources accumulate to a certain level, they will inevitably seek other development, resulting in difficulty in large-scale development. So much so that in the law firm world, we have always been in a chaotic state where we will be together for a long time, and we will be together for a long time.In the final analysis, everyone knows that together can produce greater value, but in the early stages of the combination, before the forward incremental value is generated, everyone needs to transfer short-term stock interests. and lawyers are independent individuals with their own production tools. Who is willing to give up the stock interests in front of them? Human nature is selfish, and everyone is greedy in their hearts, but without everyone giving up the existing interests in front of them, how can there be long-term incremental interests?

In order to solve this prisoner's dilemma, we decided to formulate rules for the cake before the cake was made. Therefore, the "Partnership Agreement" which we nicknamed the constitutional documents of the law firm and the "General Rules of Law Firm Operations" which are specific distribution rules were born. Our logic and method are actually very simple. Because commission law firms do not operate in an integrated manner, it is difficult to form a joint force. We learn from corporate law firms to let everyone work together. Because corporate law firms are solidified and difficult to develop on a large scale, we learn from commission law firms. On the premise of protecting the interests of the persons who are in the case, we determine the dynamic partnership share based on contributions, breaking the possible development bottlenecks in the future.

The specific operation is to let the case source lawyer transfer part of the interests into points, and the case handler also transfer part of the interests into points, establish a dynamic partnership point system, and the expenses of public points can be used to uniformly build the law firm brand. In addition, we have also established internal rules for external cooperation to maximize the transfer of interests to strive for more cooperation opportunities, and leave opportunities to the future by jointly transferring interests. At the same time, we have established a distribution model in which the distribution ratio of lawyers in the source of cases increases with the increase of fees and the distribution ratio of lawyers in the case handlers increases with the decrease of fees. Through the system, we guarantee the market law that "large cases do not lose, small cases ensure quality."

The goal of our system: First, strive to balance the original resource interests of the case source lawyer and the growth and survival interests of the case handler, so as to encourage the team to form a joint force and complement each other's strengths. The second is to strive to balance the current existing interests and the long-term incremental interests, and encourage the team to work hard and look forward to the future. The third is to strive to balance personal interests and collective interests, so that the team can do their best to seek common development. Fourth, strive to reach a balance between internal and external interests, so that the team can cooperate win-win, inclusive and open. We hope that by reaching four balances, law firms can break out of the development bottleneck of the "cyclical law" and ensure long-term stability and sustainable development.

6. Customer expectations management is the real brand building and marketing promotion. It is necessary to rely on systems to ensure the customer expectations management of the law firm

As our team members increase, management problems are highlighted again. The fine division of labor has brought about poor process connection, service quality has begun to decline, and customer experience has decreased. After analysis, we concluded that customer expectations management was not done well. Because there is no unified acceptance standard when accepting cases, the case is divided and coordinated after being brought in, which has failed to effectively coordinate and manage customer expectations in every division of labor. We further found that the result of winning or losing is not directly related to whether the customer is satisfied. Whether the customer is satisfied depends more on whether the final result is within the customer's expectations. As long as the customer is satisfied within the expectations, the customer will be more satisfied if the expectations are exceeded, but if the expectations are not met, the conflict between the two parties will naturally occur.

In other words, as long as the loss result is a good customer expectation from the beginning, even if the lawsuit is lost, the customer will be satisfied; conversely, if the customer is excessively guided without making accurate predictions in order to sign the case, the customer will not be satisfied even if the lawsuit is won. Give a case (the case involves customer business secrets, omitted here)

Customer expectations management is very important, but how can we effectively manage customer expectations? The reason is that each lawyer’s case handling standards are inconsistent, the case-handling style is different, the case-handling concept is not unified, and the writing method is not standard.In order to solve this series of problems, we have formulated a series of normative systems to solve our differences from the appearance, such as formulating a unified document format for law firms, unified reception etiquette norms, and unified case handling procedures. , but it still treats the symptoms but not the root cause. Although it looks unified in appearance, due to different values ​​and concepts, the maintenance of the relationship with the customer still cannot achieve the ideal result after accepting the commission. At this time, we also realize that having a system alone is not enough. Without culture as the underlying design, no matter how good the system is, it will eventually be difficult to change the fundamentals.

7. Culture precedes the system. Law firm culture is the cornerstone of system practice

In order to effectively manage customer expectations with unified standards, we have spent a lot of energy to explore and build our law firm culture and the core values ​​of law firms, so as to guide the professional philosophy of each of our lawyers, so as to achieve the goal of unified case handling standards and unified customer expectations management. We have determined four positionings of lawyers: is a good assistant to judges. The second is to be a judge of the client. The third is to be a value partner of legal persons. Fourth, be the messenger of everyone's rights.

1 is a good assistant to judges. Why be a good assistant to judges? Judicial power is the right to judge, a passive public power, and a neutral third party. This attribute determines that a judge cannot actively ascertain objective facts. He can only passively determine legal facts based on the evidence provided by the parties. Even in terms of law application, judges usually choose to apply them in a comprehensive manner by listening to the legal explanations of each party. Being a good assistant to a judge, can efficiently cooperate with the court to make judgments, which not only saves judicial resources, but also guides the direction of the referee, which is more conducive to the client and realizes the purpose of the client's entrustment.

2 is the right judge to be a client. Why be a judge for the client? Lawyers are also legal professionals. They must have the most basic view of justice and a sense of rules. They must know that maintaining social fairness and justice is not only the mission of judges and prosecutors, but also the mission of all legal professional communities including our lawyers. Article 2 of the Lawyer Law stipulates that "lawyers should safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties, safeguard the correct implementation of the law, and safeguard social fairness and justice." Although lawyers are not judges, if there is no basic value judgment of a quasi-judge, it will make the lawyer profession we engage in have no existence value.

