Philip McConnaughay, a professor of law at Peking University School of Transnational Law (“STL”), is the former Dean of STL (2013-2023) and a former Vice-Chancellor of Peking University's Shenzhen Graduate School. Before joining STL, he was founding dean of Penn State University's law school and School of International Affairs. Prior to joining Penn State, he was a professor of law at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and before that a partner of the international law firm, Morrison & Foerster, resident for almost 10 years in Tokyo and Hong Kong. McConnaughay is the author of numerous scholarly articles and edited books concerning international commercial dispute resolution, the regulation of international commerce, and the role of arbitration in economic development. He serves on the editorial board of the Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law. As a practising lawyer, McConnaughay was involved in some of the major antitrust and intellectual property disputes of the day. He has served as an adviser to the government of Indonesia with respect to the drafting of a new national arbitration law, and has been active throughout his career in a variety of public interest and pro bono matters.
Q1: Could you please share the beginnings of your story with STL? What was the decisive moment that made you decide to join STL? Since joining STL as the Dean of STL, what issues have you had to deal with？
I first heard about STL when I read the news about former Cornell University President and University of Michigan Law Dean Jeffrey Lehman moving to China to start a new law school with a J.D. program for Peking University. I was intrigued. A few years later, I was working with a colleague of mine, the famous human rights advocate, the late Randall Robinson (Randall was the leader of the worldwide corporate boycott of South Africa that helped end apartheid and free Nelson Mandela from prison), on a television series called “World on Trial,” in which significant human rights issues were tried before a judge and jury and a film of the trial was then presented to different student juries at law schools around the world. The first case had to do with the French law forbidding the wearing of head scarves (hijabs) by young Muslim girls in public schools. Cherie Blair, the British human rights barrister and wife of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, served as our judge for this episode. Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree (a previous visiting professor at STL) served as counsel for the Muslim girls challenging the head scarf law. I wrote to Dean Lehman and asked whether we might present the case to a student jury at STL and film their deliberations for the show. He readily agreed, and that resulted in my first visit to STL. When Dean Lehman left STL to become the Founding Vice Chancellor of NYU Shanghai, he encouraged me to apply for the STL deanship and I did. I was lucky to be selected.
STL was still relatively new when I began, so the challenges I confronted were very similar to those confronting the law school when it began – increasing awareness of STL both within China and internationally (especially among employers), recruiting top students, recruiting top faculty, establishing appropriate administrative units, building a suitable building, increasing the operating budget, helping PKU understand the unique needs and requirements of a professional degree program, etc. The biggest additional issue was that STL’s original goal of ABA approval no longer was possible because the ABA had decided just prior to Dean Lehman’s departure not to extend its accrediting jurisdiction outside of the U.S. and Puerto Rico. All these things were happening all at once. I could have been discouraged, but I found it challenging. I saw it as a unique opportunity to build an institution, to attract people and students who would shape and share the values of the institution.
Thanks largely to the strength of STL students and the fact we have more and more STL alumni now assuming positions of leadership throughout China and the world, STL has overcome all these challenges brilliantly and today is seen everywhere as an amazing success with respect to all metrics of law school excellence.
Q2: In one of your articles, you mentioned that the location of STL in Shenzhen is very significant. Could you please elaborate more on this？
I think STL’s location in Shenzhen is very strategic for several reasons. We are right next to Hong Kong, which has a long-standing common law history. Hong Kong’s status as an international financial center is partly due to the universal understanding of common law traditions. On the other hand, Shenzhen has achieved remarkable economic growth and innovation without a common law tradition and is a world-leader in high-tech and international transactions. With China’s objectives of the Belt and Road Initiative and more internationalization, I think there is no better place in the world for an experiment like STL, where we offer a multinational perspective in our curriculum and train lawyers who can work across different legal systems. I often used to quip at the beginning of my time as dean that when people ask me where STL is located, I always reply, “In the future.”
Q3: You served as Penn State Law School’s dean and STL’s dean. What is the greatest challenge in leading a law school compared to managing other majors?
