Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T17:51:57.649Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mapping the Ecology of China’s Corporate Legal Sector: Globalization and Its Impact on Lawyers and Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Sida LIU ,
David M. TRUBEK  and
David B. WILKINS
Sida LIU
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
David M. TRUBEK
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
David B. WILKINS
Affiliation:
Harvard Law School
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Globalization is rapidly changing the landscape of law practice in China, especially its corporate legal sector. This article reports on the preliminary findings of the China research of the Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies (GLEE) Project—a comparative study that examines how globalization is reshaping the market for legal services in important emerging economies and how these developments are contributing to the transformation of the political economy in these countries and beyond. Adopting an ecological approach, which examines how different segments of the legal system interact with one another in complex ways, this article maps the corporate core, international linkages, and domestic contexts of China’s globalizing corporate legal sector and discusses its impact on lawyers and society.

Keywords

Chinaglobalizationecologylawyercorporate legal sector
Type
Research Article
Information
Asian Journal of Law and Society , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , November 2016 , pp. 273 - 297
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and KoGuan Law School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation. Correspondence to Sida Liu, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 725 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2J4, Canada. E-mail address: [email protected].

**

Voss-Bascom Professor of Law and Dean of International Studies Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Law School.

***

Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School.

References

REFERENCES

Abbott, Andrew (1988) The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Abbott, Andrew (1999) Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Abbott, Andrew (2005) “Linked Ecologies.” 23 Sociological Theory 245–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abbott, Andrew (2016) Processual Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Abel, Richard L. (1989) American Lawyers, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Abel, Richard L., & Lewis, Philip S.C., eds. (1989) Lawyers in Society, Vol. 3, Comparative Theories, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Auerbach, Jerold S. (1976) Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1987) “The Force of Law: Toward a Sociology of the Juridical Field.” 38 Hastings Law Journal 805–853.Google Scholar
Braithwaite, John, & Drahos, Peter (2000) Global Business Regulation , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burk, Bernard A., & McGowan, David (2011) “Big but Brittle: Economic Perspectives on the Future of the Law Firm in the New Economy.” 2011 Columbia Business Law Review 1–117.Google Scholar
Coates, John C., DeStefano, Michele M. Nanda, Ashish & Wilkins, David B. (2011) “Hiring Teams, Firms, and Lawyers: Evidence of the Evolving Relationships in the Corporate Legal Market.” 36 Law & Social Inquiry 999–1031.Google Scholar
Conti, Joseph A. (2016) “Legitimacy Chains: Legitimation of Compliance with International Courts across Social Fields.” 50 Law & Society Review 154–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummings, Scott L. (2004) “The Politics of Pro Bono.” 52. UCLA Law Review 1–149.Google Scholar
Cummings, Scott L. (2008) “The Internationalization of Public Interest Law.” 57 Duke Law Review 891–1036.Google Scholar
Cummings, Scott L., & Trubek, Louise G. (2008) “Globalizing Public Interest Law.” 13 UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs 1–53.Google Scholar
de Sa e Silva, Fabio (2016) “Doing Well and Doing Good in an Emerging Economy: The Social Construction of Pro Bono among Corporate Lawyers and Law Firms in Sao Paulo,” online <http://clp.law.harvard.edu/assets/Panel-3-Pro-Bono.pdf> (last accessed 1 May 2016).+(last+accessed+1+May+2016).>Google Scholar
Dezalay, Yves, & Garth, Bryant (2002) The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists and the Transformation of Latin-American States, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dezalay, Yves, & Garth, Bryant (2010) Asian Legal Revivals: Lawyers in the Shadow of Empire, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dias, Vitor Martins (2016) “International Trade vs. International Property Lawyers: Globalization and the Brazilian Legal Profession.” 9 Journal of Civil Law Studies (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Dong, Jin (2015) “Do Institutional Variations Impact Chinese Lawyers’ Attitudes on Pro Bono?” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization Conference, Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Erie, Matthew S. (2009) “Legal Education Reform in China through US-Inspired Transplants.” 59 Journal of Legal Education 60–96.Google Scholar
