What Makes a Team Player?

In 2020, LEB interviewed Ms. Chen Jingjing, a partner of Hui Zhong Law Firm. Jingjing graduated from Shanghai University, studied law in the Netherlands, and after law school graduation, worked under Mr. Fei Ning, who is rated by Chambers and Partners as a top-gun litigator in China. In the following 15 years after her return to China, she followed Fei all the way from Haiwen to Junhe (two first-tier law firms in China) and participated in the establishment of Hui Zhong Law Firm in 2013.

How can you form a trustworthy and reliable team?

When in-house counsel selects outside counsel, ideal candidates are lawyers with a decent educational background, practice history and case experience. But what in-house counsel really needs is a reliable team of lawyers of different levels of seniority, e.g., junior lawyers working carefully and meticulously, mid-level and senior lawyers understanding the business side of the client and being truly considerate and empathetic, and partners being the most faithful backing when assisting in-house counsel to report to the client’s corporate leadership.

Many claim that the Chinese lack team spirit. When even family businesses in China are splitting up, what becomes of workplace relationships? So what kind of teams are Jingjing drawn to??

When Fei asked Jingjing to follow him to start a dispute resolution boutique, she was newly pregnant with her daughter. How did she follow him without any hesitation? Jingjing recalled, “when we first started the business, we did not even have an office. Our Shanghai partners only rented an apartment in Shimen Yi Road. But we never had doubts because we were really looking forward to starting a new journey with our team.”?

There is a line in the film “American Dreams in China”: “Some things only become clearer when you take a breather. There are always more important things that give us the courage to defeat our fears. Indeed, when fighting with a group of teammates who recognize their own professionalism and characters, one can do things attentively, produce work with assurance and have one’s mind at ease.”

Jingjing has full and absolute trust in her team leader, she describes Fei as “caring towards subordinates”, “plans thoughtfully”, “focus on the problem not the person”, “broad-minded and not nitpicking”, and “the glue that holds a team together”. A good leader should be able to rush to the front lines at an early stage, level the playing field for the team, and then give younger lawyers room for development. This requires recognition of the ability and professionalism of team members, and more so delegating authority and taking responsibility in the grand scheme of things.

Led by Fei, the Hui Zhong team has developed a habit of quality control by having all partners review the final work product of lawyers before it goes out to the clients. This is the brand identity ingrained in the minds of Hui Zhong’s clients. The quality of work products and the trust of clients can only be maintained when partners are deeply involved in each case.

In fact, in some cases, there is conflict between producing quality work products and giving team members room to grow. In the beginning of Hui Zhong’s establishment, every partner did everything themselves, and to a certain extent, neglected to train mid-level and senior level lawyers to handle cases independently. In the following years, partners have continued to reflect on their management styles and training experiences. They made efforts to hand over control to young lawyers while remaining attentive to the cases.

Today, the initial group of junior associates has become the backbone of the firm; Hui Zhong has ascertained a set of standardized quality control procedures and project management norms; and the mid-level and senior associates have grown into outstanding lawyers in the industry. In a mere six years of existence, Hui Zhong has been listed in the Global Arbitration Review Top 100 list for four consecutive years, and has been invited to write the China Chapter of Arbitration for Getting the Deal Through, a comprehensive legal information resource edited by Law Business Research in the UK for five consecutive years. The Chambers Asia Pacific Legal Guide has also listed Hui Zhong as a Tier 2 Chinese law firm in dispute resolution practice. Only a team with years of experience and excellent combat capabilities can achieve this amount of success in such a short period of time.

What is the true meaning of Hui Zhong?

“Hui Zhong” in Chinese can be understood as “good at arbitration”, “an amalgamation of elites”, or “capable of planting (people)”. The legal circle follows the “elite logic” in the traditional sense: clients give priority to elite lawyers who come from top universities, work in prestigious law firms, and have handled landmark cases. However, elites tend to gravitate towards individual heroism and trivialize teamwork. When a “superstar” lawyer rushes ahead and leaves the team in the dust, the rest of the team is unable to play to their strengths as a whole. One must consider the limited time and energy of each team member and rely on their support. How are you supposed to coordinate an attack? Who is supposed to attack or defend? Trial lawyers are all eloquent and articulate speakers, so who is supposed to present at a hearing? Who is willing to make someone else look good?

