Li: As a first-tier law firm in Shandong, Guoyao provides practical client-specific services. Professional integrity is our guide in business. Guoyao is specialized in the following practice areas: (1) corporate legal affairs and equity investment; (2) construction and real estate; (3) bankruptcy; (4) restructuring and M&A; and (5) criminal procedures. 

We do not require our lawyers to focus only on a single practice area; they could work as teams to ensure providing specialized services in one or two practice areas. Taking our equity investment team as an example, three to five lawyers in the team are experts in this area while other team members could be lawyers specialized in the equity investment related areas. We also implement incentives and systems such as the case source guarantee system to motivate lawyers, and ensure the quality of services. 

Shandong is vigorously promoting the upgrading of the production capacity. We see more work in the bankruptcy area and will make full use of the platform advantages of the firm to make active contributions to the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones in Shandong. Our bankruptcy and liquidation team has two groups: the case handling group and the marketing group. The case handling group is composed of 30 staff that have received professional training and have plenty of hands-on experiences in the area. We implement a project leader responsibility system, in which senior partners, who are specialized in the bankruptcy area and have strong communication skills, serve as the project leaders. The project leaders take full charge of bankruptcy projects. Furthermore, Guoyao is the initiator of Shandong Association of Bankruptcy Administrators, which plays a very important role in the guidance of bankruptcy management in Shandong Province. The Association receives strong support from the Shandong Provincial Judicial Bureau and the High People’s Court of Shandong Province.

Li: Over the past decade, we have always kept in mind our founding vision and mission, and step up efforts to promote the rule of law progress in China. We hold social events regularly to disseminate knowledge of laws, including pro bono legal counseling service every Saturday and large-scale pro bono legal service activities once every two years, to help enhance the awareness of the rule of law of the general public. We also actively participate in political discussion and legislation work, and legal system construction work of the government, providing professional legal opinions and suggestions for the decision making demonstration, and helping with the construction of the rule of law government and the rule of society. Furthermore, we work hard to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the people, actively resolve social conflicts, and made the rule of law belief more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Li: At Guoyao, we value doing things with appreciation and treating people with kindness. On the one hand, we give multi-aspect supports to lawyers in their work and we care about their personal life, to create an inclusive, sharing and win-win law firm culture. We implement a mentoring system to provide young lawyers with on-going support and meet their professional development needs. On the other hand, we strive to deliver quality services and value to our clients and help our clients succeed by setting up a special manager to facilitate the connection and communication between lawyers and our clients to ensure that we provide our clients with practical and innovative legal solutions.

Li: We’re going to rolling out our expansion plan at the end of this year. We plan to set up offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the Great Bay Area. We have also reached agreements with firms in the United States and Germany to exchange visits. We also plan to expand our presence in countries and regions along the Belt and Road initiative, such as Russia and Malaysia. In the future, Guoyao will continue to grow in scale and professional strength. Our strategy is to grow larger and become stronger, and then more specialized.