The main difference in both the United States and China is how some observers perceive the professional nature of our curriculum. We train individuals to become ethical and outstanding lawyers and legal practitioners. To some, this might sound somewhat like learning a trade. However, we carry out this training in a deeply intellectual, demanding, analytical, and rigorous manner. It’s a little difficult for professors and administrators from research degree backgrounds to understand what law is all about and why it’s so important.
I think this is much easier to accept and understand in the U.S. because the legal profession is so well-established and well-known in communities there. The J.D. is a common and preferred degree that produces people who become leaders nationally and internationally. This has been true throughout the West for a long time. But it is new in China. So, one of the challenges in China is to help people understand professional graduate degrees in law. This is more challenging in China because the public does not have the history of observing over a long period what it is that law graduates do.
But this will evolve in China. Right now, the understanding of the value lawyers provide is not widespread in society. I think this understanding in the Greater Bay Area will emerge faster than anywhere else in China because the economy here will depend more on lawyers with the skills of STL lawyers.
Q4: After the ABA refused to extend its accreditation jurisdiction outside of the US and Puerto Rico, considering your practical experience and perspective, what do you think is the significance of the J.D. program and studying common law in China?
I believe that the value of common law reasoning – advocating for and achieving different outcomes based on differences in facts or law from established precedent – is an invaluable “life” lesson that contributes to excellence in problem-solving no matter what professional endeavor an STL graduate pursues. Especially in combination with STL’s case study method of learning and intensely interactive classes, common law reasoning promotes the development of superior analytical skills, superior advocacy skills, and unmatched skill in developing creative solutions for complex legal and social problems. This is why in the U.S. and throughout the West you see so many leaders in all fields with J.D. degrees – leading jurists and lawyers, presidents and prime ministers, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, research university presidents, foreign ministers, and so on. This will be no less true in China over time, especially with the caliber of students who seek admission to STL.
Q5: Could we understand that problem-solving ability is the most important thing we learned from STL? Could you elaborate more on the “problem-solving” ability in law?
I believe that your problem-solving and analysis skills surpass those naturally developed in life or other disciplines. Of course, there are brilliant people who solve very specific problems in other disciplines. But one thing that’s unique about the discipline of law compared to every other discipline is that all our courses have to do with solving complex problems in a multidisciplinary context. When you read a case book, you’re reading about different social problems in different industries and social settings. You might study law and medicine, criminal law, corporate governance, or arbitration. They all address social problems with multidisciplinary challenges. Our entire curriculum is designed around social problems from different perspectives. That’s why we value a diversity of undergraduate degrees at STL. This is hugely important to our success. Different undergraduate degrees offer different perspectives, enhancing analytical skills and fostering the ability to see different sides of issues - traits we actively encourage.
Q6: STL has achieved remarkable success under your leadership over the past ten years. In your view, what are some critical events in STL's development, or what are the most significant occurrences during these ten years?
I would not single out any event as of singular importance because they all contributed to STL’s success. Some of the achievements that I am proud of are getting more student quota, attracting more exceptional students, developing a unique curriculum, and building a multinational faculty.
In the early years, our students were second-choice students who were hoping to attend PKU Law in Beijing. They were all academically gifted, but STL was their second choice. Within a couple years after I arrived, all our students had become first-choice students – STL was their “first choice” law school. Applicants to STL who earned “exemption” from the national postgraduate admission exam increased tenfold; the same was true of applicants who took the exam. The numbers are amazing for both groups, and this is a huge success.
There are two other achievements I’ll mention. One is that our J.D. faculty has become multinational. We have professors who understand common law deeply, but we also bring professors of different nationalities to our curriculum, whether Israeli, Pakistanis, or German. This doesn’t diminish our J.D. program; this enhances our program.
The other thing we’ve done is, thanks to Professor MAO Shaowei and Professor GE Yunsong, to take a different approach to China Law education. They have introduced the case study method to civil law instruction, added interactive class sessions to explore and test different perspectives about legal problems, and introduced interpretive techniques which account for China legal traditions, the multinational influences in China law, and the gaps in the law and ambiguities that invariably arise in the articulation of law and legal rules.
