ABSTRACT
The plurality of the consultation sessions concerns housing disputes. Economic disputes, the second largest category, consist for the most part of debt and contract disputes. The administrative category includes a botched tubal ligation, a dispute over irregular fees levied by a local government office, and the case of an old man seeking reparations from the Japanese government for performing forced labor service in Japan during the Sino–Japanese War. The financial success of lawyers in China’s top corporate law firms working on international commercial transactions belies the grim reality that most Chinese lawyers are struggling for survival. The Darwinian struggle in the Chinese bar has been exacerbated by its rapid privatization. Privatization has aggravated not only lawyers’ financial vulnerability, but also their institutional vulnerability vis-a-vis the state. The consequences of lawyers’ financial insecurity are not surprising.
