Translator：Xiong Yajie

On April 3, 2020, Landing Law Offices ushered in its second anniversary. For a law firm with a goal of a century-old legacy, two years is just the beginning, but the achievements made by Landing people are impressive. Landing Law Offices not only has the vigor and hard work of a young law firm, but also has outstanding development achievements. In two years, it has completed goals that many law firms may take five or even ten years to complete. On the occasion of the second anniversary of the establishment of the firm, let us review Landing's 730 days together.

1. Set Sail with Dreams in Mind

At the beginning of 2018, more than a dozen lawyers had the original intention of creating an international law firm dominated by Chinese people, adhering to the development concept of "absolute specialization, strong internationalization, and relative scale". Everyone unanimously decided to use "Landing" as the name of the firm. Orchid, the gentleman in the flower, and Di, the way of mastery. The overall meaning is to use the way of a gentleman to achieve everything. Against the background of the country’s “One Belt, One Road” development strategy, Landing has provided comprehensive legal services for overseas investment and trade of Chinese-funded enterprises as its primary focus since its establishment, aiming to protect the overseas investment of Chinese-funded enterprises. , so that it landed safely, resulting in Landing's English name "Landing".

Landing people chose to set up the headquarters of Landing Law Offices in Shanghai not only because Shanghai has an international vision and rich international talent resources, but also because of the inclusive, enterprising, pragmatic and innovative spirit of Shanghai-style culture is consistent with the entrepreneurial spirit of Landing people.

After two years of development, there are more than 100 practicing lawyers in Landing's headquarters, and the total number of Landing's domestic employees has reached more than 300.

Today, the office area of Landing’s headquarters located on the 6th floor of C&D International Building on the North Bund of Shanghai is far from meeting Landing's rapid development needs. On November 18, 2019, the signing ceremony of the new office of Raffles City on the North Bund of Landing was held on the 28th floor of East Tower of Raffles City. In August 2020, Landing will officially move into the Raffles Twin Towers on the North Bund, a new landmark in Shanghai. It is expected that by the end of 2020, the headquarter will have 250 employees.

 2. Respond to the Trend and Aim Globally

The internationalization path of Landing is different from that of any Chinese law firm. Landing abandons the traditional internationalization path of first fully developing the headquarters, then deploying domestic branches, and then deploying overseas branches. Landing adopts a model of simultaneously constructing multi-center service outlets for its overall global layout. For example, the establishment of Landing Shanghai headquarters was later than the establishment of Landing India branch. Landing's atypical internationalization path complies with the current general trend of rapid development of mobile Internet and profound changes in the legal services market, and has achieved good results so far.

On May 8, 2018, Landing established its first domestic branch - Landing (Jinan) Law Firm. Later, branches were established in Beijing, Changsha, Fuzhou, Urumqi, Lanzhou, Wenzhou, Shenzhen, Taiyuan, Xi'an. In addition to the above ten branches, branches in Zhengzhou, Kunming, Hefei, Guangzhou, Nanning, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xiamen, Taipei and other places are under preparation.

At the same time, Landing' overseas layout is also improving day by day. Currently, it has established overseas branches in nine places: India, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Nigeria, Nepal, Myanmar and Los Angeles. Moreover, preparations for the establishment of branches in Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, Mexico, Cuba, Taipei, Egypt, Dubai, Tajikistan, Morocco, Thailand, South Korea, Cambodia and other places are also on the agenda.

3. Perfect Business Model and Orderly Division of Work

(1) Comprehensive legal services

Landing originally provided specialized legal services such as international investment and trade and international commercial dispute resolution, but now it has basically extended to all commercial fields. This is due to the joining of Landing's excellent professional partnership team. At present, Landing has established a complete legal service field, including international investment and trade, international commercial dispute resolution, intellectual property, Internet and information technology, sports entertainment and culture, blockchain and artificial intelligence, company and mergers and acquisitions, construction and real estate, labor and compliance, marriage, family affairs and wealth inheritance, criminal defense, customs, industrial parks and high-tech enterprises, administrative law and government legal counsel, banking, finance and insurance, medicine and health, investor rights protection, bankruptcy and liquidation , capital markets, asset management, etc.

Landing lawyers adheres to the concept of absolute professionalism and adheres to the principle of one principal and two auxiliaries. It brings together elite lawyers from all over the world to clearly divide the work between team members according to their majors. We always pay attention to and deeply understand the needs of our clients, ensuring that each client's needs are handled by lawyers who specialize in the relevant areas.

(2) Trademark and Patent Agent Qualifications

On November 15, 2019, the State Intellectual Property Office issued a patent agency practice license to Landing. At this point, Landing has obtained agency qualifications for trademarks and patents. Landing has achieved full coverage of business sectors and processes in the field of intellectual property law, and has established a one-stop layout of service models and networks.

