China

Is Your China Lawyer Real?

Be careful out there.

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US china flagsOne of the most frequent, weirdest, and in some ways most insulting questions my firm’s China lawyers get is when we are provided a link and then asked if the law firm to which the link is directed is a real or a good Chinese law firm. How are we even supposed to respond to that? My usual tactic — after having received so many of these — is to respond with something with something like the following:

Let me get this straight. You are asking me to conduct free research for you and then provide you with free advice so that you can go ahead and use another law firm? We will not provide you with this service unless we are paid USD$3500 upfront.

Nobody has ever taken me up on this offer. Perhaps they should.

Over the years we have often written about fake Chinese law firms and the havoc they cause to real companies:

Fake China Law Firms Are The Real Deal (2015)
The Fake China Law Firm Scam (2015)
Mongolian Law Firm Clones Famous China Lawyer (2007)
China: Where Even The “Law Firms” Are Fake (2006)

We have many times represented companies that paid money to a Chinese “law firm” for registering a trademark in China or drafting a manufacturing agreement or forming a WFOE, only to learn that they had instead paid money somebody who had set up a temporary website with the sole intention of bilking the unwary. I have never heard of a real Chinese lawyer doing this. The trick is knowing who is a real lawyer and who is not.

I thought about fake law firms this week because I heard from someone who had just discovered that his company had paid a fake lawyer to register a couple trademarks in China and nothing had ever been filed and because my own law firm has for the third time been “faked.” Go here to see the fake HarrisMoure law firm and go here to see our real website for our real law firm. I have already received two emails from people alerting us to the fake law firm and telling us of how the fake law firm cheated them out of real money. I have no idea whether this fake law firm is based in China or not, but it should serve as a lesson to to conduct at least the following basic due diligence when hiring a new lawyer for your business:

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1. Determine how long the law firm has been in existence. Really in existence, not just some date on its website. If it hasn’t been around for many years, you should be wary. Of course there are plenty of legitimate law firms formed just this year, but longevity is at least some proof of legitimacy.

2. Read about the law firm and its lawyers on other sites. Real law firms exist outside their websites. Does the law firm show up on court records as having represented someone? Have any of its lawyers published articles with recognized media? Are any of its lawyers listed on lawyer ranking websites? Dig deep.

3. Call the relevant bar associations or lawyer licensing bureaus to confirm the lawyer(s) you are about to use are actually lawyers.

4. Do not be afraid to go with your gut (affiliate link). Just about person I know who has been taken in by a fake law firm has admitted something (oftentimes the too low pricing) made them wary even before they paid.

5. Be careful out there.

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Dan Harris is a founding member of Harris Moure, an international law firm with lawyers in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Barcelona, and Beijing. He is also a co-editor of the China Law Blog. You can reach him by email at firm@harrismoure.com.

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