STL indeed is China’s most innovative law school in China’s most innovative city. We are ahead of all other law schools in anticipating the future of law and incorporating this vision into our curriculum, a vision that has become reality.There are hurdles that remain. For example, it’s hard to hire foreigners sometimes. It’s still hard to hire as many top J.M. professors as we need. We have hurdles to overcome, but I hope we view these hurdles as opportunities.
Q7: What do you think is unique about the students cultivated by STL?
It is hard to capture in a word, but I think our objective for all STL graduates is that they achieve the highest possible level of professionalism. STL students are intellectually gifted and capable of success in any field. STL helps them to develop superior analytical skills, advocacy skills, ethical awareness, and creative problem-solving skills. We teach them to see different perspectives of the same problem, to argue both sides of a case, and to interpret the law in different ways. This is a unique capability.
Q8: What’s your undergraduate major? What motivated you to pursue law studies at first? What was the academic environment like at the law school?
My undergraduate major ispolitical science and psychology. This was during the Vietnam War. Like many young Americans, I was opposed to the war. One of the things that the war caused among young people was a much stronger idea of public service – trying to use the law to benefit people who were not benefited. There were a lot of inequities in the United States everywhere. I had an idea that I could use my degree to help people. That’s what motivated metostudy law at the outset and the idea I had all the way through.
I grew up outside Chicago and went to the University of Illinois for my undergraduate study. When I went to law school, my girlfriend at the time was studying physics as a graduate student. The Physics Department at Illinois included the only person ever to win two Nobel Prizes in physics. That influenced my decision to stay in Illinois for my legal education. But I was happy I stayed in Illinois. There were excellent faculty and students from all over.
I found law school to be a very serious, very intense academic experience. The professors were renowned scholars and very intimidating (at least I thought so at the time), and all my fellow students seemed brilliant. I felt insecure and wondered if I would succeed. The result was that I worked constantly – reading, briefing cases, reading hornbooks. I went to class with dread that I might be called on. In the end, I did very well. I attribute my success to my pure fear of failing! The joy of law school for me (besides the friends I made) was realizing how much I enjoyed thinking and talking about legal issues.
Q9: You mentionedattributing your success to your pure fear of failing. It was the pure fear of failing that made you work hard. Could you elaborate on it?
I’ve always found insecurity to be a big motivator. It causes you to work hard and do your best at everything you do, whether it's school, your profession, or your job. It's a lifelong condition to have this fear, but it is helpful to always wonder whether you're doing as well as it can be done.
Looking back on a very long career, at each step, being insecure in a healthy way has motivated me to do my best. I had a strong passion for each new job I had, for each responsibility I had, because I think I had a basic commitment to fulfilling whatever was expected of me. But all along the way, including at STL, there's always a little bit of insecurity that helps me along.
Q10: How did your legal career develop after your graduation?
After clerking for a federal judge in Chicago, IjoinedMorrison & Forsterandwas an associate in San Francisco for six years. Then I left the law firm because a partner was appointed general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,a federal agency in Washington, D.C. that focuses on workplace justice.I stayed there fora year and a half before returning to Morrison Forster in Washington, D.C., and a whole new range of opportunities emerged for me.After a year,Imoved to Japanto help withalarge internationalarbitration.
Q11: As a practicing lawyer,youwere involved in some of the major antitrust and intellectual property disputes of the day. You also have been active throughout your career in a variety of public interest and pro bono matters. Can you share with us some memorable cases from your legal practice？
I spoke to PILF members earlier this year about two of my most gratifying cases, both of which happened to be public interest/pro bono cases. One was representing an older woman whose husband had died and whose house – her only real asset – was threatened by a lender trying to foreclose on the debt of a young family for whom the woman had co-signed a small loan. I won’t tell the entire story here, but as a result of this woman’s request for legal assistance (I met her at a neighborhood legal aid center), we discovered a pattern by this lender throughout California of trying to collect the bad debts of borrowers by getting them to secure the co-signature of a poor homeowner on a new small loan without disclosing that the co-signature also guaranteed the borrower’s repayment of multiple previous bad debts with substantial interest and penalties. The end result was a statewide injunction against the lender’s practices, substantial damages for all of the misled poor homeowners, and cancellation of all of borrowers’ underlying debts.
