The Research On Contradictions And Solutions Between Lawyer Profession And Public Legal Aid

How to balance legal aid and legal profession work should be concerned in the development of legal profession. A current survey shows that little lawyers working in big law firm participant legal aid. To clarify this issue, I conduct an empirical study involved in field work and in depth interview in one of biggest law firms in China. I expect that I could find why this problem occurs in current context through sociological approach. The destination is to drive the participation of legal aid and shape lawyer's social responsibility. Generally, this thesis is included four sections.The first section, I try to generalize the characteristics to current system of legal aid in China. It is noted that we have already established a legal aid system with Chinese characteristics, operated by government and having special lawyers on legal aid. It therefore could cover a certain portion of people who need legal aid. However, some shortages and limitation should be concerned. Comparing with American lawyers, a question arise in here is that there is a gap that low rate of big law firm's lawyers participant to legal aid.The second section, utilizing a sociological method to empirically investigate why firms lawyers from big law is less likely to participant legal aid cases. To clarify this issue, I conduct a field work and in depth interview in a leading law firm in China. According to the date I collected, the primary reasons are professional bureaucracy, the division of labor inside law firm, and heavy workload and finance pressure to young lawyers.The third section, I try to explore this issue from a comparative historical perspective through exploring the history of legal profession in western context. Based on my exploring, I found that a conflict between legal profession and pro bono exists in lawyer's practice, despite they could be comparable in the theory. In the different stages, it shows different characteristics. Under the trend of structural functionalism, this conflict emerges. When the theory of monopoly control is prevalent in U.S, this conflict becomes intensive due to over commercialization. As a result, the pro bono work is at risk. After that, the institutionalization stimulate the development of pro bono from 1990's,this movement mediates the conflict in part. According to this development, a duality of legal profession is shaped during legal practice. On the one side, legal profession especially lawyer's profession is a typical business. On the other side, assess to justice is an original goal embedded into lawyers' responsibility.Lastly, to address current issue, several strategies could be applied for improving. From a businesses administration perspective, it should initiate a institutionalization to current structure of big law firm to ensure the quantity and quality of legal aid. In addition, legal education also plays an central role. A coursework related with legal ethnics should be created by Chinese law schools. Only through this, social responsibility for law school students could be shaped and strengthened.