In the past, legal advisory work in the general sense meant that lawyers served as legal advisors to enterprises, institutions (including governments), social groups, etc., and did not involve lawyers serving as legal advisors for individual citizens in the formal sense. Consultants in this field. If citizens have legal issues and need help from a lawyer, they can also hire a lawyer for specialized representation, or communicate informally with a lawyer through personal relationships. With the development of society and the enhancement of citizens' legal awareness, it is imperative to provide private legal consultants with lawyers as a condition and citizens as a need.
1. The call of the times
Use the five words "the call of the times" to describe the process of my country's reform and opening up. 1.2 billion citizens expect lawyers to provide them with private, high-quality, long-term services. The demand for legal services is not excessive. The characteristic of a lawyer's work is to use legal knowledge to serve the people. Serving as a legal advisor to citizens formed by a group (unit) is one form of service, but serving as a legal advisor to individual citizens who have special circumstances, more urgent needs, and more specific problems to be solved, why can't it also be regarded as another form of service? What about form? With the process of my country's reform and opening up, democratization and legalization, individual consciousness has become more and more prominent. Practice has proven that a series of policies that liberate productivity and allow personal factors to play a greater role have achieved great success. The state has gradually established the legal status of personal factors in national and social life in the form of law. Lawyers providing long-term and stable legal services to this part of the public in accordance with the law is in line with the requirements of my country's legal system construction. In real life, being a citizen’s legal advisor also has advantages that cannot be replaced by other legal services. For example, when lawyers carry out special affairs agency work for citizens, although they can also provide services to citizens, the time is short and not long-term; the service content is special and not comprehensive; the activities are uncertain and not relatively stable; lawyers often intervene passively after the fact. , not proactive. These limitations indicate that lawyers’ professional legal services cannot fully meet the needs of clients. As perennial legal advisors to enterprise groups, although they can serve most citizens, the consultants of enterprise groups cannot be comprehensive and meet the needs of each individual citizen. It can be said to be "out of reach". Only by working as legal advisors for individual citizens can we meet the needs of society, be more adaptable to our country's national conditions, and conform to the development of the times.
2. A vast world
1. For individual industrial and commercial households. It is probably difficult to estimate the number of individual industrial and commercial households that are officially registered with the industrial and commercial departments in our country. This team is growing every day. This team of individuals is a big market for lawyers’ legal services. Here are a few examples of lawyers serving as legal advisors. 1. A certain city has a considerable number of individual taxi fleets. In the past, when these individual drivers encountered problems such as traffic accidents, being punished, being overcharged, playing hooligans, and being robbed, they would "make up for it temporarily" and hire lawyers afterwards, often in a passive situation. In the spring of 1994, the city's transportation, taxation, price, public security and other departments jointly issued a notice to implement fixed quotas and bidding fees for taxis. The guiding ideology of strengthening taxi management is correct, but the actual operation has greatly touched the legitimate rights and interests of some individual taxi owners and drivers. Due to their interests with the police, nearly a hundred individual drivers united and elected representatives to find lawyers to express their desire to hire lawyers to solve this special issue of unreasonable charges. After accepting the offer, a city law firm sent key lawyers to go deep among the drivers to straighten out the corresponding legal relationships, appease the drivers' emotions, and provide special representation. During their work, the lawyers noticed that in addition to unanimous opinions on increasing fees among the nearly 100 drivers, almost every driver had specific matters that required lawyers' specific services to varying degrees. Just because the drivers are busy working all day and cannot report to the lawyers, they all have the desire to hire lawyers for a long time to provide legal services at any time.
In 1993, the "So-and-So Law Firm", which provided an office on the first floor funded by industrialists and provided legal services to entrepreneurs, was officially established with the approval of the Bureau of Justice. Not just lawyers! If you have a certain strength and a certain amount of business, why not have a group of lawyers as consultants? Providing legal aid to such citizens, sharing their problems, and promoting the development of lawyers' careers. Why not!
3. Countermeasures to take advantage of the situation
In order to adapt to the widespread development of private legal advisory work for citizens and adapt to the market demand for private legal advisory work, law firms and lawyers should emancipate their minds and update their minds. Concept, do a good job in the following aspects:
1. Strengthen agency work and cultivate feelings for further establishing consultant relationships. Practice has proved that at present, there are very few citizens in our country who directly hire lawyers as permanent legal advisors without first performing specialized representation work through lawyers. The vast majority of them think of hiring lawyers only after a dispute occurs. Therefore, the quality of the agent's work and the impression left on the client will directly affect and determine whether the client further strengthens contact with the lawyer. If the agency work is successful, the case is handled beautifully, and the client is grateful and appreciated, then it is natural for both parties to establish a consultant relationship after the agency transaction is completed. On the contrary, if the agency work is in a mess, it does not matter if the client does not have a lawyer. Even if someone recommends a lawyer as a consultant, the client will not be willing to hire it sincerely.
