Grandall: Management Practices of a Cross-Regional Partnership Law Firm

Pioneering Milestones in China’s Legal Industry

In August 1989, Lawyer Zhang Yongtao left his stable job at a university to join Beijing JunHe Law Firm as a practicing lawyer. By January 1993, he co-founded Beijing Tongda Law Firm. In June 1994, he established “Zhang Yongtao Law Firm,” the first law firm in China to be named after its founder.

Zhang’s trailblazing did not stop there. In June 1998, he initiated and established Grandall Law Firm, merging several law firms from cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen into a nationwide firm. This was a groundbreaking achievement, as it was the first group law firm approved by the Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China.
Grandall set a precedent in the Chinese legal industry by focusing on scale, specialization, standardization, internationalization, and branding. From its inception, Grandall established specialized legal service departments, including committees for corporate and commercial law, banking and finance, and international investment. These have since evolved into over twenty research centers and business committees covering areas like capital markets, dispute resolution, intellectual property, construction and real estate, criminal law, and cross-border investment.

Today, Grandall Law Firm is one of the largest cross-regional partnership law firms in China, with 35 offices nationwide and abroad, and a team exceeding 5,000 people.

Confident Expansion

In the context of Chinese law firms expanding internationally, matching client needs, talent reserves, and service network construction are core factors. In recent years, Grandall has rapidly built a strong global service network and plans to continue accelerating its international expansion with a well-structured resource allocation.
Grandall’s confidence in its “expansion” is primarily reflected in its substantial client demand and matching capabilities. As a leading firm in the domestic securities and capital market sectors, Grandall has accumulated numerous listed company clients over 20+ years. When these companies invest abroad, Grandall’s established client base provides a solid foundation for its international expansion.

Additionally, talent reserves and network layout ensure the provision of matching services. In the legal services industry, human resources are paramount, and the power of a service network is significant. There’s a theory in human interaction: any two strangers can establish contact through six intermediaries. Leveraging Grandall’s global network, its lawyers can proudly tell clients, “Point to any city on the globe, and at most through one person, we can find a lawyer there.”

While accelerating its international layout, Grandall also observes the international expansion models and development of other domestic firms. Typically, Chinese law firms internationalize in three ways: setting up overseas branches, forming close partnerships with local firms, or adopting third-party affiliations. Grandall employs a combination of these methods. It has established branches in five overseas cities, including Hong Kong and Paris, and collaborates with excellent local firms in Australia. In regions with a high client concentration, like Europe, Grandall forms service networks through business cooperation, even without one-to-one partnerships with local firms.

Since 2015, Grandall has formed specialized teams to systematically conduct legal research and services for the “Belt and Road Initiative.” This includes investigating relevant laws and regulations and providing legal services for a series of investment projects.

One notable achievement was in January 2017, when Grandall’s Shanghai office served as special legal counsel for the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and China Financial Futures Exchange in their successful joint acquisition of a 40% stake in the Pakistan Stock Exchange. This was the first time China’s three major exchanges jointly acquired an overseas stock exchange stake. This investment broadens the economic and financial cooperation between China and Pakistan, aligns with the “Belt and Road Initiative” and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and injects new vitality into the traditional friendship between the two countries.

Quasi-Corporate Management System

With the scale development of law firms, management issues have become increasingly prominent. Grandall has shown its commitment to this by organizing leadership training in London for all core management personnel. Managing a large-scale institution of thousands is not merely about having financial, HR, and other backend support but requires a systematic management framework.

Grandall adopts a quasi-corporate management system, with its Shanghai office having developed a comprehensive set of management rules. These include an integrated financial system, employee evaluation and reward system, business integration with specialized divisions, and conflict of interest checks. The core of business integration is mutual support, collaboration, and efficiency.

The ideal management state is where systems manage the institution, not individuals, but individuals operate the systems. Balancing principles and flexibility maximizes efficiency.

Grandall Shanghai’s highest authority is the Partners’ Meeting, with a Management Committee elected by the Partners’ Meeting. The current committee, consisting of five members, focused on clarifying roles and management mechanisms to avoid overlap and gaps, aiming to enhance efficiency.

Traditionally, Grandall’s securities business has been a standout, but this focus limited other areas. The new committee consciously strengthened other professional fields. For instance, Huang Ningning, the firm’s director, specializes in international business, balancing the business portfolio over several years for positive outcomes.

“Scholar Lawyers” and “Gentleman Lawyers”

Informatization has long been a challenge in law firm management, especially amid the internet wave, with more firms trying Internet+. For Grandall’s management, technological updates and new models will impact the industry, potentially replacing standardized or replicable services. However, high-end, customized services, which are Grandall’s core competency, remain unaffected for now.

A lawyer who doesn’t aspire to partnership isn’t a good lawyer. Grandall’s Shanghai office has a tradition of onboarding training for new lawyers every year, which has grown in scale and diversity. It covers firm culture, professional philosophy, contract drafting, due diligence, litigation, arbitration, capital markets, and private equity.
Grandall also boasts one of the shortest paths to partnership in the industry. A new graduate can become a limited partner in as little as six years, provided they meet the promotion criteria, with clear quantitative metrics guiding their career growth.

However, Grandall’s policy of recruiting only master’s degree holders or above for fresh graduates has sparked internal debate. This policy excludes many outstanding undergraduate students from the selection process. The Shanghai Management Committee is considering whether to selectively recruit excellent undergraduate graduates, reflecting the need for management flexibility.

In addition to professional lawyers and support staff, Grandall has a unique role—business secretaries, allocated based on team business volume rather than the number of partners. This ensures that each partner receives support that accurately reflects their workload. Professional people handling professional tasks, with the best support, is Grandall’s direction for improving internal management and service.

In a partnership law firm, legally it is a partnership, in work it is cooperation, and in career it is a shared path. From a professional perspective, Grandall lawyers pursue being “scholar lawyers”; culturally, they strive to be “gentleman lawyers.” This self-expectation and cultural ethos are core features of Grandall.