The other especially gratifying case was when I represented a class of deaf, blind, and multiply handicapped children throughout California in a class action asserting that their federal right to an “appropriate education” was being infringed by the State of California moving their residential school from the University of California, Berkeley campus, an urban setting, to Fremont, California, at the time a rural setting. The dispute resulted in a ten-month trial that was a great learning experience for me as a lawyer, including understanding the unique educational needs of children who are both deaf and blind and who also suffer from additional developmental challenges. We lost our effort to prevent the move of the school but won several educational enhancements in the new location.
The last case I’ll mention was an arbitration that lasted for several years, IBM’s claim against Fujitsu of Japan that Fujitsu has copied much of IBM’s operating system software for mainframe computers. I was a member of the team of lawyers representing Fujitsu. The case was a matter of global significance and we regularly had to contend with government interests and interference. There was superior legal representation on both sides of the case: Cravath, Swain & Moore represented IBM, Morrison & Foerster, where I was a partner, represented Fujitsu. I had no prior experience with mainframe computers, operating system software, or software design and coding, but learning new topics with each new case is one of the great opportunities of lawyering, so with the help of experts, we put together a defense that, after several months hearing before the arbitrators, reduced claims of many billions USD in damages to a few hundred million and established the principle that application program interfaces should not be protected by copyright law. The outcome affected financial markets and application programmers worldwide.
Q12: You shared with us about IBM/Fujitsu arbitration. How did you come across this case and start your career in the arbitration field? What do you think sparked your interest in arbitration?
To be honest,it was an accident. I canclearlyremember the dayI made the important decision.I was a new partner at Morrison & Foerster. Iwasat the airport in Washington, D.C. A senior partner who I respected very much and who was one of my mentors,Bob Raven, called me asked, “Phil,how would you like to go to Japan?” He wasFujitsu’s principallawyer at the time. He said, “I'm preparing this case for arbitration. It's a huge case,and it’s very important to the client and to the firm. IBM is on the other side,represented byCravath, Swain & Moore.” Tom Barr,one of the most famous and best litigators in the United States, was leading the opposition. Bob Raven said, “I’d like you to help.I'd like you to be on the team. Will you go?” I was very excited. I thought this could be a very exciting opportunity.
I called my wife, who at the time was a lawyer for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. We just had a baby,my daughter, who was ten months old. My wife was torn at that moment between going back to work or spending more time with the baby. She said, “Okay, let's do it.” So, we moved to Japan.
Bob Raven had told me that this was probably going to be a six-month commitment. It ended lasting almost eight years. We lived in Tokyo. My daughter grew up there, went to school there, and learned Japanese. We had two more children, two boys who were born in Tokyo. It was a very interesting experience, and that's how I got involved.
Before I moved to Japan, Ihad been involved in litigation in the U.S. As you know from your Civil Procedure course, litigation in the U.S. follows very strict requirements regarding how the cases emerge and develop. A typical characteristic of litigation is that there is a lot of fighting between the sides. Lawyers posture for advantage and doing everything to beat the other side and have a win.
Arbitration is different. It is more flexible. The major Japanese company I represented did not have Western values, and they were not accustomed to using Western lawyers. They had different notions of justice,different values,and different ideas of how things should work out. They figured if you start a relationship with someone, you should negotiate if you encounter changes or difficulties, you shouldn't always go to litigation. It was a very good eye-opening experience for me. And I started to appreciate the flexibility of arbitration. I started to appreciate, more than ever before, the different perspectives that different parties from different cultures bring to a case and how important it is to have some mechanism for resolving disputes involving those very different perceptions. International arbitration provides this. As there has been more and more economic exchange among nations,there's been more and more arbitration.