2. Seize key cases and open up breakthroughs. Lawyers serving as private legal advisors to citizens is, after all, a new thing when our country's legal system is not yet complete. People generally have to go through the process of waiting and watching, testing, and finally making a decision. This is normal and in compliance with the law. If lawyers want to consciously open up the situation of this work, they need to do one or two real things and put them in front of clients, so that they will not worry about running out of business. Serving clients as a legal advisor does not necessarily require litigating to be "famous". There are also many non-litigation services, and you can even gain recognition through lectures, legal publicity, legal writing, translation, etc. Clients fell for it, and the consulting relationship was confirmed. Good word-of-mouth is a virtuous cycle that gives lawyers the opportunity to do their best work.
3. Law firms can set up specialized service groups to expand their business in a focused and planned manner. In this regard, we must first analyze the characteristics of the local private legal service market and the types of service objects, and then appropriately allocate a team of lawyers with their own advantages to form a special team that unites and helps each other to cooperate with each other and "fight together." For example, some lawyers grew up in rural areas and specialize in serving farmers; some lawyers are good at foreign languages ??and can easily serve foreign clients, etc.
4. Improve the lawyer management system. There must be a registration system for citizens’ private legal consultation work, a corresponding charging system, a system for regular return visits and consultants’ feedback on citizens’ opinions, etc. Regularly organize lawyers to exchange experiences in this area, organize lawyers and consultants to pay return visits to citizens, etc.
5. Implement a flexible charging system according to local conditions. For those clients who have the financial strength and conditions, a certain amount of legal fees can be charged regularly; for those clients who find it difficult to pay under normal conditions, or the clients have the desire to require the lawyer to work first and then pay the legal fees later, A portion of the fees can be charged upfront when signing a legal advisory contract. For example, charging a "signing fee", or a "handling fee", etc. After the lawyer has done specific work for the client as a legal consultant, he can charge additional fees based on the proportion of the subject matter.
6. Establish a legal aid system. With the professional ethics and sense of social responsibility of lawyers, we are obliged to provide help to those clients who do not have the conditions to pay fees but are in difficulty and in urgent need of legal help. In this regard, law firms and lawyers have failed to achieve intuitive economic benefits, but the resulting social benefits are inestimable. A lawyer's reputation and prestige are often reflected through this dedication.
7. According to the characteristics of advisory citizens, legal publicity and education activities can be appropriately carried out. For the market of consultant citizen services to be developed, lawyers can take the initiative to carry out legal publicity, attend voluntary classes, answer inquiries regularly, etc.
For example, for groups with relatively concentrated individual industrial and commercial households, lawyers can regularly carry out publicity on contract law, tax law, and competition law. Understand their difficulties during publicity, listen to their voices, and formulate targeted service plans.
8. We must occupy the publicity position of the news media and expand the influence of lawyers as much as possible. Use newspapers, radio, lawyer service programs, etc. to introduce and publicize the successful experiences of private legal counsel for citizens, so that the concept of private legal counsel for citizens can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. We should not wait for reporters to come to lawyers for topics, but should take the initiative, adapt to the rhythm and melody of modern society, and play a triumphant song of lawyers serving the people in an all-round way.
4. Issues that should be noted:
1. Avoid lawyers being "profit-only" and focusing only on economic benefits and ignoring social benefits. Lawyers' services should not be "short-term" and should serve "whoever can afford the money". They should have a broad mind and a sense of professional responsibility.
2. Consulting lawyers should adhere to the principle of the rule of law; distinguish right from wrong, provide legal assistance legally and reasonably, and cannot help clients exploit legal loopholes on the grounds of harming people's interests. Lawyers should not be confused by money and adhere to principles. Lawyers are personal legal advisors and guardians of the law.
3. Pay attention to lawyer etiquette, image and dignity. As individual citizens, lawyers will inevitably go to various social situations with clients. Self-love, self-respect, and self-respect are the most basic professional ethics of a lawyer. You should avoid participating in various activities as a lawyer.