Pudong seeks lawyers versed in foreign affairs

Shanghai's Pudong is looking for lawyers from fields related to foreign affairs, and is offering annual salaries of up to 1.8 million yuan (U$252,061).

Pudong plans to offer 1.8 billion yuan in the next three years to woo talented personnel from all walks of life, acting director Wu Jincheng said at the "Pudong's construction of a top-notch hub for foreign-related legal talent" conference held on Friday.

He stressed Pudong's urgent need for legal experts in foreign affairs, so as to bolster the new area's foreign-related rule of law capabilities, with Shanghai's transition to becoming an international legal hub.

Several incentives and favorable measures were released at the conference.

Five renowned law firms – Shanghai's Qiaowen, Co-effort and Comon, Beijing's DHH, and Linklaters Zhao Sheng, a joint operation by UK-based Linklaters and Shanghai's Zhao Sheng – posted ten high-paying jobs for lawyers, with annual salaries between 600,000 yuan to 1.8 million yuan.

Also, the second "Pudong Cambridge Class" started to recruit students.

The program, launched by Pudong's judicial bureau in August 2023, offers training in law at the University of Cambridge. Last year, 12 legal professionals from Pudong's law firms and arbitration agencies finished the one-month training.

Professor Barry Alexander Kenneth Ride from Cambridge said it was a "great vision in supporting international cooperation, particularly in the area that I'm involved in which is legal education".

The bureau also agreed with five universities and ten law firms on offering practices to postdoctoral law students, and three universities on fostering foreign-related talent.

At present, Pudong is home to 320 law firms, 37 representative offices of foreign law firms, and eight joint operations by domestic and overseas law firms, as well as 8,900 lawyers – nearly one fourth of the city's total.

Pudong plays a core role in Shanghai's development of becoming an international legal service center.

Under the blueprint, by 2025, legal services is set to constitute at least 1 percent of Pudong's GDP, and by 2035, a highly open, integrated and mature legal service ecosystem will take shape in Pudong.