Introduction: Enterprise legal adviser system refers to a series of systems that regulate the qualifications, institutions, rights, obligations and legal responsibilities of enterprise legal advisers, intermediary organizations of enterprise legal advisers and general legal adviser system.
When I first started my career, an old lawyer always told me humorously? Young man, are you ready to sit on the bench for three years? At this time, I always squint and answer:? Yeah, I know. I have prepared the stool. ? The bench is ready, cold for three years, and psychologically prepared, but after three years, the bench will not heat up by itself, the case will not come by itself, and the wings of others will not always escort you. As young lawyers, where is our way out? Who will appreciate our passion and faith? This is a problem that we should think deeply and consider.
I quite agree, okay? Not suing is the cheese of young lawyers? This sentence, in the face of non-litigation business, young lawyers have their unique advantages, full of energy, extensive information resources, familiar with modern office and so on. In today's increasingly fierce competition, middle-aged lawyers occupy the dominant position in litigation business. Choosing non-litigation business as their touchstone and whetstone is undoubtedly a good choice for young lawyers. Many young lawyers have dug their first pot of gold by doing non-litigation cases.
When it comes to non-litigation business, the most important thing is corporate legal consulting business. So, how should young lawyers develop corporate legal consulting business? This paper mainly discusses this issue briefly.
First, if you want to develop the business of corporate counsel, you must first understand what corporate counsel is.
Thirty or forty years ago, lawyers with the status of state cadres served state-owned enterprises and collective enterprises. State-owned enterprises and collective enterprises did not use their own money to hire lawyers as legal advisers, and they did not know what they could do. Now, with the continuous development of social economy and the constant changes of lawyers' social orientation and business, enterprise legal counsel has become a person with legal professional knowledge and skills who takes enterprise risk prevention business as the core, and takes ex post subsidy as the auxiliary means to safeguard the legitimate interests of enterprises. He needs to provide professional legal services for enterprises within a certain employment period.
I once read a lawyer's essay, and he wrote:? I remember having business communication with a colleague before. This colleague described his embarrassment in developing corporate legal counsel. He said that he talked with an enterprise boss about legal cooperation, and the boss asked him: What can you do for us? Colleagues said to solve disputes for your enterprise. Hearing this, the boss shook his head and said that there was no dispute in our enterprise after one year. I'll call you if there's a dispute. As a result, colleagues refused. ? ①
Why is there such an embarrassing situation? I think the main reason is that I don't know what corporate legal counsel needs to do. His knowledge of corporate counsel is still in the very narrow field of traditional litigation dispute resolution, which is extremely unfavorable for young lawyers to develop corporate counsel business. Lawyers who are engaged in enterprise legal counsel should be based on the actual situation of enterprises and use their legal knowledge to assist enterprises in standardized management and legal operation, so as to avoid disputes and better promote transactions.
Second, how to operate and handle the business of enterprise legal counsel can win the trust of enterprises, which is something that young lawyers must be clear before entering the field of enterprise legal counsel.
(1) Change the concept, take the initiative to participate, and infiltrate the legal advisory work into all aspects of enterprise management, operation and service.
Lawyers not only engage in litigation, but also participate in the production and operation management of enterprises, such as negotiation, signing contracts, establishing rules and regulations, clearing creditor's rights and debts, asset restructuring, financial leasing and other non-litigation fields, and lose no time to put forward their own legal opinions or opinions, and issue legal opinions in time when necessary. In fact, it's not that consulting companies don't have legal business, but that the leaders and managers of many enterprises don't know that these jobs are related to the law, and they don't know that these jobs are businesses that lawyers can engage in. Because law is a highly professional job, as a lawyer, you should have professional sensitivity, be good at finding problems related to law, tell the legal significance of a job, and let business leaders or managers understand that this job should ask for help or consult a lawyer.
(B) should follow the principle of improving the efficiency of enterprise management.
Enterprise management is to plan, organize, lead and control the production and operation of enterprises according to the characteristics of enterprises and their production and operation laws, so as to rationally allocate resources and obtain profits. From the four basic functions of enterprise management (that is, planning, organization, leadership and control), its core spirit is the pursuit of efficiency. It can be said that improving efficiency is a consistent habit of enterprise management. Therefore, lawyers should also follow the basic premise of improving enterprise management efficiency when handling legal consultation, drafting and reviewing enterprise rules and regulations, major contracts and other legal affairs for enterprises.
(three) change the way of work, regular active door-to-door service.
How to find, inquire and discover the legal problems that have appeared or may appear in the production and operation of enterprises and give suggestions in time to prevent problems before they happen; There is no choice but to offer on-site service. The usual practice of on-site service is to adhere to the regular handover system and on-site office system. No matter whether an enterprise has legal affairs or not, it should insist on asking questions on its own initiative, get in touch with senior and middle-level leaders and production and operation leaders of the enterprise, take the initiative to capture legal information, take the initiative to do things, do not look for problems, find loopholes, question, make suggestions or take the initiative, and truly become a legal adviser that an enterprise cannot do without.
(4) Pay attention to the handling of non-litigation legal affairs.
