ALB: What would you say sets Global Law Office apart from other firms in China? 

Liu Jinrong: Global Law Office is indeed different from most of its peers in China. We have a long-term view on how to excel. We place growth in the overall level of skills and capability of the firm ahead of growth in size. We place the satisfaction of our clients ahead of growth in revenue. We place long-term growth ahead of short-term growth. 

We attach more importance to developing our teams of partners and associates ahead of growth in size and always (work) to better structure teams in terms of seniority and specialties. 

We value integrity, simple and friendly personal relationships and transparency. We are very proud of our culture.

ALB: What is the management style at Global Law Office?

Liu Jinrong: I personally prefer a simple management system. 

We have a management committee with seven members. The committee is authorized by the partners to manage the daily operations of the firm. The managing partners of our two branch offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen report to the management committee as well and are responsible for the daily operations of the offices.

ALB: As the managing partner, what do you think are the most challenging tasks? 

Liu Jinrong: My strategy as the managing partner is quite simple. First, I need to really understand our values and goal. Our goal is to better serve clients. Everything in the firm is designed to achieve this goal.

Second, I adhere to and enhance the core values of the firm and unite the whole firm to achieve the common goal. 

Also, I think a managing partner needs to have vision and always think ahead. 

Currently, the most difficult and challenging task is to really understand the young generation who were born in the 1990s. Most of the new associates are of this young generation. A core task of mine now is to train, improve and retain them.

ALB: You mentioned that a managing partner should always think ahead. How would you use this vision in developing the law firm’s practice areas?

Liu Jinrong: We have been competitive in banking and finance, M&A (mergers and acquisitions), PE (private equity) and VC (venture capital), dispute resolution and capital markets.

However, we also have our eye on developing new practice areas, including IP (intellectual property), anti-trust, compliance, labor law and tax. We think these areas have a great potential in terms of the demand of legal services. 

We now put a great amount of effort and resources in improving ourselves in these areas. We aim to achieve a great leap in these new practice areas every year. They were the focus of last year

ALB: How would you describe the performance of Global Law Office in 2016? 

Liu Jinrong:  The past year was a good one for us. We achieved satisfactory growth in revenue and profits and we had several lateral hiring of new partners, with which we are very happy. And more importantly, we achieved increases in the profit per partner and profit per lawyer. The most important is that we have greatly improved the level of expertise and skills of the whole team of associates and improved our capability to attract new clients and better serve the clients. We are satisfied with the past year.

ALB: Currently, Global Law Office has three offices in China. Is there a plan to establish offices elsewhere?

Liu Jinrong: We have been thinking about opening our fourth office. The key factors in selecting the location of the new office include the potential of demand of legal services in which we are strong or which we want to develop in the long run; the supply of resident partners who are compatible with our culture and share our goal; and the supply of associates who are able to meet our requirement of qualifications. 

We are very focused on what we are good at - legal services in China, to both international and domestic clients. Currently, we do not have a plan to expand overseas.

ALB: What are the ingredients to Global Law Office’s success in the future?

Liu Jinrong: We are aiming high in 2017 and are confident in achieving the goal. We will speed up our development in those new practice areas that I’ve mentioned, while strengthening our position in what we have always been good at. 

Attracting talented and capable partners and associates and continuously improving the expertise and skills of the overall team are the key factors of achieving what we have achieved, and I think, are also the ingredients for our future success.