| Legal services, as one of the professional services under the trade in services, are a particular form of trade in services. Their market access is subjected to the scope of General Agreement on Trade in Services (hereafter referred as GATS). The Parties to the GATS will gradually open the market of legal services through negotiation, which may enable the foreign lawyers to provide legal services for domestic companies, enterprises and individuals. From the practices of legal services provided by the Parties, legal services mainly refer to the services offered by lawyers. As far as the scope is concerned, legal services touch on such fields as civil, criminal and economic ones. The forms are mainly litigation, arbitration and non-litigation legal affairs. From the perspective of combining theory with practice, the author, who has been doing the practical work, attempts to do some research on the opportunities and challenges to Chinese legal services industry caused by GATS with Chinese accession to the World Trade Organization (hereafter referred as WTO), the counter strategies of Chinese legal services industry and the relevant adjustment of Chinese trade regime on legal services. Moreover, some suggestions are made.The dissertation consists 6 chapters.Chapter One, an introduction, mainly analyzes the scope and features of legal services, the mode of international legal services and the significance of professional legal services. Then it concludes the significance and function of GATS on the basis of analysis of trade in services. Furthermore, it expounds a trend of trade in legal services, which is based on the analysis of the concept of legal services and of the trade barriers of legal services.Legal services are highly professional, which requires only those who acquire the lawyer certificate and the qualification can provide legal services. Legal services are regional, which links the service closely with the political, economic and legal systems of the parties to which service is provided. Legal services are comprehensively social, which makes most of the lawyers have to communicate directly with the parties, who are the subjects of the society and economy. There are four modes of international trade in services: trans-territory supply; out-territory consumption; commercial presence; and natural persons' access. The significance of lawyers' involvement in legal services is to prevent crimes, to decrease litigations, to solve the disputes, and to keep the stability of society through the legal publicity and legal remedy.The chapter also introduces the basic concepts of international trade in service, the history of international law of trade in services, the content, legal status and significance of GATS. Based on the introduction of various theories of the concepts of internationaltrade in services by scholars, the chapter reasons the necessary tendency of liberalization of international trade through the determining elements of international trade in services. The history of international law of trade in services is closely connected with the international trade barriers in services. The objective of GATS is to eliminate the international trade barriers in services and to realize the liberalization of trade in services. Thus the chapter therein introduces the content of GATS.As for the concept of trade in legal services, there are broad and narrow meanings. In the broad sense, legal services refer to all paid legal aid activities that are provided to parties by those practicing law, including the defense and commission of litigation, the commission of non-litigation affairs, legal aid and supply of notarization. In the narrow sense, legal services refer to the paid legal aid activities that are provided to parties by lawyers. As a trade form, international legal services usually adopt the narrow meaning. International trade barriers in legal services refer to the measures taken by a state to restrict foreign lawyers from going into domestic legal services. In terms of the development of international trade in legal services, the present international trade in legal services have shown the tendency that the category of legal services are continuously being adjusted and widened with the development of economy, that the competition is more and more intense, that more changes will be appeared in the form of commercial presence. The liberalization of international trade in legal services will bring dramatic impact on the international market of legal services.In Chapter Two, the author puts forward some ideas on the improvement of Chinese legal regime of trade in services under the GATS, the opening and strategies of Chinese service industries. Chinese service industry is found being in seriously unbalanced state through the analysis of current development and situation. However, the developing standard of the industry has been improving and has great potential. China is taking measures to increase the status of service industry in domestic economy. Since the development of international trade in services has become the attractive new field of international trade in 21st century, China should take advantage of some provisions embraced in GATS, which work for the benefits and interests of developing countries, to prompt the development of Chinese trade in services. At present, China has not established a set of legal regime on trade in services despite having the relevant frame, which consists of some laws, regulations, bilateral and multilateral agreement that embrace some rules concerning trade in services.Chapter Three makes an analysis of the situation of foreign legal services industry and legal industry market. In order to meet the demands required by rules of GATS and relevant professional rules, China has to quicken the process of internationalizing legal services and to increase the international competition of domestic legal services. Therefore, the author puts forward some counter measures on the issue. Although China has made some remarkable achievements on the reform and development of lawyer industry, there are still some difficulties: delimitation, system, market management,organization, quality of lawyers, damages for the responsibility, and so on. The ill-practiced