A ‘win-win’ relationship forged between UK solicitors and one of China’s largest law firms could see UK practitioners claiming their share of China’s rapidly growing legal services market, the Gazette was told last week.

Beijing firm Yingke Law managing director Xiangrong Mei (pictured), visiting London for the official opening of its European office, predicted that the legal services sector in China will expand from its current turnover of £20bn a year to around £85bn by 2020. The state needs more lawyers as its economy booms and companies increasingly acquire European assets, he said.

Mei added: ‘Our office in London represents an opportunity, a bridge between China and the UK. We want to build a "win-win" relationship with UK law firms to help them and us to navigate legal and cultural differences between our two nations.’

Mei said that UK immigration visas were not yet a problem for Yingke Law because all its London staff have UK citizenship or indefinite leave to stay. ‘But we may run into difficulties when we expand and need to second lawyers from China or sponsor work permits,’ he said.

China’s legal sector has grown from 300 lawyers 30 years ago to 200,000 today, while law firm partnerships were unheard of in China until as recently as 1996. Mei said: ‘I am a lawyer, not an economist, but I am confident that China is not a bubble that is about to burst. Our economic model is based on a well-educated and open-minded population that is willing to work hard.

We are here for the long-term and have made London our European base because it is the world’s legal centre, famous for the strength of English law, a robust judiciary and the primacy of the rule of law.’

Yingke Law, which chose London over Frankfurt and Paris for its European head office, has some 1,500 solicitors in 17 cities in China. It also has offices in Brazil, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and the US, and is opening around five new offices every month.