Shenzhen Lawyer Internship Assessment Questioned

• Author: Cheng Wei

An intern lawyer published an article entitled “Shenzhen Lawyers Association’s Internship Assessment May Breach of the Law Substantially” on the web. He disclosed that, since July 2012, the pass rate of Shenzhen Lawyers Association’s internship assessment was 20% to 30%, which was “as low as the pass rate of the national judicial examination.”

Many intern lawyers expressed in weibo that they had the “same feeling” as the “Shenzhen Intern Lawyers’ Representative”. Some intern lawyers said they failed the assessment just because of their appearances, untidy attires, or not being able to answer what the “four basic principals” were.

According to the statistics of the Shenzhen Lawyers Association, the number of lawyers was 6,867 in 2011, 6,248 at the end of 2010, 5,349 as of June 2009 and 5,120 at the end of 2008. Based on the figures, from last year to present, there was an increase of only 62 lawyers. In Shenzhen, every year, an average of more than 1,000 intern...