A law firm is a working organization where lawyers perform their duties and carry out business activities. They can generally be divided into two types:
1. Partnership office.
2. Personal office.
To establish a partnership law firm, in addition to meeting the conditions stipulated in Article 14 of the Lawyers Law, there must also be three or more partners, and the founder must be a lawyer with more than three years of practice experience.
So a partnership has at least three partner lawyers, that is, a small partnership may have three or five lawyers. And the number of individuals is generally relatively small, at least one person, and most of them are three or five people. According to regulations, there is no upper limit.
According to Article 14 of the Lawyers Law of the People's Republic of China, a law firm is a lawyer's practice institution. To establish a law firm, the following conditions must be met:
1. Have its own name, domicile and articles of association.
2. Have lawyers who comply with the provisions of this law.
3. The initiator should be a lawyer with certain practice experience and who has not been punished for suspension of practice within three years.
4. Have assets that meet the amount specified by the judicial administrative department of the State Council.
A lawyer refers to a person who is entrusted or designated to provide legal services such as litigation representation or defense business to the parties.
Lawyers must pass the legal professional qualification examination and obtain a lawyer's practicing certificate in accordance with the law before they can practice law. According to the nature of work, lawyers can be divided into full-time lawyers and part-time lawyers; according to the scope of business, lawyers can be divided into civil lawyers, criminal lawyers and administrative lawyers; according to the client and work status, lawyers can be divided into social lawyers, corporate lawyers and public lawyers . Lawyer business is mainly divided into litigation business and non-litigation business.
On August 20, 2021, the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress passed the "Legal Aid Law of the People's Republic of China", and all grassroots legal services are obliged to provide legal aid in accordance with the law.