First, the call of the times
It is no exaggeration to describe the demand of 654.38+0.2 billion citizens for lawyers to provide them with high-quality and long-term legal services in the process of China's reform and opening up. The characteristic of lawyer's work is to serve the people through his legal knowledge. It is one form of service to serve as legal counsel for the citizens who form groups (units), but why can't it be regarded as another form to serve as legal counsel for individual citizens with special circumstances, more urgent needs and more specific problems to be solved? With the process of reform, opening up, democratization and legalization in China, individual consciousness has become more and more prominent. Practice has proved that a series of policies to liberate productive forces and let individual factors play a greater role have made great achievements. The state has gradually established the legal status of personal factors in national and social life in the form of law. Lawyers provide stable and long-term legal services for these members of society according to law, which meets the requirements of China's legal system. Moreover, in real life, being a citizen's legal adviser has irreplaceable advantages over other legal services. For example, lawyers can provide services to citizens through special affairs, but the time is short, not long; The service is special and not comprehensive; The activity mode is uncertain and not relatively stable; Hiring a lawyer after the incident is often passive, not active. These limitations show that the lawyer's special legal service can not fully meet the needs of the parties. Being a perennial legal adviser to enterprise groups can also serve most citizens, but enterprise groups can't cover everything and meet the individual needs of every citizen, which can be described as "beyond their reach". As an individual citizen's legal adviser, we can adapt to the needs of society, the national conditions of China and the development of the times.
Second, the vast world
1, serving individual industrial and commercial households. How many individual industrial and commercial households are officially registered in the industrial and commercial sector in China? I'm afraid it's hard to count, and this team is growing every day. And this individual team is a big market for lawyers' legal services. Here are some examples of lawyers acting as legal advisers. A, a city has a considerable number of individual taxi teams. In the past, these individual drivers have encountered traffic accidents, illegal punishment, overcharging, hooliganism, robbery and so on. , are "spoon-fed". After the accident, they hired lawyers to represent them, often in a passive situation. 1994 Spring Festival travel rush, the transportation, taxation, price and public security departments of our city jointly issued a notice to implement taxi pricing and bidding. The guiding principle of strengthening taxi management is correct, but the specific operation has greatly touched the legitimate rights and interests of some individual taxi owners and drivers. Under the pressure of the interests of * * *, nearly 100 individual drivers joined forces to choose representatives to find lawyers, saying that they would hire lawyers to solve this special problem of arbitrary charges. After accepting the offer, a law firm in this city sent a backbone lawyer to go deep into the drivers, straightened out the corresponding legal relationship, calmed the drivers' emotions and made a special agent. At work, lawyers noticed that among nearly 100 drivers, almost every driver has different levels of specific matters requiring lawyer services. Just because drivers are busy with work all day and have no time to report to lawyers, they all have a long-term wish, that is, to hire lawyers to provide legal services at any time. In order to meet this demand, the law firm set up a special office after consulting the Municipal Bureau of Justice to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of individual taxi drivers in this city. In the name of a law firm, a perennial legal consultant contract was signed with each driver, and the relationship of being a private perennial legal consultant for individual drivers was determined. And the flexible charging form is adopted, so that most individual drivers can satisfy their wishes. Some lawyers personally acted as "legal guardians" for them, which resolved many explosive social contradictions. The fresh atmosphere of taxis in this city has also promoted the law enforcement of urban transportation departments and the in-depth development of urban rule of law. B, more than 200 individual clothing merchants in a city signed a long-term lease counter contract with a shopping mall. At the end of 1994, due to a dispute between the mall and its neighboring malls, it was forced to close the passage that had been used for many years, which changed the commercial layout of the mall, made it inconvenient for customers to get in and out, and reduced the sales volume of the mall, while the counter rent of the mall remained unchanged, sacrificing the interests of individual businesses. The author was fortunate enough to accept the entrustment of several self-employed representatives as non-litigation agents. Negotiate with the mall first, and settle it through negotiation. In coordinating this dispute, several representatives of self-employed individuals further requested * * * to hire a lawyer as a perennial legal adviser to prevent the legitimate rights and interests from being infringed in the future. In response to their sincere request, the lawyer accepted the proposal and established a legal consulting relationship with them, which enabled the law firm to obtain both economic and social benefits. After the success of this case, several self-employed shopping malls in the city set off a boom of self-employed lawyers. Shopping malls are also under pressure to take the initiative to hire lawyers as corporate legal advisers. In this way, it has promoted the all-round development of lawyers' legal services.
