Renowned American criminal defence lawyer Alan Ellis has joined PRC firm Longan as a foreign legal counsel, after working in Shanghai for many years.

With over 40 years of legal experience, Ellis, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (US), has had a long working relationship with the PRC legal community. Before joining Longan, he taught law in Shanghai Jiaotong University’s School of Law, and in the US hosted a delegation of PRC Supreme Court judges on a comparative law tour in 2007.

Now that Longan is expanding its corporate criminal defence practice, Ellis will assist the firm in advising client companies expanding business into the US on issues ranging from consumer product safety violation to tax delinquency and securities law violation.

“We see increasing exposure to criminal liabilities among those companies doing international transactions,” said Jiali Xu, co-founder of Longan. “Indeed, both US and China Customs are strengthening enforcement of IP protection at the criminal law level”, added Jason Lee, another co-founder of Longan.

Longan, with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang and Shenzhen, has three foreign legal consultants in total.