According to the Law of the PRC on Lawyers, there are three categories law firms: one is the law firms which are established with the capital contribution from the State and this kind of law firms shall be independent in its practice pursuant to law and shall undertake liability for its debts with its entire assets. The other kind is cooperative law firms, which are established by lawyers and undertake liability for their debts with the entire assets of the law firms. The third one is partnership law firms which are set up by lawyers and the partners undertake unlimited and joint liability within his or her private assets. This year a new form of law firm was born in Beijing, which permits individual lawyer set up law firm in residential area to meet the people’s need for legal service. Now more than 90 percent law firms in China are partnership law firms.
In each country, it is hard to say that the law firms can freely select the forms of organization. The lawyers in each country do know what kind of organization is the most suitable and best one for the owners of the firms. But legislation on law firms in each country is a balance of all interest groups in the country. The results reflect the difference strengths of lawyers in different countries. There are large amount of lawyers and law firms in American, and they have formed an independent social class that possesses distinct political rights. Thus their opinion can effect the legislators and easy to be adopted.
III. The size.
One of the astonishing characters of the America lawyering is that there are many super size law firms. If I didn’t come to Chicago, I could not believe how a large-sized law firm would be. The largest law firm in the United States has 800 partners and 2000 lawyers. It is not rare for a law firm to rent a skyscraper as their office. A middle-sized law firm has 500 lawyers or so. One law firm in American can earn $100,00,00,00 one year, which equals to all the incomes of Chinese law firms. There is a trend of the law firms in American: some law firms will become larger and larger in the future.
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