Gansu promotes sound development of private enterprises through public legal services

The justice department of Northwest China's Gansu province has actively implemented the initiative of helping ease enterprises' burden through legal services.

To data, 505 teams of lawyers have visited 2,449 private enterprises in the province, offering 8,656 legal opinions and identifying 4,053 enterprise operation risks, and providing legal consultations to over 22,000 people, according to the province's justice department.

The province has taken steps to establish a public legal service platform and encourage legal professions to innovate their service models and expand their business scope, so as to better serve high-quality socioeconomic development, according to Fan Haiwu, an official with the province's justice department.

Gansu is home to 591 law firms and 8,430 lawyers. The province has actively guided lawyers to provide pro-bono legal services for disadvantaged groups, including the elderly, women, children and migrant workers, ensuring the bottom line of legal services for people's livelihoods.

Last year, the province has handled 17,000 legal aid cases, benefiting 19,000 people and recovering economic losses of over 58 million yuan (about $8million).

"The number of lawyers in Gansu grows at a rate of over 10 percent per year. We continuously strengthened the cultivation of young lawyers while also intensifying training for lawyers so as to improve their capabilities to provide professional legal services," Fan said, noting that the province has placed emphasis on leveraging lawyers' professional advantages to guide them in actively participating in resolving disputes in their early stages.