Courting an international profile

China's legal profession is promoting training programs to provide the nation's legal eagles with the skills required to succeed in cases around the globe, challenging the dominance of foreign experts. Zhang Yan reports.

China's rapid economic development and growing role on the international stage have seen many businesses, including a large number of State-owned companies, expanding overseas and engaging in multinational mergers and acquisitions against a backdrop of growing global economic integration.

On the upside, the companies have grown richer and their global footprints have expanded, but the downside is that the number of international lawsuits concerning Chinese businesses has risen greatly. The growth in transnational legal cases is proving problematic. Few Chinese lawyers have deep experience of conducting cases related to international law, which means foreign practitioners are engaged to act on behalf of domestic companies in about 80 percent of the lawsuits.