Problems that should be paid attention to as legal adviser of individual industrial and commercial households: firstly, we should update our concepts. As individual legal advisers of citizens, we should attach equal importance to them as consultants of enterprises. We should keep up with them, go out, go deep into the grassroots and enhance people's trust in lawyers with sincerity. Once the time is ripe, efforts will definitely pay off. But be careful not to charge too much, adjust measures to local conditions and pay attention to social benefits.
2. Serve farmers. Ning Laohan contracted 75 acres of barren hills in Xixiang, a county in 1985, and now Ning Laohan's own fruit trees have achieved fruitful results. However, the old man in Jeannin was so sad that he couldn't show up for a notice in the village to double the contract fee. He can't figure it out. Didn't the state repeatedly emphasize that the rural policy will remain unchanged for a long time and reduce the burden on farmers? I hired a lawyer to fight the second trial, which lasted for one and a half years. The court ruled that the village's unilateral increase in fees was unreasonable. Ning Laohan won the case. But he didn't laugh. Because it is stated in the judgment that the village fees are unreasonable, who can guarantee whether the fees are reasonable next year or the year after? He doesn't want to go out of his beloved orchard and go to court again. After careful consideration, Ning Laohan finally made several major resolutions that may be rare in his life: "We farmers raise lawyers. Let's hire a legal guardian for our farmers. " The news spread and the whole village shook. Lawyers visit regularly, and the village is like a festival, and farmers compete to complain to each other. "The farmer's lawyer is here. Why don't you get someone else's lawyer to give you advice and get a good idea on this trivial matter? Problems that should be paid attention to when serving as a farmer's legal adviser: starting with improving farmers' legal awareness, you should be patient in your work, visit the countryside regularly, and never take sides once you have an agreement with farmers. While safeguarding the interests of employers' farmers, the work should be moderate, not extreme, to prevent the other party from intensifying and expanding contradictions, and to exercise reasonable restraint.
3. Serve the workers. Wei contracted the idle equipment and workshop of the original street office, and is organizing a small cotton yarn factory. When looking for a lawyer to sign the contract on behalf of the book, I learned through the lawyer that this matter is not a trivial matter. It faces a series of detailed operational problems such as straightening out the contract relationship, industrial and commercial registration, production and supply business, employee tax payment, product quality, capital operation and so on. For a moment, he lost the courage to contract. Two days later, he came to the lawyer's office again and asked the lawyer if he could join in and sign a contract with him to do some business. Lawyers can be full-time or part-time. As long as they know the law and technology, it is not difficult to contract successfully. The lawyer smiled. Lawyers can't run factories together. How many things need lawyers to do! Sign a perennial legal consultant contract and be the contractor's private legal consultant. Lawyers can "keep their hearts in the factory and the office" and leave a space for the factory in their hearts, which is the patron saint of the factory.
Problems that should be paid attention to in serving laborers: insufficient understanding and application of the law. It is necessary to expand the knowledge of lawyers, learn more professional skills of consulting citizens, and explain them in simple terms. I believe that knowing one or two professional skills is beneficial to the all-round and in-depth development of lawyers. And being a worker's legal adviser is also a rare opportunity to learn professional skills, killing two birds with one stone.