3 is a value partner for legal persons. Why be a value partner of a legal person? Lawyers need to have a craftsman spirit, but they also need to have business thinking. After all, lawyers need to survive by relying on skills. The issue that lawyers must think about when selling legal service products. The demand for legal services is uncertain and low-frequency. You will never know when and which subject will generate legal services. How can I find my own customers in the vast sea of ​​people? How to accurately locate customers? There seems to be no answer. But carefully considering, according to the Six Degree Space Theory, when legal needs occur, the demander will definitely find someone who understands the law through the means of asking someone to consult. This person may be a judge, a prosecutor, a lawyer, a policeman, a legal teacher, a company legal affairs or a legal worker. This group has a common title called legal person, they are a certain subject, We only need to let this group know their business areas, and your legal service products will be recommended by other legal persons.

Last year, when I put forward this point of view, many colleagues refused to agree, believing that it is impossible for a judge to recommend a case to a lawyer. Unless there is a transfer of interests, it is even more impossible for a lawyer to recommend a case to a lawyer, and he has to take on the job himself. You can imagine this scene. Judges and prosecutors are also human beings. They also have relatives and friends. If relatives and friends have lawsuits, they will definitely ask them for help, but what should they do? It is neither able to interfere with other judges and prosecutors in handling cases nor is it easy to refuse the entrustment of relatives and friends. The best way is to introduce a lawyer who thinks he is professional and reliable to solve the legal problems of relatives and friends. Only in this way can he not violate the principles and truly help relatives and friends.The same is true for lawyers. Some retired lawyers do not want to do it or can’t do it anymore, and some lawyers cannot do it due to their professional limitations, so there is also a situation where they recommend lawyers. After the past two years of practice, according to our case data, the proportion of legal representatives is still very large, especially the business recommended by many of my former colleagues. also asked the parties to avoid suspicion and not tell me who recommended it. I don’t know who these colleagues who have helped me so far. I am really grateful to me when I think of this, and this is also everyone’s recognition of my professionalism.

4 is to be the messenger of everyone's rights. Why be the messenger of everyone's rights? Although we accept not every party's case, we are sincere in every reception. Some parties do not become our customers in the end. However, we sincerely give him legal opinions in the entire negotiation and exchange process, especially those who choose litigation methods irrationally, or those who just want to be angry or vent their anger. We will use our personal feelings to analyze the pros and cons for him. advises him to give up the lawsuit, inform him that litigation is not omnipotent, and propose a more economical, more reasonable and more rational way to safeguard his legal rights to solve the problem. Although failed to become our customer this time, I believe it must be one of our potential customers or recommenders.

Through the four lawyers we require for ourselves, we roughly solve the unified acceptance standards of the law firm and the direction of the client's expected management after acceptance. However, the improvement is always on the road, and the direction is there, but the paths chosen by each lawyer are still different. The problem is that although the direction is consistent, the paths are not unified, which often leads to detours. How can we be a good assistant to judges, a good judge to clients, a good value partner to legal persons, and a good emissary for everyone? Because of different growth background, life experience and work experience, the path choices of each lawyer are also different. In order to avoid detours and maximize the breakthrough of each other's differences, we repeatedly pondered and agreed on four portraits of Duichengren at this stage: , one is to have a pattern. The second is to be professional. Third, it can win-win. Fourth, be humble. We ask everyone to compare their portraits to improve themselves and not let anyone fall behind.

Only with a pattern can one have a good mentality to be a good assistant to judges and truly assist judges in handling cases efficiently; only with a pattern can one have a good mentality to be a good judge for clients and refuse cases that should not be undertaken; only with a pattern can one have a good mentality to be a good value partner for legal persons and participate in the construction of a legal professional community; only with a pattern can one have a good mentality to be a good messenger of everyone's rights and participate in the maintenance of social fairness and justice.

Only by being good at professionalism can you be a good assistant to judges and truly protect the legitimate rights and interests of customers. Only by being good at professionalism can one be a good judge for clients and accurately predict agency results. Only by being good at professionalism can one become a value partner of a legal person and be recognized and trusted by a legal person. Only by being professional and professional can one be a good messenger for everyone and let the parties explain right and wrong.

win-win is closely related to our four positionings of lawyers. Being good assistants to judges, improving judicial efficiency, realizing the purpose of client entrustment, so that justice can be demonstrated and fairness can be achieved, and it is a win-win situation for judges, lawyers and client. Being a good judge for customers not only maintains judicial authority, allows parties to reduce litigation expenses, but also trusts the judiciary more, but also promotes the activity of the legal service market, which is a win-win situation for the judicial, legal service market, and rights holders. becomes a value partner of legal professionals, and it is also a win-win situation for building a legal professional community and solving the difficulties of legal professionals. Being a good messenger of everyone’s rights, being a good communicator of the rule of law, a guardian of judicial authority and a conscientious service provider is a win-win situation for the entire society.

Know that humility is the basis for our own growth. Every individual is small, and it is difficult for us to break through our own limitations. Whether it is the pattern, professionalism and win-win thinking, it is the prerequisite to know humility.

In this way, we used for less than two years , and the income of each lawyer has been greatly improved. The law firm achieved the small goal of saving public funds to purchase property. From a small villa to a large flat floor beside the park, the team members also changed from me to 21. We have jointly set short-term goals and are committed to building an integrated law firm worth entrusting. Everyone is working together for this goal. At the same time, we have also planned the medium-term and long-term goals of the partnership business. Since it is still a dream, I dare not report to you. I will report to you when the dream is naively realized.