Faulconbridge, James R., Beaverstock, Jonathan V. Muzio, Daniel & Taylor, Peter J. (2008) “Global Law Firms: Globalization and Organizational Spaces of Cross-Border Legal Work.” 28 Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business 455–488.Google Scholar
Flood, John (2007) “Lawyers as Sanctifiers: The Role of Elite Law Firms in Business Transactions.” 14 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 35–66.Google Scholar
Flood, John (2011) “The Re-Landscaping of the Legal Profession: Large Law Firms and Professional Re-Regulation.” 59 Current Sociology 507–529.Google Scholar
Flood, John (2013) What Do Lawyers Do? An Ethnography of a Corporate Law Firm, New Orleans, LA: Quid Pro Books.Google Scholar
Fourcade, Marion (2006) “The Construction of a Global Profession: The Transnationalization of Economics.” 112 American Journal of Sociology 145–194.Google Scholar
Freeman, John, Carroll, Glenn R. & Hannan, Michael T. (1983) “The Liability of Newness: Age Dependence in Organizational Death Rates.” 48 American Sociological Review 692–710.Google Scholar
Fu, Hualing, & Cullen, Richard (2011) “The Development of Public Interest Litigation in China,” in P. J. Yap & H. Lau, eds., Public Interest Litigation in Asia, Oxford and New York: Routledge, 9–34.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, & Robinson, Nick (2013) “India’s Grand Advocates: A Legal Elite Flourishing in the Era of Globalization.” 20 International Journal of the Legal Profession 241–265.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, & Palay, Thomas (1991) Tournament of Lawyers: The Transformation of the Big Law Firm, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Galanter, Marc, & Henderson, William D. (2008) “The Elastic Tournament: The Second Transformation of the Big Law Firm.” 60 Stanford Law Review 1867–1873.Google Scholar
Garth, Bryant G. (2003) “Law and Society as Law and Development.” 37 Law & Society Review 305–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gieryn, Thomas F. (1983) “Boundary Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists.” 48 American Sociological Review 781–795.Google Scholar
Givens, John W. (2014) “Sleeping with the Dragon? Politically Embedded Lawyers Suing the Chinese State.” 2014 Wisconsin International Law Journal 101–140.Google Scholar
Granfield, Robert, & Mather, Lynn (eds.) (2009) Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gupta, Arpita (2016) “Pro Bono and the Corporate Legal Sector in India,” in D.B. Wilkins, V.S. Khanna & D.M. Trubek, eds., The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization: The Rise of the Corporate Legal Sector and its Impact on Lawyers and Society, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Halliday, Terence C., & Shaffer, Gregory (eds.) (2015) Transnational Legal Orders, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliday, Terence C., & Osinsky, Pavel (2006) “Globalization of Law.” 32 Annual Review of Sociology 19.1–19.24.Google Scholar
Hannan, Michael T. (2005) “Ecologies of Organizations: Diversity and Identity.” 19 Journal of Economic Perspectives 51–70.Google Scholar
Hannan, Michael T., & Freeman, John (1977) “The Population Ecology of Organizations.” 82 American Journal of Sociology 929–964.Google Scholar
Hannan, Michael T., & Freeman, John (1989) Organizational Ecology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Heinz, John P., & Laumann, Edward O. (1982) Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar, New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Heinz, John P., Nelson, Robert L. Sandefur, Rebecca L. & Laumann, Edward O. (2005) Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hendley, Kathryn (2010) “The Role of In-House Counsel in Post-Soviet Russia in the Wake of Privatization.” 17 International Journal of the Legal Profession 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendley, Kathryn, Murrell, Peter & Ryterman, Randi (2001) “Agents of Change or Unchanging Agents? The Role of Lawyers within Russian Industrial Enterprises.” 26 Law & Social Inquiry 685–715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hupper, Gail (2015) “Lawyering in Chinese Outbound Investment: The Shuanghui–Smithfield Transaction.” Unpublished manuscript (on file with the authors).Google Scholar
Karpik, Lucien (1988) “Lawyers and Politics in France, 1814–1950: The State, the Market, and the Public.” 13 Law & Social Inquiry 707–736.Google Scholar
Krishnan, Jayanth K. (2010) “Globetrotting Law Firms.” 23 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 57–103.Google Scholar
Krishnan, Jayanth K., & Dias, Vitor M. (2015) “The Aspiring and Globalizing Graduate Law Student: A Comment on the Lazarus-Black and Globokar LL.M. Study.” 22 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 81–93.Google Scholar
Kritzer, Herbert M. (1999) “The Professions Are Dead, Long Live the Professions: Legal Practice in a Postprofessional World.” 33 Law & Society Review 713–759.Google Scholar
Lamont, Michèle, & Molnár, Virág (2002) “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences.” 28 Annual Review of Sociology 167–195.Google Scholar