4. Providing services for foreign businessmen. 1990, a watch factory in a city signed a compensation trade contract with a German watch company named Peter for the introduction of plastic model travel alarm clocks. China paid more than 654.38 million pieces of the highest-priced equipment for high-quality timely alarm clocks within the prescribed time limit. 1992 the equipment imported from China was put into trial production, and the samples were qualified. In mass production, due to technical and management reasons, the quality of mass-produced products can not meet the requirements. Repeated consultations between the two sides failed. However, the fact that China can't deliver the goods on time has been settled. Before claiming to go to Stockholm, Sweden for arbitration, Germany sent representatives to negotiate for the last time. It is better to talk about the final solution than to negotiate. The plenipotentiary of Germany is Mr. Zhong, a Chinese, who has feelings for his motherland that blood is thicker than water. When he returned to China this time, it was quite embarrassing for him not to faithfully perform his duties. When he went to the law firm to consult the relevant laws of our country, he was deeply impressed by the lawyer's fair, shrewd and law-oriented answer. In order to help him correctly straighten out the relationship between transnational business responsibility and patriotic feelings, Mr. Zhong sincerely requested to hire a lawyer from China as a legal adviser in his own name. The consultant contract is very special, and the term is during Mr. Zhong's stay in China. He also specifically asked China's lawyer to keep it strictly confidential and not to disclose the business and negotiation secrets of this case. The working method is that the lawyer participates in the negotiation as a secretary, without revealing his true identity, so as not to undermine the sincerity of the negotiation. The lawyer "remote control" order. With the full help and participation of lawyers, a solution was found to this explosive international dispute: Germany once again provided free assistance to China factory, provided spare parts for off-contract equipment, and sent technicians to take charge of technical training and quality control of workers. If the qualified products cannot be produced again, both parties shall jointly bear the responsibility. An international commercial dispute has subsided. The feelings and confidence of cooperation between the two sides have increased, and the machine of the watch factory has sounded again. But who knew that this lawyer, the hero behind the scenes, and the private legal adviser of foreign businessmen played a key role in this case?
As a foreign legal adviser, we should pay attention to the following issues: shocking each other with capable and profound foreign-related legal knowledge; Conquer each other with sincerity and justice; Infect each other with meticulous and efficient work style; Win each other with lofty national integrity and lawyer manners. At the same time, maintain good communication etiquette and work image, properly contact with foreign parties, and avoid other sensitive issues involving foreign individuals or unrelated to the case. Try to answer questions in writing.
5. Serve "celebrities". Celebrities have a wide range, including some "big names" in the entertainment circle and powerful figures in local society, such as famous entrepreneurs and famous "big money" and so on. Citizens of this class often stand out in the social stage of reform and opening up through hard struggle. They have an industry or a career, and they need long-term help from lawyers if they have problems. They also have the financial ability to pay for the services of lawyers. At present, there are many cases in which famous artists in China ask lawyers to protect their reputations. It is nothing new for lawyers to end their litigation representation and become their own legal advisers. This situation is omitted in this paper. And serving other types of celebrities needs to be promoted. For example, a young industrialist emerged in a city in the tide of reform and opening up. A few years later, he changed from a small vendor who set up a stall in an open-air market to a private entrepreneur with tens of millions of assets. Own three-star hotels, underground supermarkets, economic and trade companies and other industries. It is naturally a good opportunity for lawyers to be legal advisers for the diversified development of the socialist market economy. However, the idea of only asking lawyers to be perennial legal advisers has long lagged behind the development of the times. 1993, the so-and-so law firm funded by industrialists and providing offices on the first floor was formally established with the approval of the judicial bureau. Not just a lawyer! With a certain strength and business volume, why not hire a team of lawyers as consultants? Provide legal assistance to such citizens, share their worries and solve problems, and promote the development of lawyers. Why not!
Third, appropriate countermeasures.
In view of the extensive development of citizens' private legal consultation and the market demand of citizens' private legal consultation, law firms and lawyers themselves should emancipate their minds and update their concepts, and do this work well from the following aspects:
1. Strengthen agency work, cultivate feelings and further establish consultancy relationship. Practice has proved that at present, it is rare for China citizens to directly hire lawyers as perennial legal advisers without asking them to do special agency work first. Most of them think of asking for a lawyer after a dispute. Therefore, the quality of agency work and the impression left by the parties directly affect and determine whether the parties will further strengthen their relationship with lawyers. The success of agency work and beautiful cases make the parties feel grateful and appreciative, so it is natural for both parties to confirm the consulting relationship at the end of agency business. On the contrary, the agency work is a mess, and it doesn't matter whether the client has a lawyer or not. Even if someone recommends a lawyer as a consultant, the client will not be willing to hire him.