But it is true this is not a career path that I deliberately chose. Bob Raven didn’t choose me because I had arbitration experience. He chose me because he thought I was a good problem-solver and a hard worker. That’s what will impress senior people in your professional lives – those general skills. That’s whytheJ.D. program at STL is so important. You learn the problem-solving and analytical skills that your clients and the leading lawyers you work with will notice.And that’s why leading employers keep coming back to STL for more and more graduates. That’s why STL’s placement percentage is so high and will continue to be so high. That’s why our reputation is getting better and better and better, not necessarily because of what the Dean or the faculty do, but because of what our graduates are doing.
Q13: You mentioned Bob Raven, who you described as your mentor. Youalsooncesaid,“In law practice and client service generally, two senior partners of Morrison & Foerster, the late Bob Raven and Jim Paras. I’ve never known finer, more ethical lawyers with a better understanding of the profession.” Can you share some stories about your time with them?
Your question causes me to think back on the time – well over thirty years ago – that I spent with each of these two great lawyers. I realize now that most of the “mentoring” they did was by the example they set. They were inspiring, and both had the effect on younger lawyers of making the younger lawyers want to develop similar attributes – they were good listeners, brilliant intellectually, always civil, exceptionally thorough in their factual and legal research and analysis, they had great judgment, they were unfailingly loyal to the interests of their clients although very frank and honest when advising clients, they were highly ethical and would never tolerate clients’ conductsthat might compromise their ethical obligations, and they were creative problem solvers. Maybe the best thing about them from a mentoring standpoint is that they involved younger lawyers on their teams in all aspects of the cases on which we worked. We knew everything about everything and loved it – and learned from it.
Q14: For theIBM/Fujitsu arbitration, you have lived in Japan for many years and experienced a different culture. Have you ever experienced moments similar to "culture shock"?
The culture of Japan was quite formal. I will tell you a story about my first visit to China. After my family had been living in Tokyo for a couple of years, my daughter was now a bit older and able to walk around. We decided to go to Beijing for a holiday of a few days. That was my first visit to Beijing. It was about 1988 or 1987. We got there, and Beijing was nothing like it is today. There are ox carts, outdoor markets, and barely any cars. We stayed at the Friendship Hotel, the only place foreigners could stay. We shopped at the Friendship Store, the only place foreigners could shop.
We really liked it. We had great fun. But most surprising to us were the people. To be honest, to us, Chinese were much more expressive, more friendly, and much more family-oriented than the Japanese.In Japan, there was much more formality. You rarely saw parents bring their children out to restaurants or outside together as a family. People were much more formal in their interactions,much less expressive.The opposite was true in China. The only culture shock in China was that my daughter, who was very blonde, was an object of huge interest to crowds of people who had not seen foreigners before. They were all very kind, and it was awonderful experience.
Q15: You have lived and worked in different countries, such as the U.S., Japan, and China. What was the most significant impact of living in different countries on you? What are you most inspiring about living in different cultural contexts?
Living and working in different places has been very interesting and enriching for me. I learned that not everyone views the world or interprets rights in the same way as I do, and that’s a valuable lesson. However, this is not a lesson that all lawyers learn. You will encounter very parochial perspectives among some lawyers who believe that everyone else, everywhere else, must think exactly as they do. Contending with this, and learning how to encourage dialogue in this context, is a very important lesson. It requires the ability to compromise. But even though you compromise, you also want to assert the strongest possible position on behalf of your client.
An awareness of different perspectives also affects how you create that strong position. A strong position is useless if it doesn’t convince other people. You have to consider how it will be received. Living in different countries has enhanced my ability to do this and my understanding of how people might view the same set of facts or the same obligation differently.
Q16: Over the years of legal practice, how has your understanding of the field of law evolved?
I think what has evolved is my knowledge of how to use law asa tool for positive social change,in constructive ways.When youare still in lawschool, it’s difficult to appreciate what it really takes to effect change, to advocate for change,to advocate on someone’s behalf. Only whenyou begin to practice law do you learn how to do this effectively. The learning continues over the course of your entirelegal career.You learn new lessons almost in every case, every interaction, and that's the fun of practicing law.
Q17: After practicing law for many years, you turned to legal education and became a professor, teacher, and leader of law school. You were a professor of law at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and then became the founding dean of Penn State University’s law school and School of International Affairs. What inspired you to make this change?
