Super Idea

What kind of practice risks of lawyers? How to prevent and control the practice risks? 

Speaking of the practice risks of lawyers, many people will think of the risks brought to the lawyers due to practice violation or gross negligence. In fact, it is only the normative risk of practice behavior. The practice risks of lawyers also include political risk, market risk, cultural risk, ethics risk, security risk, health risk and public opinion risk of practice. It seems that these risks are related to the lawyers, but some of them are not only related to the lawyers, but also related to the practice environment, ecology and order, as well as economic situation, social morality and ethical culture. In order to prevent and control these risks, not only can the lawyers do it, the law firm shall provide guarantee for mechanism, management, team, resource, platform and other aspects. Certainly, the practice risks of lawyers is also the risks of the law firm. Therefore, the law firm shall regard how to reduce the practice risks of lawyers as important responsibility. 

The lawyers’ practice risk prevention and control is a system engineering. It is also very difficult to be exhaustive. I will select several key points to share with you. 

The largest risk of the lawyers’ practice - market risk 

In my opinion, the largest risk of the lawyers is market risk, namely, market inadequacy or loss or weak competition risk. Especially under the circumstance where the current market pattern is more and more consolidated, the method that the client selects lawyers is more and more transparent, and the requirement for lawyers is more and more professional, how the lawyers obtain the enough and qualitative market and keep such competitiveness is the largest task. 

As seen from the statistical data in recent years, the “20/80 Law” of the lawyer industry has been evolved to “10/90 Law”, the oligopolistic economy was more and more prominent, if the lawyers of the small and medium-sized lawyers didn’t have special profession and market capacity, they could only obtain the “leftover” of market, but the growth rate of the scale law firms was faster and faster, and the “elephant is dancing” even the “elephant is running” situation gradually appeared in the lawyer industry. Moreover, in recent years, the lawyer industry was more and more disordered and filled with the evaluation system of business breath, while this trend was intensified, the ecology of this industry was also further destroyed. In the face of these aspects, besides they shall be alerted by the lawyers, what shall the law firm do? 

I think that the law firm shall do the work in both aspects, namely, aggressive and defensive. 

From the aggressive perspective, for example, the law firm shall select the specific industry orientation and development direction, is it scale law firm or boutique law firm? If the scale law firm is selected, how to realize the scale? Is the scale moderate? If the boutique law firm is selected, how to realize the boutique and create the differentiation and core competitiveness? In addition, how does the law firm help the lawyers to establish the market resource integration platform and create the product system? How to conform to the clients’ consumption culture and establish the market and business system of the law firm? Besides, the law firm shall appeal to industry management and concern on the industry order, advocate fair competition, establish the benign evaluation system, etc. 

DOCVIT is also in the industry, and thinking and practicing. We began to enter 3.0 age from 2015, proposed the goal of moderate scale, published 2018-2020 strategic planning on October 24, 2017, proposed the conception of “distributing in top ten regions and creating the law firm with thousand persons”, and provided the specific branch strategy. In 2018, we began to build the branches in Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Jinan and Hong Kong successively, including preparation of foreign branches in New York and London, and we will implement the branches in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Chongqing, Xi’an and Shenyang in 2019. In order to guarantee the system construction of our branches, we exerted to creating the headquarters of DOCVIT, built the investment management, brand strategy, informatization construction, career development, business development, product research & development and public relations, and spent two years independently developing the GreenCloud VIT system, and PC and mobile end have been online at present. 

In addition, we also consider that the reason for fierce competition of lawyers’ market is limited stock and pattern consolidation, and the market blue ocean of the lawyer industry is new market, new product and new mode. Moreover, the practice ecology of the lawyers shall be stereoscopic and trans-boundary. Hence, we took the lead to launch Green Legal Global Alliance in 2016, and devoted to creating the green and stereoscopic legal ecosystem. In the practice of these two years, we built the offline base - Innovative Development Center of Green Legal Global Alliance, developed the “Green Enterprise Cloud”, “Green Think Tank Cloud” and other online cooperative service platforms, created the headquarters and secretariat of Green Legal Global Alliance, launched “Green Legal Global Alliance Auditorium” and a series of activities and “industry law health index” series project, and also created Green Legal Global Alliance Research Institute including financial capital and other research centers. According to the plan confirmed initially, there will be more than 120 large and small activities related to Green Legal Global Alliance next year, and almost ten thousand people will be involved. 

Certainly, there are some initiative construction, including market brand, I have already told them, so I will not repeat. 

