Professional Responsibility

In this project we sought to promote clarity and consensus about the role and professional obligations of a criminal defense lawyer in China and hope to enable Chinese criminal defense lawyers to carry out their professional obligations. To assist in the creation of a better legal framework for protecting Chinese criminal defense lawyers, we carried out this project through the following three phases: i) close collaboration with Chinese partners to more clearly define the challenges faced by the Chinese criminal defense bar; ii) cooperation with Chinese partners to develop a curriculum that would highlight weaknesses in the legal regime regulating the conduct of lawyers and proposals for solutions; and iii) implementation of the curriculum in four workshops in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou, respectively, in order to begin a conversation and stimulate fresh thinking about how to address the concerns of the criminal defense bar in a meaningful and sustainable way.