It was almost by accident.I was working in Hong Kong as a partner of Morrison & Foerster, traveling all over the world and not seeing my family very often. I had three small children. One day, I received a call from the University of Illinois College of Law asking me whether I had any interest in applying to join the faculty. I was intrigued by the idea of teaching and writing about law, so I said yes. I wrote a paper that became my first article, which is still well-regarded, and I did a job talk and an interview. Then they made me the offer.
The transition was very different from working as a partner in a private law firm. The compensation was maybe 15% of what I was making, but the lifestyle was more flexible. After teaching at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, for seven years, I decided to apply forthefounding dean position of Pennsylvania State University’s law school. Penn State is a major research university, but it never had a law school. It had just acquired a small local law school, which the president wanted to transform into a research-oriented law school within the university. They wanted to build a faculty and student body with the attributes of a research university law school. This interested me. I also thought that administration might be fun and fulfilling for me, in addition to teaching and writing. So, I applied for and was appointed the founding dean of Penn State University’s law school.
Q18: As students, we often feel lost and anxious when choosing a career, needing to figure out our direction when faced with different paths. When confronted with many possibilities, how should we choose and find the one most suitable for us? Based on your experience, how did you determine your direction step by step? Is it inevitable for young people to feel lost or uncertain about their direction in life?
I think we have to help students become comfortable with the notion that you are not making a final choice when you’re making your first choice. You’re only making your first choice; don’t worry if it’s not your idea of the best possible outcome. You never know what will happen. My experience in arbitration happened because the client came to us, and suddenly I had this enormously interesting case to work on. This has happened over and over again throughout my career.
The important thing to remember about being a lawyer with an education from a law school and university recognized worldwide as elite and among the best is that you never must make a single choice of career. You will be free and able to change directions as your desires change and as you encounter the variety of unexpected professional opportunities you are certain to encounter throughout your lives. It’s hard not to feel nervous about your first choice, but please always remember it will not be your last choice or opportunity. Maybe you’ll find the perfect professional fit from the beginning of your career, maybe not, or maybe even if you find the perfect fit, you’ll decide you want to try something different now and then. The academic credentials you are earning as STL students are the keys to lifetimes full of different and terrific professional opportunities.
Opportunities will grow as the legal profession in China continues to grow, and the profession has grown dramatically over the last six years. More and more clients, companies, and people are appreciating that lawyers add value to whatever they do because lawyers bring the broad perspective, analytical ability, and problem-solving capability essential to optimal outcomes. It is not unusual for a general counsel at a company to become the CEO. This reflects the breadth of capabilities of lawyers. You are not just a researcher. You are just starting your journey. The real value and opportunities of this profession lie ahead of you.
Q19: I believe that one of the reasons we feel lost and anxious when faced with different choices is because we fear making the wrong decision, which might lead to failure. Speaking of failure, how do you perceive it? Have you encountered failures during your personal growth and career? If so, how did you handle them?
I think failure is part of the learning process in business and entrepreneurship. You have to fail to become a better businessperson or entrepreneur. I have not experienced a major failure, but I have made mistakes occasionally and found I have the ability to correct them. I have also faced challenges and oppositions that seemed like failures at first, but I persevered and overcame them. I have always been a little bit insecure, but I think that is healthy and motivates me to avoid failing.
One example of such a challenge was when I was the dean of Penn State Law School. I proposed moving the law school to the main campus, but I faced a lot of resistance from the community, the professors, and basically everybody. There was even an editorial in a newspaper entitled, “Move the Dean, Not the Law School.” The board of the law school voted against my proposal. That was a failure. But I did not give up. I wrote to the university president and argued for moving the law school. I said it would benefit the students, the faculty, and the intellectual climate. It was a big controversy that involved politicians and lawyers. But in the end, we moved.
The president told me, “I’ve never known anyone with your perseverance,” meaning I would never stop trying. I had an objective, and there may be setbacks, but there is a way to figure out how to achieve your objective or come close to achievement.