4. Democratic Decision-making and Scientific Management

Landing can achieve such remarkable results, on the one hand, it is inseparable from the efforts of all Landing people, and on the other hand, it is also the strategic policy implemented by Landing, which has always led us to move forward rapidly. It is worth mentioning that Landing is currently the first law firm in the legal indusry to practice full-member partnership.

On July 12, 2019, all partners of Landing, at the initiative of Yixing Liu, Director of Landing Global Management Committee, based on the concept of joint management, reviewed and approved the "Full -member Partnership of Landing Law Offices-Interim Measures for Profit Distribution" with great foresight and announced that the "all-member partnership system" will be officially implemented from January 1, 2019. On January 19, 2020, all Landing employees received their first profit distribution. 

 5. Caring about Society and Taking Responsibility Bravely

(1) Establishment of Landing Lawyer Charitable Fundation

On January 31, 2020, the COVID-19 raged across China. The "Landing Lawyers Charity Fundation" was established with the consent of the partners. The first batch of funds was a personal donation of RMB 300,000 from Lawyer Yixing Liu, director of Landing Global Management Committee, and donations from partners and Landing colleagues as the starting capital. It was raised on the day of establishment to nearly half a million dollars. After that, a certain percentage of the law firm's profits will be allocated to the "Landing Lawyers Charity Fundation" each year. In the future, this project will also fund the construction of libraries or schools for children in remote areas every year, continuing the love and social responsibility of Landing people.

(2) Carry out Landing Party Building

On November 28, 2018, with the approval of the Shanghai Pudong New Area Lawyer Industry Party Committee, the party branch of Landing was approved; on November 30, 2018, the first party members meeting of Landing was held to elect the party branch secretary; Lawyer Huanye Zhang was elected as the Party Branch Secretary, Wenjing Hou served as the organizational committee member, and Pengcheng Guan served as the publicity committee member. Landing has 35 party member lawyers. In the future, party building will play an active role in the development and growth of Landing.

 (3) Establishment of Landing Lawyer Mediation Studio

On January 22, 2019, the Lawyer Mediation Studio of Landing was officially established and has been registered with the Pudong New Area Justice Bureau to begin undertaking civil and commercial mediation services. If an agreement is reached through mediation, the parties may apply to the court to confirm the validity of the mediation agreement. The meeting of directors of the mediation studio adopted the "Mediation Procedures", "Mediation Rules", "Charging Methods" and other documents.

The mediation studio has one director, headed by Bing Zhang, and two deputy directors, headed by Xinli Li and Qiang Gao. The secretariat includes Rong Huang, Wenjing Hou, etc. There are 11 mediators in the mediation studio, namely Bing Zhang, Xinli Li, Jianting Lu, Kun Yang, Qiang Gao, Jie Zhao, Xinyan Jia, Yichen Zhu, Rong Li, Junfang Cai, and Qing Liu. Landing's lawyer mediators are all senior lawyers who have been practicing for more than 5 years.

(4) Seven Professional Lawyers including Director Yixing Liu were employed as Part-time Professors or Off-campus Tutors at the Law School of East China University of Science and Technology

On the afternoon of June 11, 2019, the Law School of East China University of Science and Technology held an appointment ceremony for part-time professors. Dean of the Law School, Yu Zhang, Secretary of the Party Committee, Hao Ding, Vice Deans of the Law School, Dengliang Zhou, and Suzhan Dong attended the appointment ceremony. Senior Partner of Landing, Lawyer Xinli Li received the certificate on behalf of seven part-time professors and off-campus tutors. Landing will work with East China University of Science and Technology to delve into professional fields.

(5) Many Landing Lawyers have been elected to the Professional Committee of the Shanghai Bar Association, Striving to Practice the Concept of Absolute Professionalism

In December 2019, the Shanghai Bar Association successively announced the list of selected members of the various business research committees of the 11th council. At present, a total of 13 lawyers from Landing have been selected, and the success rate of the selection is as high as 72%. In order to further improve the overall service quality and competitiveness of the Shanghai lawyer industry, and improve the practice level and refined professional level of the Shanghai lawyer industry, in 2019, the Shanghai Bar Association adjusted the setting of business research committees, increasing from the original 34 to 52. Compared with before, professional committees have not only increased in number, but also become more specialized. This is very consistent with Landing’s development philosophy of “absolute professionalism”.

(6) Established the Female Lawyers Association of Landing

On April 23, 2019, the Female Lawyers Association of Landing was established. Xinyan Jia is appointed as the Secretary of the Landing Female Lawyers Association, and Qing Liu is appointed as the Deputy Secretary. The proportion of female lawyers has accounted for 50% of Landing's total number of employees. They are an indispensable force in Landing's development. The Landing Female Lawyers Association carries two missions: caring for the growth of female lawyers internally, and establishing the image of Landing female lawyers externally.

