Lawyers Making For The Parties

This paper takes the historical changes of attributes of the profession of lawyers in our country in the current social-transitional period as the breakthrough point of research to investigate the issue of lawyer freedom behind the changes.Since implementation of the reform and opening-up policy,the Act of Lawyer has experienced the change from the Interim Regulations on Lawyers in 1980 to the Act of Lawyer(2007 edition).As the core of the Act of Lawyer the attributes of lawyers' practice have shifted tremendously during the 30 years of change and lawyers are no longer "national legal workers" but "professionals offering legal services to the parties".The frequent amendment of the Act of Lawyer in the 30 years is a typical reflection of the interaction between the laws of China and the society in the transitional period.What this paper attempts to investigate includes whether the amendment of the Act of Lawyer is based on the social reality,whether it is adapted to the social development,and what the significance of the amendment is.By historical analysis and empirical research,this paper explores the interactive relationship between changes of the lawyer system and the social development and then discusses the meanings of such changes focusing on the attributes of lawyer practice.It aims at an elaboration based on truth and logic,takes a combination of theoretical analysis and empirical analysis as the research method,and emphasizes the application of research findings and statistical data of sociology and other disciplines so as to propose a reliable and rational argumentation.The 50,000-word paper mainly consists of introduction,body,and conclusion.The introductory part gives a brief depiction of the justification,theoretical basis and research background of this paper.Researches on lawyer freedom stem from the fact that the shift of the professional attributes of lawyers has developed the lawyering of China greatly and enlarged the rights of lawyers during the period of social transition and economic development.The justification of this paper lies in that among all the legal professions only lawyers are relatively independent from the government and retain their own attributes.The development of lawyers,largely keeping its own properties,or regaining promptly its own properties without being significantly affected by the nature of the state power,can reflect more objectively the degrees and situations of social development. The first part generally reviews the changes of professional attributes of lawyers in our country from the historical angle.In this part,instead of elaborating on the evolution of every aspect of the legal system,the author chooses the professional attributes of lawyers,the most essential issue to probe into the theme of the research,and clears up a track of such changes from "national legal workers",or "social legal workers" to "professionals offering legal services to the parties".He also studies empirically the results of such changes to prove that they meet the requirement of social development of our country and they are not subjective constructions isolated from reality.The second part analyzes in detail the causes of changes of professional attributes of lawyers in our country to demonstrate that such changes are deeply rooted in the reality of social transition and economic development of our country.It examines the causes primarily from the starting point of social transition,the need to protect interests of various groups in the social transition and the tendency of the development of lawyer rights.The analysis of the starting point of social transition implies that the fundamental cause of the changes of professional attributes of lawyers is the change of our society from traditional to a modern one;the analysis of the need to protect interests of various groups in the social transition suggests that the modern society caters to the interests of various groups,which is different from the traditional society over-emphasizing the national interests and inclined to neglect individual interests,and all kinds of groups,including the government that represents the nation,social organizations and every individual of the society,have their benefits that can never be overlooked;the analysis of the tendency of the development of lawyer rights hints that the beneficiaries of social development necessarily include the lawyers and that the need of the development of lawyer rights is also one of the causes of changes of professional attributes of lawyers.The third part makes a primary theoretical inference that the changes of professional attributes of lawyers are part of and also the result of changes of our society on the understanding that changes of professional attributes of lawyers promotes the development of the area of lawyers and the analysis of causes of such changes.The result of social transition is believed to be the production of our development into a modern society and it reflects that the lawyers obtain their freedom by getting rid of the state-owned attributes and becoming socialized.In the meantime,it is hard to avoid the predicaments unfavorable for the realization of lawyer rights in their practice because of the unfinished social transition.This is the price of lawyer freedom,and is also the price of China's transition from a traditional society to a modern one.In the social transitional period,protection from the system is especially important.A transitional society usually faces the lack of unified social principles, a demonstration of which is that the whole society does not establish the awareness of principles necessary for the post-transitional period and they keep the old concept of principles that come into being before the transition.The absence of new understanding of principles and the backwardness of the protection of rights are two of the major causes of the predicaments of lawyers' practice.At the time when the awareness of principles is lacked,the function of right protection is vitally important.The concluding part proposes that the legal protection of a transitional society is an important guarantee to the regularity of social functioning.The contradiction between lawyer freedom and the predicaments of lawyer practice is not expected in the social transition,but it is also unavoidable.The development of professional attributes of lawyers in our country,and even the changes of the whole lawyer system are part of modernization of the whole society. The social transition is a long historical procedure,and concerning the planning of the system the fruit reaped in the environment of social development should be maintained to provide greater chance to the improvement of lawyer freedom;at the same time,the legislation should be strengthened to protect the rights of lawyer practice and surpass the predicaments it faces. The law is not almighty,but it is impossible for a society to survive without it.The legal protection of a transitional society is an important guarantee to the regularity of social functioning,and the law must serve for the need of social development.