Non-litigation legal affairs refer to non-controversial legal affairs, or legal affairs that are controversial but not resolved through litigation. Non-litigation legal affairs are closely related to the production and operation activities of enterprises, and their scope is very wide, including all kinds of disputes that have occurred, as well as uncontroversial and controversial legal acts. The purpose of lawyers representing non-litigation legal affairs is to reduce disputes, prevent litigation and help safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties. It is conducive to maintaining the business reputation of the parties and protecting normal business relations. If some economic disputes are obviously unfavorable to themselves in law and evidence and cannot reverse the unfavorable situation, we should try our best to avoid litigation and try to solve them by non-litigation methods.
(five) to strengthen the contact between consultants and enterprises, enhance mutual understanding, and closely cooperate with the work of legal consultants.
The work of legal counsel can not be separated from the close cooperation and support of enterprises. In practice, the role of lawyers cannot be brought into full play. There are two main reasons. First, enterprises know too little about the scope and role of legal counsel. Second, consulting lawyers do not grasp and understand the operating conditions of enterprises and the basic situation of enterprise leaders and managers. Coupled with the poor awareness of active participation, I often feel that I have nowhere to start. To change the above passive situation, we must start with strengthening the mutual contact and understanding between consultants and enterprises. Consulting lawyers should understand the enterprise from the following aspects: (1) Grasp the basic situation of enterprise production and operation in order to find possible legal problems; (2) Understand the basic situation of enterprise's creditor's rights and debts and master relevant information, so as to thoroughly investigate at any time and grasp the information and opportunities for adjusting creditor's rights and debts in time; (3) Understand the basic situation of enterprise managers, so as to facilitate lawyers to contact with various departments; (4) actively understand and master the business decisions, principles and policies of the enterprise, and provide convenience and information for the legal advisory work. ②
To sum up, in order to improve the role of lawyers as corporate legal advisers, we must change our concepts, work methods, take the initiative to participate, give full play to the role of legal advisers as corporate economic guardians and legal advisers, and truly escort the development of enterprises.
Three, the status quo and bottleneck of enterprise legal consulting business
By the end of 20 12, according to incomplete statistics, the number of small and medium-sized enterprises and private enterprises in China has reached more than 60 million, accounting for more than 99.8% of the total number of enterprises in China. It can be seen that the main competitive territory of legal consulting business is still in private enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises. However, at present, the number of lawyers employed by SMEs is very limited. Small and medium-sized enterprises in Zhejiang province 1 130000. According to Zhejiang Lawyers Association, there are less than 20,000 lawyers in the province, accounting for less than 2% of the total number of enterprises. The number of SMEs in Shenzhen is close to 290,000. In 2008, there were 7,632 lawyers serving as legal advisers, accounting for 2.63%, less than 3%. At the same time, from the actual situation, enterprises need the support of external lawyer services more during the 5- 15 period, and then they will turn to external internalization and high-end, professional and branded external services. Private enterprises will close down 40% during the establishment period, only 40% can survive for five years, only 15% can survive for 15 years, and even less can survive for15 years. It is estimated that it is around 5%, and there are very few enterprises with more than 20 years. Haier, Lenovo, Vanke and Vanke can all be registered nationwide. This is also the reason why many young lawyers promote low-cost legal consulting services and membership-based legal consulting and business consulting services with poor results. Because the target customer orientation is relatively low, and most of them are small and medium-sized enterprises established less than five years ago, this is a market space with almost no demand, just like no harvest in the desert.
It can be seen that the development of legal consulting business of social enterprises has reached a certain bottleneck period. Mainly manifested in:
(1) External bottleneck: The target market of legal counsel seems to be very large, but it is actually very narrow. Most enterprises have not been exposed to or realized the role of corporate legal counsel. The legal consultant market can only be regarded as a half-awakened market, which needs to be further explored.
(2) Internal bottleneck: Legal consultation is a traditional business, but many law firms provide too many legal consulting services. The traditional result is that the legal consulting business of the firm has not been well developed, and it also restricts the development of the legal consulting business of the whole lawyer in China. ? The content of traditional consulting business is simple and poor, and all of them are passive services, that is, accepting legal advice from enterprises, drafting and reviewing legal documents, participating in negotiations, etc. The workload of the above services is small and the service penetration rate is low, which directly affects the interest and necessity of hiring consultants. The decrease of enterprises' awareness of hiring consultants will inevitably lead to the decrease of consulting fees of firms, thus reducing the quantity and quality of lawyer consulting services. Then the legal consulting business has entered a vicious circle.
Reality requires lawyers to be professional, professional, team-oriented and brand-oriented on the one hand, and to innovate their business and services on the other. With the intensification of competition, whether we can get a share in the legal consultant market depends on whether lawyers have a stepping stone and whether there is a unique hidden weapons. Young lawyers, in particular, must not be rigid in thinking, but should be brave in struggle and innovation and constantly explore the market. Limited market, unlimited competition, only when there is a crisis will there be opportunities.
Four, how should young lawyers expand the business of corporate legal counsel?
