Focus
Attorneys lament change that hurts their pocketbook
By Du Guodong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-25 09:56
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The capital's expansive drive to pull in the purse stings of criminal lawyers, who have been criticized recently for overcharging clients, is drawing fire from legal experts who say law firms should be allowed to set prices through free bargaining.
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According to the provision from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform and the Beijing Municipal Judicial Bureau, fees collected by lawyers for criminal cases during initial court proceedings should be no more than 30,000 yuan.
The rules set out that lawyers can charge from 2,000 yuan to the ceiling of 30,000 yuan, according to the difficulty of the case.
The framework has kicked off a heated discussion especially among criminal lawyers, who believe there is a gap between the regulations and reality.
"For a burglary case, it usually takes half an hour to finish the session and the lawyer gets a 10,000 yuan fee, but a complicated criminal case could take half a month and it would be silly for the lawyer to be saddled with a maximum payment of 30,000 yuan," said criminal lawyer Xu Lanting, who is with the Beijing-based W&H Law Firm.
"If there is no marked difference in income, who will bother to take on complicated criminal cases?" he asked.
Another criminal lawyer, from Dacheng Law Offices, who did not wish to be named, said some renowned criminal lawyers in the capital had been charging at least 200,000 yuan for a single case. The new rules have drawn a strong response from them.
"Lawyers are like freelancers and, as a fully-fledged market, why does the government feel the need to regulate the charges and where does the legal basis for the regulations come from?" he said.
Kou Guoming, a lawyer from the Huijia Law Firm, said the regulations will make a big difference in law firms where senior lawyers will now only be able to charge at the same level as a newly qualified colleague.
Experts are saying the regulation was put forward in a bid to trim back the prices charged by senior criminal lawyers because the top tier of the industry has been taking the lion's share of revenue.
"Though there are no detailed statistics, the average income of lawyers nationwide is probably similar to taxi drivers. Only a few can make big profits," said Yu Ning, president of All China Lawyers Association.
It is generally agreed in the industry that the top 20 percent of criminal lawyers have been earning about 80 percent of the industry's profits.
Young lawyers have complained that it is not easy for green hands to find a job, let alone make a fortune.
Wo Xingwei, from the Beijing Lawyers Association, said payments for new criminal lawyers are relatively low and many survive by earning a few thousand yuan a month.
Dong Zhengwei, a partner with Zhong Yin Lawyer, told the Democracy and Law Times that the regulation was made in the wake of the Li Zhuang case, in which Li, a criminal lawyer was arrested for perjury in his defense of a gangster. He was said to have earned as much as 1.5 million from the case.
"The case of Li Zhuang is such a rare one. It would be abnormal for lawyers, as the spokespeople for civil rights, to be affected with tightened administrative constraints as a result," Zhong said.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Justice issued a code of conduct for lawyers, following the Li Zhuang case, in a bid to oversee the profession.
Also, last month, the Beijing Municipal Judicial Bureau unveiled regulations to rein in the number of lawyers in the capital following concerns that the population of legal professionals had outgrown demand.
Statistics show that, as of April, Beijing has more than 20,000 lawyers in more than 1,000 law firms, constituting 13 percent of the total of lawyers nationwide.
The number has been increasing by 2,000 a month.