Larson, Magali S. (1980) “Proletarianization and Educated Labor.” 9 Theory and Society 131–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazega, Emmanuel (2001) The Collegial Phenomenon: The Social Mechanisms of Cooperation among Peers in a Corporate Law Partnership, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Xueyao, & Liu, Sida (2012) “The Learning Process of Globalization: How Chinese Law Firms Survived the Financial Crisis.” 80 Fordham Law Review 2847–2866.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2006) “Client Influence and the Contingency of Professionalism: The Work of Elite Corporate Lawyers in China.” 40 Law & Society Review 751–782.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2008) “Globalization as Boundary-Blurring: International and Local Law Firms in China’s Corporate Law Market.” 42 Law & Society Review 771–804.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2011) “Lawyers, State Officials, and Significant Others: Symbiotic Exchange in the Chinese Legal Services Market.” 206 China Quarterly 276–293.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2012) “Palace Wars over Professional Regulation: In-House Counsel in Chinese State-Owned Enterprises.” 2012 Wisconsin Law Review 549–571.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2013) “The Legal Profession as a Social Process: A Theory on Lawyers and Globalization.” 38 Law & Social Inquiry 670–693.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2015a) “Boundary Work and Exchange: The Formation of a Professional Service Market.” 38 Symbolic Interaction 1–21.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida (2015b) “Law’s Social Forms: A Powerless Approach to the Sociology of Law.” 40 Law & Social Inquiry 1–28.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida, & Wu, Hongqi (2016) “The Ecology of Organizational Growth: Chinese Law Firms in the Age of Globalization.” 122 American Journal of Sociology (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Liu, Sida, & Emirbayer, Mustafa (2016) “Field and Ecology.” 34 Sociological Theory 62–79.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida, & Halliday, Terence C. (2009) “Recursivity in Legal Change: Lawyers and Reforms of China’s Criminal Procedure Law.” 34 Law & Social Inquiry 911–950.Google Scholar
Liu, Sida, & C. Halliday, Terence (2011) “Political Liberalism and Political Embeddedness: Understanding Politics in the Work of Chinese Criminal Defense Lawyers.” 45 Law & Society Review 831–865.Google Scholar
Marshall, Anna-Maria, & Hale, Daniel Crocker (2014) “Cause Lawyering.” 10 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 301–320.Google Scholar
Meyer, John W., Boli, John Thomas, George M. & Ramirez, Francisco O. (1997) “World Society and the Nation-State.” 103 American Journal of Sociology 144–181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michelson, Ethan (2007) “Lawyers, Political Embeddedness, and Institutional Continuity in China’s Transition from Socialism.” 113 American Journal of Sociology 352–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minzner, Carl F. (2013) “The Rise and Fall of Chinese Legal Education.” 36 Fordham International Law Journal 334–395.Google Scholar
Nelson, Robert L. (1981) “Practice and Privilege: Social Change and the Structure of Large Law Firms.” 6 American Bar Foundation Research Journal 95–140.Google Scholar
Nelson, Robert L., & Nielsen, Laura Beth (2000) “Cops, Counsel, and Entrepreneurs: Constructing the Role of Inside Counsel in Large Corporations.” 34 Law & Society Review 457–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohnesorge, John K.M. (2015) “Regulation of the Legal Profession in China: An Historical Overview.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference: Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Papa, Mihaela, & Wilkins, David B. (2011) “Globalization, Lawyers, and India: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis of Globalization Studies and the Sociology of the Legal Profession.” 18 International Journal of the Legal Profession 175–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Park, Robert E., & Burgess, Ernest W. ([1921] 1969) Introduction to the Science of Sociology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Park, Robert E., Burgess, Ernest W. & McKenzie, Roderick D. (1967) The City, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pils, Eva (2015) China’s Human Rights Lawyers: Advocacy and Resistance, Oxford and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Powell, Walter W., & DiMaggio, Paul J. (eds.) (1991) The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Quack, Sigrid (2012) “Recombining National Variety: Internationalisation Strategies of American and European Law Firms.” 5 Journal of Strategy and Management 154–174.Google Scholar
Ribstein, Larry E. (2010) “The Death of Big Law.” 2010 Wisconsin Law Review 749–815.Google Scholar
Rosen, Robert Eli (1989) “The Inside Counsel Movement, Professional Judgement and Organizational Representation.” 64 Indiana Law Journal 479–553.Google Scholar
