Central legal service districts play crucial role in promoting rule of law in China

In recent years, central legal service districts in China have been intensifying efforts to achieve integrated innovation and create targeted and efficient "one-stop" legal services.

Gathering legal resources

The Tianfu Central Legal Services District (TCLSD) in Chengdu city, Southwest China's Sichuan province, has focused on building an advanced legal service cluster. It focuses on the distribution of its four-level legal services ranging from the Supreme People's Court to grassroots courts.  

Legal organizations, including the Chengdu-Chongqing Financial Court and six other professional courts for international business, finance, bankruptcy, the Internet, intellectual property and the Giant Panda National Park, have settled in the TCLSD. A professional trial system with the most complete kinds in China has been established, which also leads central and western China in terms of legal service quantity. To date, the district has attracted more than 280 legal organizations.

To enhance exchanges between market entities and law firms and improve the efficiency of connecting supply and demand for legal services, the Fuzhou area of the Maritime Silk Road Central Legal District (MSRCLD), East China's Fujian province, has been exploring a service model featuring "enterprises + platforms + law firms".

This model aims to establish service companies that provide enterprises with integrated legal services both online and offline, to help them expand the business scope of law firms.

To date, 545 legal and pan-legal organizations have settled in the district both online and offline. Their businesses cover 33 provincial regions across China as well as 22 countries and regions.

The Shanghai Hongqiao International Central Legal District has introduced measures to provide support for legal organizations that have settled in the district in seven areas, including rent and start-up subsidies, relevant rewards and talent guarantees. To date, the district is home to 49 legal organizations including law firms, notarization and legal technology companies.

Creating 'one-stop' legal services

By establishing a high-quality comprehensive service center, the TCLSD has integrated various legal and government affairs, including courts, procurators, public security, judicial administration, intellectual property rights and taxation. It provides a "one-stop" platform for public legal services, such as lawyers, notaries, forensics, arbitration and mediation.

So far, the center has established over 30 service windows for administrative and legal affairs, such as the litigation service station, the procuratorial service center and the immigration service center of the public security bureau. A total of 15 commercial mediation organizations have settled in the center, and have already provided 150,000 services for various market entities and individuals, representing non-litigation business of nearly 2.5 billion yuan ($351.52 million) in terms of the amount of the subject matter.

The Xiamen area of the MSRCLD has established a legal consultation platform that integrates international commercial and maritime affairs, the law ascertainment center, training bases for legal talents and advanced legal service projects in its public legal service center, so as to continuously promote the rule of law in foreign-related fields.

Fostering smart and modern legal service clusters

Backed by digital technology, central legal service districts in China have facilitated the integration of online and offline legal services, in a bid to achieve business transformation and upgrades and create smart and modern legal service clusters.

For example, the TCLSD has created an online platform for central legal services. The platform has integrated such legal services as litigation, legal exchanges, research, inquiries, and judicial technology applications. Some 17 online services, including filling and judicial forensics, can be handled on this platform.

To date, 112 judicial forensic institutions in Sichuan province have provided online services with QR codes, and 210 notarization offices can handle real estate registration cases simultaneously through the online platform.  

Similarly, the MSRCLD launched its cloud services on mobile at the end of 2022.

The cloud service features 16 digital legal products and offers 36 daily-used smart legal services, helping provide "one-stop" legal services in such fields as finance, intellectual property and bankruptcy.