The number of licensed Chinese lawyers has surpassed 297,000 while the number of registered law firms has reached 24,000, marking a 38 percent and a 20 percent increase, respectively, compared to the data four years ago, according to figures released during China’s recently concluded ninth National Lawyers Congress, the premier gathering for Chinese attorneys.

Wang Junfeng, president of All China Lawyers Association, vowed to to strengthen the coverage of legal services across China and shared other relevant data during the event, which was held last March 31. In the past four years, Chinese lawyers have handled 10 million litigations and three million non-litigation cases. Lawyers were hired as legal counsels by around 500 thousand government agencies, generating a total revenue worth more than 200 billion yuan, he said.

Wang also pointed out one of the industry’s major achievements in the past four years: Justice ministries and lawyers associations in megacities Beijing and Shanghai as well as the provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian, Qinghai and Tibet joined forces to address and solve the persistent problem of having “174 counties with no lawyers available”. This was a historical breakthrough for China, proving its ability to implement the rule of law and make lawyers accessible across the country.