In the current dispute resolution field where cases are gaining complexity, it’s no longer possible to effortlessly achieve individual success. As a client, you might want to see the strength of a team of lawyers, because it is best to have the right ratio of people at all levels to be more cost effective.

Since its establishment, Hui Zhong has built a pyramid of talents with the “Golden Ratio” (1 partner : 7 associates, broken down into 3.5 senior and 3.5 junior associates). Hui Zhong has accumulated rich experience in internal cooperation through handling increasingly complex domestic and foreign dispute cases. The foundation of teamwork is to achieve a mutual goal while retaining different views. “Mutual goal” is reflected in the fact that all team members must have the same spirit in pursuing high quality service, and the same commitment to finding the best defense or solution; “retaining different views” is reflected in how every team member freely expresses their own opinions so that they can eventually come to a consensus on the overall situation.

For Jingjing, the best part about Hui Zhong is that there is no small case or matter. Regardless of the subject matter or the legal fee, the team will go all out once the case is entrusted to them. For example, the HKIAC Chinese International Arbitration Competition held in October last year had high requirements for teamwork. According to HKIAC, a team must comprise partner(s), associates and school interns, with all members needing to participate in substantive work. The friendship and tacit understanding accumulated by the Hui Zhong team and their attention to the importance of Hui Zhong's brandname ultimately helped its team to enter the final and win the championship.?

Jingjing mentioned the consistent culture of Hui Zhong: “For brothers in arms, even gold can be broken. During the two-month preparation, especially during the October 1st (Chinese National Day) holiday period, the whole Hui Zhong firm supported the five-member team, and not only did everyone cheer on the team, but they also contributed their knowledge and experience.”

When asked how Hui Zhong ensures the stability of its talent pipeline, Jingjing repeatedly emphasized that when recruiting newcomers, Hui Zhong (unlike other firms in the Red Circle) does not deliberately require a glamorous background such as award-winning experience and “Ivy League” education. “We look for qualities of sincerity and pragmatism, especially a hardworking nature, an earnest attitude as well as a humble and patient character,” Jingjing stressed. She believes that lawyering is a high-risk profession, and junior lawyers should focus on cultivating personal qualities of caution, zeal and reliability instead of inventing pretentious viewpoints and having near-native English oral skills.

We recruit law students from non-elite backgrounds for their down-to-earth and non-bragging character. Brilliant performance of a litigation lawyer in court derives from meticulous paperwork, thorough research and diligent deposition (or evidence collection) work. An associate lawyer who is willing to sink their teeth into the tedious work and not be overly ambitious will go far.

What does it take to become a female litigation lawyer? ?

Jingjing looks nothing like a litigation lawyer. She is meek and fresh-faced like a university student. It's hard to imagine how she juggled many business trips when her baby girl was only four months old.

When Fei invited Jingjing to start Hui Zhong together, she agreed without a second thought. However, when Fei suggested that Jingjing should consider transitioning from M&A to dispute resolution, was she ever concerned if her personality would be suitable for a litigator? It’s common knowledge that litigators are competitive, aggressive and demanding. But Jingjing said, “after so many years in the litigation and arbitration world, I found that my personality is also very advantageous in dealing with dispute resolution.”

Whether in court or before an arbitral tribunal, the judge or the arbitrator does not need to witness a big commotion, they’d much prefer to see a facilitator who can help them disentangle the case and present their views rationally. Jingjing mentioned that Hui Zhong values the interest of clients over winning a case. “If we bridge the gap between the judge, the arbitrator, the client and even the other side, it counts as success for a litigation lawyer,” Jingjing elaborated.

All female lawyers, whether working in-house or in a law firm setting, face the difficult task of balancing family and work. And truth be told, there is simply no win-win solution that allows you to have it both ways. Similar to the management of a legal team, every woman has her own set of proven methodologies on how to make trade-offs. Jingjing observed, “the female lawyers of Hui Zhong's team are also very good in this regard. After the formation of Hui Zhong, 1-2 Hui Zhong babies are born every year, and several female lawyers are also mothers of their second child, but they all cherish and love their job very much, and deal with work-life balance in their own way.

Interview conducted at LEB Commercial Dispute Resolution Forum in July, 2020

Originally published on WeChat

Translated by Song Huang | Edited by Faye Zhang