environment for lawyers and its disadvantages are reflected in the aspects of legislation, enforcement of laws, tribunals, social and technological environment.The chapter also introduces the management organizations of lawyers and the internship system in the U.S.A., the U.K, and Japan, etc, and analyzes the situation and degree of legal services market access in countries of both civil law family and common law family. In particular, the lawyer system of the U.K., which has the history of several hundred years, is a good reference for Chinese management and access of legal services market.Chapter Four expounds the opportunities and challenges to Chinese trade in legal services with the accession to WTO and the relevant measures which should be taken. Since the reform and opening-up, Chinese lawyer trade has gained much development, and the practicing organizations have been improved, more professional and more dimensional. Moreover, the scope of lawyers' practice has been enlarged, and the role of lawyers has been played significantly in the construction of market economy and legal system. However, there are some problems which can not be neglected in the development of lawyer trade. The accession to WTO brings both opportunities and challenges for Chinese young lawyers. Firstly, the field of legal services will be greatly widened. Secondly, the comprehensive quality of lawyer trade will be improved and the trade will be internationalized. Thirdly, the process of lawyers' professionalization and industrialization will be accelerated. Fourthly, the external environment of legal services will be improved. Lastly, the increase of need of social legal services will drive the improvement of quality and standard of legal services. Meanwhile, Chinese lawyer trade is facing with the competition on business, talents and management. From the perspective of protecting the stability of Chinese lawyer trade, we should follow the principle that the market should be opened gradually and actively.Chapter Five suggests the development direction of Chinese legal services industry on the basis of combining the industrialization of legal service with the re-organization of law firms. The theories, no matter what they are, theory of service economy, that of knowledge economy, that of industry economy or that of market economy, require that China should further assign and make full use of legal services resource, form the industrialization tendency of legal service industry as soon as possible, and better adjust to and serve the market economy. As far as the reform of law firms is concerned, the following issues are advised to consider: first, the status of lawyers in the judicial procedures should be enhanced by improving the procedural systems; second, the status of lawyers in the judicial systems should be enhanced by improving the qualification system of legal profession. The political status of lawyer should be enhanced by encouraging lawyers to participate in legislation and politics. As for the supervision on lawyer trade, we should not only learn from the successful foreign experiences but also draw lessons from other domestic industries. The supervision should be attached muchimportance on the realization of the following objectives: rules-oriented, society-centered and publicized information. As for the management system of lawyers, China has established such system as the combination of judicial administration organization and lawyer association. The system breaks the single model of administration management and will be effective in practice.Conclusions are made in Chapter Six by putting forward some suggestion on the necessity of adjustment of Chinese legal services rules after access to the WTO and the content of adjustment. To establish the regime of legal services, which should comply to the rules of market economy of socialism, is a dramatic reform for regulating the legal services in China. The regime should be set up progressively through abolishing, amending the old regime built under the plan economy. It includes the following ideas: 1. to establish the legal services base which can meet the need of market access. 2. to ensure the conditions which can adapt to the WTO regime. 3. to maintain the basic principles of socialist legal services. 4. to make full use of the preferential measures given to developing countries by the WTO. 5. to fulfill the national treatment principle. 6. to fulfill other basic principles, such as principle of non-discrimination treatment, principle of the most-favored nations treatment, principle of reciprocity, principle of transparency, and etc. The content of adjustment of Chinese legal services rules after access to WTO mainly include the adjustment of market access for foreign legal services industry and that of domestic relevant rules. As far as the rules concerning forms and procedures of market access, the following suggestions are put forward: 1. to extend the limit on subjects who provide the services. 2. to extend the limit on areas. 3. to extend the limit on contents of services. 4. to extend the other restrictions on foreigners who come to China to practice law. The enactment of PRC Lawyers' Law on May 15, 1996 marks that Chinese Regime of lawyers has stepped into a new historic era. Nevertheless, it has exposed some problems after a few years' application of the law and the influence of foreign lawyers with Chinese accession to WTO, which requires us to solve and amend the relevant laws and regulations. Organizations of legal services in the basic level and the professional activities of their lawyers are part of Chinese market of legal services and need regulated from the perspective of legislation. A network of lawyers, legal workers and notaries should be established to coordinate and supplement each other in order to avoid and eliminate the ill-competition and to improve the quality of legal workers in the basic level. Meanwhile, relevant articles in Civil Law and Civil Procedural law should be amended. In conclusion, different regimes should be improved or established to enhance the competition of Chinese lawyers' firms and to make Chinese Legal services industry step into the world.
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