2. Seize key cases and open a breakthrough. After all, in China, where the legal system is still not perfect, lawyers as private legal advisers to citizens are a new thing. People generally have a wait-and-see process, a test process and a final decision process. This is normal and legal. If lawyers want to consciously open up the situation of this job, they need to do one or two practical things first and put them in front of many clients so as not to worry about losing business. As a legal adviser, you don't have to be "famous" by litigation to serve your clients. Many of them are through non-litigation services, even through legal affairs, but through lectures, legal publicity, legal writing, translation and so on. It can also make the parties admire and determine the consulting relationship. Good reputation is a virtuous circle, which brings opportunities for lawyers to carry out their work in an all-round way.
3. Law firms can set up special service teams to expand the situation in a focused and planned way. In this regard, we should first analyze the characteristics of the local citizens' private legal service market and the types of clients, and then appropriately deploy lawyers with their own strengths to form a special group of solidarity and mutual assistance, and cooperate with each other to "fight together." For example, some lawyers grew up in rural areas and are good at serving farmers; Some lawyers have a good foreign language, which is convenient for serving foreign clients and so on.
4. Improve the management system of law firms. There should be a registration system for citizens' private legal advisers, an appropriate charging system, a regular visit and feedback system for consultants, and so on. Regularly organize lawyers to exchange experiences in this field, organize lawyers and consultants to get together with citizens, and so on.
5. The charging system is flexible and adapts to local conditions. For those clients who have economic strength and conditions, they can charge a fixed amount of legal consultant fees as usual; For those general cases, if the client has some difficulties in paying fees, or if the client has the desire to ask the lawyer to do the work first and then pay the legal consultant fee, he can charge part of the fee first when signing the legal consultant contract. For example, charging "signing fee" or "handling fee". In the future, when a lawyer acts as a legal adviser to do specific work for his client, he can charge fees according to the proportion of the subject matter.
6. Establish a legal aid system. With a lawyer's professional ethics and sense of social responsibility, he has the obligation to provide help to clients who are temporarily unable to pay, but are in urgent need of legal help. In this regard, although law firms and lawyers failed to achieve intuitive economic benefits, the resulting social benefits are difficult to assess. The reputation and prestige of lawyers are often reflected by their dedication in this respect.
7. According to the characteristics of consulting citizens, legal publicity and education activities can be carried out appropriately. For the consulting citizen service market to be developed, lawyers can actively publicize the legal system, voluntarily run classes, and answer consultations regularly. For example, for relatively concentrated self-employed groups, lawyers can regularly publicize contract law, tax law and competition law. Understand their difficulties in propaganda, listen to their voices, and formulate targeted service programs.
8. It is necessary to occupy the propaganda position of the news media and maximize the influence of lawyers. Use newspapers, radio and other programs to provide lawyer services, introduce and publicize the successful experience of citizens' private legal counsel, and make the concept of citizens' private legal counsel deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. We should not wait for reporters to take the initiative to find lawyers to choose topics, but should take the initiative to adapt to the rhythm and melody of modern society and play the triumphant song of lawyers serving the people in all directions.
Four, should pay attention to the problem:
1. Avoid lawyers who are "mercenary" and pay attention to economic benefits while ignoring social benefits. Lawyer service should not be a "short-term behavior", "whoever can afford it will serve", and should have a broad mind and a sense of professional responsibility.
2. Consultants should adhere to the principle of legal system; Distinguish between right and wrong, provide legal aid legally and reasonably, but do not help the client to exploit legal loopholes and harm others. Lawyers should not be confused by money, but stick to principles. Lawyers are private legal advisers and legal guardians of citizens.
3. Pay attention to the etiquette, image and dignity of lawyers. Because lawyers serve citizens privately, it is inevitable that they will go out to participate in various social occasions with their clients. Self-love, self-respect and self-respect are at least a professional virtue of lawyers, and they should avoid participating in activities that undermine their status.