Li Rongkai: A role model in providing grassroots legal services from Shandong

Since 1995, Li Rongkai, an experienced lawyer and a seasoned people's mediator, has been committed to providing grassroots legal services, earning him not just a range of titles but also people's respect.

Keen on exploring new service models, Li over the years led a team of 140 legal practitioners to build his own grassroots legal service brand in Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong province, innovatively incorporating legal services, mediation, psychological counseling and legal aid into his service approach.

So far, he and his team have held over 700 law popularization events in communities, schools and factories, donating foodstuff as well as books on legal knowledge to local people.

Moreover, since 2002 he has co-hosted and participated in law-themed local radio and television programs to provide legal advice or mediate disputes. In over 5000 episodes or more than 6000 hours, Li has mediated more than 2000 disputes of various kinds, spreading the spirit of rule of law to tens of millions of people. 

In one of those programs he persuaded a murder suspect to turn himself in. In another he resolved a complicated labor dispute that had been unsolved for over 20 years. He has once settled a major dispute with respect to a key national engineering project.

As a visiting professor at the University of Jinan, Li presided over the founding of the first will registration center in Shandong in 2016, which has so far provided free will-keeping services for more than 1,000 people over the age of 60.

He also wrote two books on real cases to better share his experience and knowhow on mediation with other grassroots legal services.

Due to his distinguished contribution to the cause of people's mediation, Li was appointed as legal counsel for both provincial and municipal governments, and also honored by the Ministry of Justice with such titles as national people's mediation expert and the most beautiful legal service provider in the new era.