On June 23rd, the second session of the 12th Shanghai Lawyers' Congress was held. The meeting reviewed and approved the "2023 Work Report of the Council of Shanghai Lawyers Association", "2023 Work Report of the Supervisory Board of Shanghai Lawyers Association", "2023 Membership Fee Budget Implementation Report", "2024 Membership Fee Budget Report", etc; To award certificates to the collectives and individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the legal industry in this city in 2023 and the good news of the Shanghai legal industry in 2023.
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Zhou Wenjie, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Judicial Bureau and Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Lawyer Industry, attended the meeting and delivered a speech. He stated that 2024 is the starting year for the Shanghai lawyer industry to further consolidate consensus and strengthen confidence, and accelerate benchmarking and catching up with important policy documents as the starting point to achieve high-quality development. He put forward four hopes:
One is to deepen the party building work in the lawyer industry and lead the lawyer team to concentrate and forge their souls. Guide the legal team to unite with the Party in ideology, strengthen the political and organizational functions of the law firm's party organization, and innovate new practices, platforms, and paths for industry party building.
The second is to promote the brand of law firms to become bigger and stronger, and to give full play to the greater potential of "Shanghai style lawyers". Explore the reform, innovation, and transformation development path of Shanghai law firms, build professional service capabilities that are in line with the functional positioning of Shanghai, and undertake the mission and task assigned to Shanghai lawyers by the times and the country.
The third is to embrace the research and application of legal technology, and promote the continuous improvement of service quality and efficiency. Promote stronger supply and demand cooperation with the legal technology industry, encourage and support law firms with strong capabilities to accelerate the application and research and development of legal technology products, explore excellent product sharing mechanisms, and enhance the overall level of intelligent development in the industry.
The fourth is to gather the joint efforts of all parties and create a favorable development environment for the lawyer industry. Effectively fulfill the responsibilities of administrative management and industry self-discipline management, guide, manage, and serve the legal team well, and promote the high-quality development of legal work.
According to the conference, the Shanghai lawyer industry has shown a recovery trend in the past year, with steady progress. As of the end of 2023, industry party building has continued to strengthen, with a total of 687 law firm party organizations in the city; The legal team continues to grow, with a total of 41292 lawyers, including 36238 practicing lawyers, a year-on-year increase of 6.70%, 2796 public lawyers, and 2258 company lawyers; The number of law firms continues to grow, with a total of 1912 law firms, a year-on-year increase of 3.63%; The pace of "going global" is accelerating, with a total of 548 branches established by Shanghai law firms in other provinces and cities, a year-on-year increase of 13.46%; A total of 34 branches were established overseas, a year-on-year increase of 17.24%.
In 2023, the total revenue of the Shanghai lawyer industry increased by 17.41% year-on-year, and the per capita revenue increased by 11.50% year-on-year. There were 55 law firms with an annual revenue of over 100 million yuan, an increase of 7.84% year-on-year; We handled 631000 cases of various businesses, a year-on-year increase of 23.05%, including 407400 litigation cases and 223600 non litigation cases.