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(7) Selected into the Shanghai Service Trade Global Promotion Alliance

In May 2019, as a loyal practitioner of the national "One Belt, One Road" policy, Landing adhered to the concept of "absolute specialization, strong internationalization, and relative scale", with its diligent and prudent work attitude, excellent professional quality and unique legal advisory team, it was successfully selected into the Shanghai Service Trade Global Promotion Alliance.

(8) Establish Landing Sports Club

In order to protect the health of every Landing employee, the Landing Sports Club was officially established in June 2018. Organizing sports events after work can not only exercise, but also further strengthen communication among law firm members. Since its establishment, the club has led everyone to complete many activities. In the future, as Landing's staff continues to grow, other clubs will be established to enrich the amateur cultural life of Landing people.

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(9) Hosting Landing Overseas Annual Ceremony

Landing held two grand annual ceremony in the Philippines and Japan in 2018 and 2019 respectively. As an internationally positioned law firm, Landing hopes that every annual ceremony will lead partners to visit a country.

6. Landing Interview

1. Lawyer Yixing Liu, founder of Landing, director of Landing Global Management Committee

Director Yixing Liu was very optimistic about Landing's future development prospects while talking about the development of Landing. He believes that under the circumstance of unprecedentedly fierce competition in the legal industry in Shanghai, the development of Landing over the past year has been absolutely perfect both in terms of quality and quantity beyond expectation under the premise of adhering to "absolute specialization, relative scale, and strong internationalization". We are full of confidence and longing for future development, and we firmly believe that Landing' good partner structure and business model that keeps pace with the times will be able to steadily realize the business vision of "building a Chinese-dominated international large and strong firm".

2. Lawyer Zhaofu Liu, senior partner of Landing, secretary of Landing Charitable Foundation

Lawyer Zhaofu Liu, as a senior partner of Landing, can't help but sigh with emotion when talking about Landing's development: Landing has grown from a dozen lawyers at the start-up period to more than 100 practicing lawyers in the Shanghai head office today, and will soon move to the entire floor of the Twin Towers of Raffles City on the North Bund which is a 5A Grade A office building. Ten branches have been approved in China, and more than a dozen branches are under construction. Overseas judicial bureaus have registered many branches. In addition to the branches that are preparing to be established and actually carrying out business, Landing has 26 overseas branches. It can be said that the footprint of Landing will soon spread all over the world. The list of the world's top 500 clients of Landing's domestic and abroad is getting longer and longer...It's hard to imagine that Landing's remarkable achievements have been achieved in just two short years, which is very rare in the industry. It is no exaggeration to say that it is also unique. This all depends on the foresight of lawyer Yixing Liu, director of Landing Global Management Committee, and the strategic positioning of Landing "absolutely professional, strong international, and relatively large-scale" by director Liu. Moreover, the "one specialist and two assistants" that Landing people insist on also avoids the emergence of "the firm in the firm". In addition, the "all-member partnership system" in the distribution mechanism has laid a solid foundation for the implementation of Landing' strategic positioning and differentiated operations.

In addition, Landing’s investment in public services can be said to be spared large expense. As a lawyer who has practiced for nearly ten years, he knows the importance of providing public services for all lawyers. The conflict of interest system, case management system, financial system, risk control system developed by Landing are fully integrated into the concept of "Internet +", which is a strong guarantee for Landing lawyers to provide clients with efficient and high-quality legal services. The ongoing development of Landing’ overseas financial and taxation AI system, overseas collection AI system, and overseas 110 service platform will set off a climax of Landing’ smart legal services.

It is a great honor to be able to participate in the construction of this great cause at the beginning of Landing's founding. The "Chinese-led international strong firm" and "century-old store" in Landing's vision have already set sail. A senior in the industry once told him earnestly to "work with people who control the future". It is a great honor for him to find a group of people who control the future as Landing people. He is in it now, enjoys it, and loves it.

Happy 2nd birthday to Landing!

3. Lawyer Weiguang Zhan, senior partner of Landing, executive partner of Landing

The 2020 epidemic will not only have a great impact on China but also the world economy, but we also see that this epidemic will also bring unprecedented opportunities to China, and the same is true for the lawyer industry. Unprepared is a crisis , being prepared is an opportunity. In the past two years, Landing has followed the country's grand strategy and deployed in countries along the Belt and Road. It has achieved rapid development in terms of scale and revenue generation, and has completed the transformation from 0 to 1. In order to adapt to the scale of Landing's development, Landing will elect a new management team in May this year, and the new management team will lead Landing to a broader stage. No matter in the past or in the future, Landing will firmly grasp the troika of market expansion, customer service, and law firm management, and firmly follow its own path without deviating from the general direction.

