30 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS CHINA • 亚洲法律杂志-中国版 APRIL 2024 EMPLOYER OF CHOICE development. Therefore, many young lawyers are eager to explore more on this new platform. Having a young workforce is a distinctive feature of SGLA, with over 80 percent of its lawyers born in the 1980s and 1990s. “The nurturing of young leaders has always been our top priority. To this end, we have set up a young lawyer working group and established multiple training and exchange platforms for young lawyers to create more opportunities for them to meet like-minded colleagues, join SLGA’s development, and build a consensus to innovate our brand,” says Zhou. Moreover, SGLA respects individual achievements and growth, focuses on value creation, and has developed personalized growth plans for young lawyers throughout different stages of practice. The firm holds the annual National Young Leader Training Course and the annual Young Talent Training Camp. “The former targets key young leaders born in the 1980s and 1990s who are selected from local offices, with the goal of training them into management partners. The training course helps and guides them to see themselves at higher positions, gain an in-depth understanding of industry development trends, have a better understanding of law firm management, and improve team management capabilities, so as to pool together the wisdom and strength of the younger generation for SGLA’s future development. The latter builds on the philosophy of ‘know work, understand life, and strive for harmony but respect difference’, and focuses on developing young lawyers’ professional competency and team management and collaboration skills, and answering their questions and concerns during practice.” Zhou adds that SGLA’s offices across the country have held a series of exchanges of ideas and regular training activities to help lawyers share professional knowledge, step up exchanges and communication between partners and young associates, and retain top talent for the long-term development of the firm. At the same time, the firm takes advantages of the academic resources in various places to carry out in-depth cooperation with universities such as East China University of Political Science and Law, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Northwest University of Political Science and Law, Guangzhou University and Dalian Maritime University. For example, many SGLA partners have regular exchanges with university students on campus, and local SGLA offices are used as university internship bases for long-term off-campus practical teaching. In 2023, Jilin Gong Cheng Law Firm and Shanghai-based Wintell & Co successfully completed the first ever cross-provincial comprehensive merger (including awards, qualifications and practice areas) in China to form the new Wintell & Co brand to provide clients with even more professional and comprehensive services. Chi Rida, chairman of the National Partners’ Conference of Wintell & Co, says that the pressure on talent has been real in recent years. “In some way, it is precisely this pressure that has propelled us to branch out and join forces with others to form today’s Wintell & Co that spans both north and south.” “In recent years, we have gradually felt that the tension in development has turned into one between the continuously improving level of lawyers’ professional competency and the rate of growth of regional legal demand. How can we enable outstanding lawyers who are constantly growing and possess relatively comprehensive service capabilities and market skills to have greater room for development? The answer is that we must venture out, must enter the national stage, must go global, and must set our horizons and have our battlefields farther away. This is what we, as seniors, should do for the younger generations. This is our responsibility, our mission,” says Chi frankly. Wintell & Co has always attached great importance to talent cultivation. According to Chi, Gong Cheng used to have a monthly “Succession Program” which focused on professional development, skills training, communication and expression training for young lawyers, covering almost all aspects required for lawyers’ work. On the other hand, the old Wintell & Co had an annual “Knowledge Sharing Session” which not only met the exchange and learning needs of lawyers within the firm, but also expanded the scope of sharing experts by welcoming more experts from different industries to the firm so as to enable lawyers to play to their strengths on the basis of a better understanding of client needs. Even during the pandemic, Gong Cheng and Wintell & Co had consistent online knowledge sharing plans. “We also focus on moving ahead our talent touchpoints. Over the years, Jilin University and Gong Cheng had maintained close partnership to jointly promote the development of rule of law in China.” Chi shares that Gong Cheng had sponsored and organized multiple activities for Jilin University Law School, such as moot court competitions, freshman debate competitions, etc., and had organized with the old Wintell & Co the Tomorrows’ Lawyers Competition for students studying law at institutions of higher learning across the country. JunZeJun Law Offices has similarly taken a series of measures in response to the needs of young lawyers. The firm tells ALB that in 2023, its Beijing head office organized six new employee training sessions where young partners were invited to share their practice experience with new joiners and address the concerns and queries of young entrants to the workplace. In terms of culture building, the firm has founded the “Jun Academy” to make use of the lunch break to invite senior partners in various practice areas to provide multi-layer and regular training for young lawyers through lectures, so as to create a positive, enterprising and inclusive work environment that encourages team communication and collaboration. According to JunZeJun, its investment in talent competitiveness has generated significant returns and outstanding results. The firm has managed to not only maintain stability of its business, but also achieve breakthroughs in some emerging fields, winning recognition from clients and the market. BUILDING CULTURE To a new question in this year’s survey, “Do you think the firm’s positioning and
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