On the afternoon of July 16, 2018, the Graduation Ceremony of the first batch of participants in the "Training Program for Western Lawyers" was held at the Beijing Lawyers Association. The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice and the Beijing Legal Aid Foundation granted the "Special Contribution Award" to the 10 law firms that organized this training program. Baimu Deji, from Lhasa Tibet, who was trained at Dentons Beijing, delivered a speech on behalf of all the participants; and Hengling Huang, from Guizhou, who was also trained at Dentons Beijing, was recognized as one of the outstanding trainees.
The Program was coordinated and initiated by the Beijing Legal Aid Foundation to resolve the imbalance of capabilities and legal aids between Eastern and Western China, helping lawyers from underdeveloped regions broaden their horizons and improve their abilities so as to cultivate legal services and legal aids talents for the western regions and promoting the rule of law there.
On May 18, the signing ceremony of the training program was held in Beijing. On June 19, the first batch of participants, a total of 50 lawyers, arrived in Beijing and embarked their one-month training. The five trainees that was trained at Dentons Beijing came from Guizhou, Tibet, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Yunnan.
Dentons Beijing attached great importance to this Program and specifically set up a reception team for the arrangement work, from determining lecturers, developing specific training plans, arranging cubic and preparing office supplies for the western lawyers, to helping the trainees acquaint with the firm's environment.
On the basis of the trainees' respective training plans, practice focuses and individual needs, the firm selected five senior partners, namely Rina Dao, Ping Xu, Qing Song, Yinghui Yin and Alexander (Dong) Zhang, to be responsible for the coaching and guidance. They will hold one-on-one coaching, case counseling, trainings and other related activities in the coming month in hope of helping the trainees to improve their capabilities.
Besides, the reception team also arranged 13 lectures, covering more than 10 practice areas and delivered by 14 partners and counsels, for the trainees.
In addition, the five trainees selectively participated in four internal trainings in Dentons Beijing, and three of the trainings were attended by foreign lawyers, allowing the trainees to have the opportunity to exchange ideas with oversea lawyers face to face for the first time. Together with the 6 group lectures of this training program, the five trainees participated in a total of 24 training sessions and special lectures.
Over the years, Dentons Beijing has been actively involved in various pro bono legal training programs. Currently, in addition to the above-mentioned program, the "Mainland China Legal Internship Program for Hong Kong Youths" sponsored by the International Youth legal Exchange Federation and supported by the Ministry of Justice, and the "Mongolian-Chinese Bilingual Young Lawyers' Training Program" jointly initiated by the Beijing Lawyers Association and the Inner Mongolia Lawyers Association are underway. Through exchanging and studying with law students from Hong Kong and young lawyers from Inner Mongolia, the western lawyers also "additionally" learned the legal systems of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom and the current practice of Inner Mongolian lawyers.
The Program will run for five years, and Dentons Beijing will actively collect the experiences in the first term of training, so as to strive to provide a better learning environment and much more practical and sophisticated courses for the participants.