I don’t consider losing a case as a failure because that depends on many factors beyond your control. Sometimes you have to compromise and find the best solution for your client. It may not be a total victory for you, but it is still a good outcome. We shouldn’t judge a lawyer’s career by wins and losses. We should judge it by how professionally and ethically we have conducted ourselves and whether we have served our clients well.
Q20: Having worked and practiced in the field of law for so many years, have you ever felt frustrated due to the limitations of the law?
I have experienced frustration with the limitations of law, especially when procedural requirements prevent me from getting the resolution I want for my client. Sometimes, there are rules of law that seem more formal than substantive and that do not reflect the merits of a case. For example, there might be procedural obstacles or statutes of limitation that affect the outcome of a case.
I understand that there are reasons for all of those procedures, and they may serve a good purpose in terms of the system functioning properly. But still, each time I encounter something like this, I feel as if law cannot achieve all that I would like to for my client. I feel as if law is not enough to solve the problem.
Q21: How can we maintain our belief in law when we are sometimes frustrated by the limitation of law? Do you have suggestions for young STL lawyers?
I think you are pioneers. You have to keep in mind your mission, which is to contribute to a strong legal profession in China, to contribute to a perception of the community and the government and businesses in China of the value of an ethical, legal profession of lawyers. And if you do a good job as a lawyer, you will contribute. I see this every day with STL graduates; this is what they're doing by being the best they can be. And that's whatyou will do.
Q22: You just mentioned that, as a lawyer, we can make many contributions to society. However, sometimes I feel like commercial lawyers deal with more "abstract" issues that are further removed from individual people. For commercial lawyers, how do you think of their public and social value?
I understand your concern. But commercial lawyers can also have a public impact by serving their corporate clients. Companies are made up of people, and they will see how you do your work. When I started working in Japan in the mid-1980s, there was not a deep appreciation among leading Chinesecompanies of the value of lawyers, but it grew over time. The more they engaged with international transactions, the more they valued the perspective of lawyers whose advice they sought. And the more that happened, the more the people in the companies spread the word in their communities. It really evolved. Just because you are serving a corporate client doesn’t mean you are not having a public impact. Think of all their employees and all the people who gain an impression that you contributed to an outcome that now benefits them.
Q23: Lawyers sometimes face situations where the clients’needsarenot reconcilable with the law. It is really important how the lawyers choose at these times. What do you have to say to STL students who might encountersimilar difficult situations?
If I have one single hope for STL’s graduates and for STL’s impact on the legal profession in China,it is that our graduates set the standards of professionalism for everybody else, that we really understand what it means to be ethical in the practice of law. We know you cannot exaggerate facts, even if it helps your client; you cannot exaggerate the law, even if it helps your client. If a client threatens you with non-payment of your salary or your fee, if you don't do things in a way that you know would be unethical, you say no, and you walk away, you just don’t do it.
If all STL graduates really have that commitment,I think we’ll be making the greatest contribution to China and to the legal profession, and you’ll end up seeing that your communities respect you for that. That’s how trust is built; that’s how the profession gains trust when people know that they can go to a lawyer and have ethical service, that you don't cheat on their behalf, and you won’t do anything but advocate as best you can, based on the facts they bring youand following the correct law.
Q24: Do you have any career advice for STL graduates who are just starting their careers and stepping into a new and challenging environment?
Starting a new job is a bit like starting law school. Most of us are filled with uncertainty about expectations and our ability to meet them. I think it’s very important when evaluating possible job opportunities, especially during your early career, to assess how supportive a work environment each employer offers. What does the employer say about mentoring, training, other colleagues at the same level of experience (it’s good to have someone to talk to who shares your feelings), exposure to clients, opportunities for public interest, and pro bono work (which reveals something about the employer’s attitude toward community service), and the opportunities for equitable and reliable professional development and promotion. I was lucky in my career to join a very supportive law firm early on(Morrison & Foerster– not even 100 lawyers when I began, now over 1200!). Wherever you begin, have confidence that your education at STL equips you better than most graduates to embrace the work with confidence and succeed. Also, remember you’ll always enjoy other opportunities in the future if you desire.
