Wuxi launches ‘One Plus N’ model for Belt and Road legal services

Wuxi city in East China's Jiangsu province has recently launched the province's first "Belt and Road"-oriented legal service center which is to be operated in the "One plus N" model.

The "One" in the model refers to a center that serves as a foreign-related legal service platform for Wuxi enterprises to invest overseas and for foreign investors to invest in Wuxi, while "N" represents a number of overseas branches to be established that are expected to provide timely legal support for Wuxi's enterprises when they encounter legal disputes overseas. 

The newly-established center will establish mechanisms for joint conferences, work division and collaboration as well as information sharing, and rely on overseas industrial parks invested by Wuxi enterprises, the city's overseas chambers of commerce and foreign law firms to form a comprehensive foreign-related legal service pattern. 

To build a high-level legal team that is familiar with international rules and adept at handling foreign-related legal affairs, the center will improve the training system for foreign-related lawyers. 

It will give full play to the role of its overseas branches in strengthening international exchanges, and hone foreign-related lawyers' professional ability in practice. 

Meanwhile, it will take concrete measures to support qualified local law firms in setting up branches abroad in order to establish a global legal service network.   

Through strengthening foreign-related legal services for major foreign economic and trade activities and encouraging more foreign-related law firms and lawyers to provide legal support for state-owned and large private enterprises, it will accelerate the formation of a foreign-related legal service system suiting economic globalization. 

It will also step up its efforts to strengthen and normalize its cooperation with international lawyers' organizations, international commercial mediation organizations and arbitration institutions. In addition, it will support qualified law firms to carry out cross-border legal service cooperation in the form of service alliances, and bring in more foreign legal talents including overseas Chinese lawyers to enhance Wuxi's foreign-related legal services.