From the defensive perspective, the law firm shall establish the market monitoring system and early warning mechanism, and own the market adjustment mechanism and rescue mechanism. For example, the law firm shall research the market, and dynamically master and regularly research it especially for the business field mainly involved by the partners, if the lawyers’ market is faced with loss or the competitiveness is insufficient, the law firm shall organize the force or build the platform to help the lawyers to settle the relevant problems. DOCVIT also makes continuous attempts and efforts in these aspects, and I believe that all peers present are also doing. 

One of Lawyers’ practice risks - violation risk and professional risk 

An unavoidable risk of the lawyers’ practice is violation risk and professional risk. In order to settle this problem, the law firm shall strengthen management for the lawyers, strengthen the normative education and occupational ethics education, and improve the professional risk control, but it is very difficult to realize them. The risk identification ability and risk control ability of the law firm shall be mainly tested. 

Speaking of risk identification, the violation aspect is clearly stipulated and identified well. It mainly means the identification of professional risk. What kind of cases and projects easily suffer from risk? The traditional business and basic business are easy to handle, but the risk of some innovative business and high-end business are difficult to grasp, and it is also difficult for the law firm to grasp them let alone the lawyers. In recent years, due to the affairs in this aspect, lots of famous law firms were also “trapped”, let alone the small and medium-sized law firms with poor ability and experience on risk grasping. 

DOCVIT established three-level risk identification mechanisms, namely, business management level, department management level and law firm management level. Meanwhile, we also specially established the quality and risk committee in the management committee, set the risk control function and risk control director in all professional committees, signed the risk control responsibility letter with the directors of all departments, and set the special and strict conflict of interest retrieval and business compliance inspection module in GreenCloud VIT system. They were regarded as some explorations. 

Speaking of risk control, it was more difficult. Sometimes, it was difficult to control but not unable to identify, and could not also be controlled even if it was identified, so it was related to the personalized characteristic of the lawyers’ practice. 

The excessive case/project registration system, important case discussion system, major project consultation system, risk internal audit system, business archive sampling system, and business risk mutual inspection system of DOCVIT may be also regarded as some attempts on strengthening improvement on management. 

One of lawyers’ practice risks - security risk and health risk 

In addition, the security risk and health risk of the lawyers’ practice cannot also be ignored. 

In recent years, the death of lawyers due to overworking is common. It is painful and regrettable. Last year, I ever wrote an article called as DOCVIT Interpretation | In the Face of the Death of Lawyers Due to Overworking, What Shall We Think Out While Deploring and Farewell Each Other? I expressed my some thinking in this aspect, and mentioned the environment, order, mode, mechanism, etc. These risks of lawyers are certainly caused by their own and casual factors, but they cannot be considered that they are independent of the mode and management of the law firm. What shall we do? It may be divided into two aspects. 

On the one hand, which kind of work can be done before this? I think that the law firm shall build the good cooperation system, provide the good practice guarantee, create the good practice atmosphere, and cultivate the good culture. These seem like virtual, but the intangible guarantee and organic protection for lawyers can be truly implemented. 

We advocate the integrated construction of team, establish several product lines, provide the all-around support in professional construction of brand market and other aspects for the lawyers, strengthen the group construction of the law firm and department, establish the “jumping rhythm”, “reading rhythm”, “temperament” and other clubs, activate the culture, and also include the partners life union, etc. Perhaps these are not started from the risk perspective, but our purpose is only, namely, to make the lawyers feel more relieved, happier and more guaranteed in DOCVIT. 

On the other hand, which kind of work can be done in the practice process? It may be accompanying and support. 

For example, we have the special partners’ practice support and coordination center, which is an information and work coordination center established by the alliance of all departments, rather than a department. We also establish the special basic and common client service team to provide certain support for the lawyers to develop and maintain the clients, in addition, we also set the special director and contact person for lawyers’ practice rights protection of the law firm. 

The managers of all law firms shall think and create a home atmosphere for the lawyers. 

Public opinion risk of lawyers’ practice 

Finally, I will talk about the public opinion risk of lawyers’ practice, or the comment risk and publicity risk in practice. 

As long as the lawyers are active in the market and make speeches, such risks will exist. In recent years, there were lots of positive and negative examples. How to reduce the risks of lawyers, how does the law firm do? 

I think that there are mainly several aspects, for example, in the large aspect, the law firm shall have the overall consciousness, political consciousness and unified consciousness. In the small aspect, the law firm shall have the public opinion early warning mechanism, crisis public relations, etc. 

Due to time limitation, I will not elaborate them one by one. 

Just like getting sick, the better prevention is also difficult to guarantee the health of people, because there are also external reasons or casual or unknown and uncontrollable factors, no matter how to do, the practice risks cannot be also fully avoided. Only in this way, the law firm establishes the systematic risk prevention consciousness in this aspect, builds the complete risk prevention and control system, and preserves it, it must help the lawyers, and also help the law firm to reduce the risk as far as possible.