Today, middle-aged lawyers are dominant, how can young lawyers break through the tight encirclement in the field of corporate legal counsel and realize their self-worth? I think we should start from the following aspects:
(a) to establish the service object. At present, young lawyers should focus on developing small and medium-sized enterprises as their clients. Because most of these enterprises are private enterprises, the general managers of these enterprises are mostly young people in their prime, and the bosses of young enterprises are more likely to accept legal services provided in the form of young people. Another important target of consulting services is government departments. Because of our government? The concept of "handling affairs according to law" has gradually taken root in people's hearts, and it is an inevitable trend for legal consulting business to enter various government agencies in the future.
(2) Change customers' understanding and advocate legal consumption. ? Advocacy? The word itself has the meaning of initiative. How to make enterprises or government agencies regard lawyers' legal services as consumption? This requires lawyers to take the initiative and lay the first shot in consulting business. Know yourself and know yourself, and you will win every battle. Before leaving his post, young lawyers should first understand and investigate the enterprises to be hired. Especially the contract management, labor management and company law related management of this enterprise. After mastering the relevant information of the enterprise to be hired, combined with the business expertise of the firm, issue a targeted? Legal service plan? . The scheme is tailor-made for enterprises, and all the services provided are handled separately to attract the attention of the hired enterprises and stimulate their desire for consumption.
(3) Packaging of consulting business. The packaging of consulting business is actually the process of refining and reorganizing consulting business, and it is to turn the whole consulting business into several relatively independent products, which needs our continuous exploration. Traditional consulting business can be divided into pre-risk prevention, in-process risk prevention and post-risk prevention (remedy) according to risk prevention. After the business is packaged, the previous risk prevention can be separated and reassembled independently, which can be called? Statutory medical examination service? .
(4) Promotion of consulting business. Legal commodities are not ordinary commodities, and the marketing model of ordinary commodities such as advertisements and banners cannot be adopted. The author believes that legal products are generally marketed through the following channels.
(1) Use the platform of the law firm to promote the brand effect of the law firm. Young lawyers can fully promote themselves with this good brand advantage.
(2) make conscious service recommendation in handling litigation affairs, and promote non-litigation business with litigation business.
(3) Introduce services through websites and magazines, and show your service experience. At present, a large number of young lawyers in our institute have their own websites, which have achieved good legal service results.
(4) Consciously publicize the non-litigation brand of law firms in legal consultation programs such as TV and radio.
(5) Maintenance of consulting business. The maintenance of legal products is the key to the success of product promotion. Doing a good job in legal consulting business depends to a great extent on the reasonable maintenance of this business. It is also the main guarantee for lawyers to survive in the competition. The maintenance of legal products is the consolidation of legal products. I think the following points can be considered:
(1) team. Is the team large? Business? First-class team is the guarantee of quality. The real legal consulting business needs considerable time and energy, and it is almost impossible for a lawyer to complete all the tasks. The establishment of the team can not only implement the flow process, but also form a number of risk early warning mechanisms to ensure the accuracy and security of services.
(2) service effect. The key to evaluating a legal product service is the effect of the service. For our clients, it is how many benefits the legal services they enjoy have brought him, and whether the cost performance of the services is acceptable. Service effect is the most important criterion for testing service quality.
(3) Service efficiency. Compared with customers, time can also create value. Providing clients with the most needed legal services in the fastest time is an important means for young lawyers to improve their competitiveness.
(4) service attitude. The essence of legal consulting business is service business, and a good service attitude is essential. Good service attitude includes the etiquette of contact with customers, the dress of lawyers, the wording of legal documents issued, etc.
(5) specialization. Specialization is the core of legal service products and the core competitiveness in peer competition. Legal consulting is a living profession. Building an excellent brand ultimately depends on specialization.
(6) standardization. All consulting business should be strictly regulated. Standardization is mainly embodied in fixed formats and characters. After each consultation service, Qin Ying should write a consultation work log and submit a summary of the consultation service at the end of the year. These materials are not only reference materials for young lawyers to improve their business, but also consulting fees charged to clients? Capital? . ③
Legal consulting business is the basic affairs of the lawyer industry and the guarantee of lawyers' stable income. Young lawyers should give full play to their own expertise, take the law firm as the platform, take the professional division of labor as the guidance, take teamwork as the basis, aim at building a brand, constantly tap customer resources and deepen legal consulting business. In the process of continuously promoting specialization, we should always pay attention to our own risk prevention and finally seize the legal consulting business. Big cake? .
The progress of human society is the alternation of dreams and reality, but human dreams never stop and human pursuits never stop. The blueprint of life needs to be drawn by ourselves. Having chosen the profession of lawyer, we must face all the challenges bravely. We are young lawyers, and we are not lacking in courage and passion. What the country and society provide us is only a big environment suitable for practice, and more factors are ourselves. In the field of legal services, we will always encounter new problems, new troubles and new tests. Only by following every step of practice step by step, and constantly exploring unknown areas and gradually making oneself full-fledged, can you be called a qualified lawyer, otherwise a lawyer will always be a lawyer, or even be eliminated in the fierce competition.
Young lawyers, we must remember: we are honest, we work hard, we have passion, we have motivation, and we have many young attempts and failures. As long as we don't give up, what's next? Me? .
;