Sandefur, Rebecca L. (2007) “Lawyers’ Pro Bono Service and American‐Style Civil Legal Assistance.” 41 Law & Society Review 79–112.Google Scholar
Shaffer, Gregory, & Gao, Henry (2015) “From Paternalism to Partnership: The Development of International Trade Law in China.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference, Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Sherer, Peter D. (2007) “Mapping the Competitive Space of Large US Law Firms: A Strategic Group Perspective,” in L. Empson, ed., Managing the Modern Law Firm: New Challenges, New Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 162–185.Google Scholar
Silver, Carole (2006) “Internationalizing US Legal Education: A Report on the Education of Transnational Lawyers.” 14 Cardozo Journal of International & Comparative Law 143–175.Google Scholar
Silver, Carole (2007) “Local Matters: Internationalizing Strategies for U.S. Law Firms.” 14 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 67–73.Google Scholar
Silver, Carole (2011) “The Variable Value of US Legal Education in the Global Legal Services Market.” 24 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 1–57.Google Scholar
Silver, Carole, De Bruin Phelan, Nicole & Rabinowitz, Mikaela (2009) “Between Diffusion and Distinctiveness in Globalization: U.S. Law Firms Go Global.” 22 Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics 1431–1471.Google Scholar
Strang, David, & Meyer, John W. (1993) “Institutional Conditions for Diffusion.” 22 Theory and Society 487–511.Google Scholar
Stern, Rachel E. (2013) Environmental Litigation in China: A Study in Political Ambivalence, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stern, Rachel E., & Li, Su (2016) “The Outpost Office: How International Law Firms Approach the China Market.” 41. Law & Social Inquiry 184–211.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2003) Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Susskind, Richard (2009) The End of Lawyers: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services , Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tamanaha, Brian Z. (1995) “The Lessons of Law-and-Development Studies.” 89 American Journal of International Law 470–486.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M. (2009) “The Political Economy of the Rule of Law: The Challenge of the New Developmental State.” 1 Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 28–32.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M., & Santos, Alvaro (eds.) (2006) The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M., & Galanter, Marc (1974) “Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the United States.” 1974 Wisconsin Law Review 1062–1102.Google Scholar
Trubek, David M., Dezalay, Yves Buchanan, Ruth & Davis, John R. (1994) “Global Restructuring and the Law: Studies of the Internationalization of the Legal Fields and the Creation of Transnational Arenas.” 44 Case Western Law Review 407–498.Google Scholar
Vieira, Oscar Vilhina (2008) “Public Interest Law: A Brazilian Perspective.” 13 UCLA Journal of International Law & Foreign Affairs 219–261.Google Scholar
Wang, Paul Weidong (2015a) “The Role of Lawyers in China’s Outbound Investments.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference: Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Wang, Zhizhou (2015b) “Lawyers’ Struggle in the Field: The Dual Processes of Bankruptcy Lawyering in China.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference: Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Wang, Zhizhou, Liu, Sida & Li, Xueyao (2016) “Internationalizing Chinese Legal Education in the 21st Century.” Journal of Legal Education (forthcoming).Google Scholar
Wilkins, David B. (1992) “Who Should Regulate Lawyers?” 105 Harvard Law Review 799–887.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David B. (2012) “Is the In-House Counsel Movement Going Global? A Preliminary Assessment of the Role of Internal Counsel in Emerging Economies.” 2012 Wisconsin Law Review 251–304.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David B., & Papa, Mihaela (2013) “The Rise of the Corporate Legal Elite in the BRICS: Implications for Global Governance.” 54 Boston College Law Review 1149–1184.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David B. (2015) “Is the In-House Counsel Revolution Coming to China? Preliminary Evidence from a Survey of General Counsels Operating in China.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference, Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Wu, Mark (2015) “Attacking with a Borrowed Sword: The Rise of Trade Remedies Law in China.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference, Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Xu, Ke (2015) “The Rise of Business Lawyers in China: Legal Services for Foreign Direct Investment.” Presented at The Chinese Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization, Conference, Harvard Center Shanghai, 7–8 August 2015.Google Scholar
Zhao, Dingxin (1998) “Ecologies of Social Movements: Student Mobilization during the 1989 Pro-democracy Movement in Beijing.” 103 American Journal of Sociology 1493–1529.Google Scholar