Today's era is already dominated by the Internet, and the past market expansion thinking can no longer adapt to the times. Under the new trend of platformization, digitalization, productization and integration, Landing will rely on advanced technical means + brand strategy for market expansion. Landing insists on people-oriented, and integrates core values into the daily management and operation of the law firm. Culture is the soft power of a law firm, and it is also difficult for competitors to imitate. It also injects spiritual core into the brand and endows the brand with unique value. Through Brand positioning and communication establish a distinct image of Landing.

Clients service capabilities are the foundation for the development of a law firm, and providing clients with high-quality legal services and professionalism must be the first priority. Landing's emphasis on "absolute professionalism" is precisely to ensure the quality of clients service. At the same time, specialization also determines the value of lawyers. At present, the 80s and 90s lawyers account for more than 70% of the law firm. They have a good educational background and legal literacy. These young lawyers are valuable assets of the law firm. Since its establishment two years ago, our team of lawyers has been stable, and the extremely low turnover rate has ensured the continuity of client service. The law firm has also opened up a promotion channel for professional talents. In addition, the law firm has also stepped up the introduction of professional talents to ensure the rationality of the structure of the lawyer echelon. Depending on the professional fields selected by the lawyers, they will be assigned to different departments. Landing's professional departments are led by senior partners in the industry, and the professional management department formulates unified service standards and controls service quality. At present, Landing has more than 20 professional departments, and Landing is also constantly building the industry's "ace" specialty. With the improvement of Landing's brand and hardware environment, it is believed that many outstanding professional talents will join Landing's in the near future.

The management ability of a law firm is the foundation of a long-term business. If the law firm lacks management ability, no matter how good the strategy is, it will not be implemented. Landing adheres to the principle of "people of different aspirations or principles cannot get along together" to achieve a high degree of unification of the law firm's strategic thinking. Landing's goal is to build a strong international firm dominated by Chinese. First of all, the partner structure must match the goal. We have very strict requirements on the selection of partners. The development concept of "relative scale" aims to pay attention to risk control during the development process, increase per capita output and continuously optimize the talent structure of the law firm. Neither the headquarters nor the branch offices will blindly expand personnel. Landing adopts a corporate-like management model, and adopts a scientific governance system of "discussion, resolution, and supervision" in terms of governance structure. Democratic discussion, system management, using norms and systems to clarify rights, obligations, responsibilities and management boundaries. At the same time, it is necessary to build an efficient administrative logistics support team, and use information technology to strengthen the internal management of the law firm to adapt to the rapid development of the law firm.

Two years is just a stage, and Landing's past achievements are just the beginning. Today's Landing is standing at a new starting point of the era. In the future, all Landing's partners will always adhere to the " Definitely specialization, strong internationalization, relative scale" concept. Let's work together to build a national strong firm dominated by Chinese! Happy birthday! !

4. Lawyer Yuyan Chen, senior partner of Landing, new partner born in the 90s

Lawyer Yuyan Chen is the representative lawyer of Landing born in the 1990s. In 2019, with his excellent professionalism, he was successfully promoted to the senior partner of Landing. He said that Landing has been one of the fastest-growing law firms in China and even the world in the past two years. He was fortunate to grow together with the partnership with Director Liu as the core from the very beginning. From the beginning of practice, he has been able to have a professional forging attention, the grasp of the market pulse, and the awareness of the general trend of the lawyer industry. This is the best wealth that Landing's express train can give to every Landing's people. Through spending time with Landing people in recent years, he has learned not only the professional pursuit, scale control, and international strength, but also the intense late-night case discussions among colleagues and the craze of "free time homework" during holidays. The partners transfer their personal interests, and the partners who manage affairs are dedicated and frugal regardless of gains and losses. He is very optimistic about the continued rapid development of Landing.

As a 90s generation, he also gave valuable advice to many young Landing lawyers. He believes that the first thing every young lawyer should do is to "keep improving every case and compare every penny with every fact". Secondly, the phrase "do homework when you are busy, write essays when you are free" has appeared in his notebook and social media no less than 20 times. He often uses it to encourage himself. Recently, he has also become a "good teacher" and often encourages his team and junior lawyers in the firm. The professionalism forging is not only the meticulous work of each case, but also the summarization, reasoning, and summary of every word in the article. Writing articles is the cheapest and most efficient way to force yourself to review and learn again. Finally, we must maintain a humble attitude, find the strengths of each senior, colleague, and peer, learn more, ask more, and practice more, and we will surely grow faster. Happy birthday Landing!

Contributed by: Yuntao Gan, Dongai Tang, Jiali Shen