Criminal defense lawyers typically handle traditional defense and representation tasks, such as providing legal services to clients during critical stages like filing complaints, investigation, prosecution review, trial, and appeals. A common thread among these services is that they all revolve around ongoing litigation—essentially, they involve acting as agents within the legal proceedings. As public awareness of legal issues continues to grow, businesses and individuals are increasingly not only seeking ways to avoid civil legal risks but also placing greater emphasis on preventing criminal legal risks. This shift has highlighted the value of lawyers' specialized criminal law expertise and practical experience, leading to the emergence of a new category of non-litigation services: criminal legal advice and support for clients outside the courtroom.

From my experience and perspective, criminal non-litigation services can be divided into three stages.

In the first phase, criminal consulting services were the primary focus. Roughly two decades after the country began restoring its legal system and institutions, various reforms were still being explored. At that time, the economy was just beginning to take off, and both market economy rules and public awareness about them were still in their infancy. As a result, criminal law—particularly its guiding and regulatory functions—was still in its early stages. Businesses at this point were primarily focused on growth, paying close attention to property-related security concerns. While a small number of companies chose to hire full-time legal advisors or civil lawyers to help them sidestep contract disputes or avoid falling victim to fraud, most enterprises didn’t even retain regular civil counsel, often waiting until an economic lawsuit actually arose before seeking legal assistance. Meanwhile, the legal profession itself was still in its infancy, with a limited number of lawyers available to meet even the most basic litigation needs. Most attorneys lacked specialized expertise, often taking on whatever cases came their way—showing up one day in criminal court, then the next in civil court. In the realm of criminal law, businesses and individuals typically turned to lawyers only when faced with immediate, pressing risks, asking for advice on how to navigate tricky situations. More often than not, though, they ended up resolving these issues on their own afterward.

In the second phase, the focus shifts primarily to specialized criminal legal services. Over the past two decades, a socialist-market economy with distinctive Chinese characteristics has taken root, enabling businesses to flourish and citizens' legal awareness to rise significantly across society. As a result, societal demand for legal services has grown increasingly diverse and robust. Meanwhile, as legislation becomes more fragmented and complex, the legal profession has begun to specialize further. Non-litigation practices—such as those related to securities, finance, mergers & acquisitions, real estate, and intellectual property—are rapidly gaining prominence, now accounting for nearly half of all legal work. At the same time, other areas of practice, including criminal defense, are also entering an era of professionalization.

At this stage, economic and official crimes have surged dramatically. Compared to traditional natural crimes of the past—and to statutory offenses that were once notoriously vague and unpredictable due to ambiguous legislation—these increasingly prevalent economic and official crimes are now meticulously defined, with a vast number of cases. Yet, they also reflect the sophistication of modern legislative practices, featuring clear criminal elements and ensuring that the principle of legality in criminal law is effectively upheld in judicial proceedings. For businesses and individual citizens, while navigating the complex web of legal knowledge has become overwhelming and increasingly difficult to manage independently, awareness about prevention and risk avoidance is steadily growing. As a result, people are no longer content with reactive measures after incidents occur; instead, they’re shifting their focus upstream, seeking professional expertise to proactively eliminate criminal risks before they even lead to potential litigation.

After taking the lead in establishing DC’s Criminal Law Practice Department, I began focusing on corporate criminal risk prevention while simultaneously advancing the specialization of criminal defense. In my work planning, internal departmental collaboration, and external outreach efforts, I introduced the concept of non-litigation criminal legal services. I encouraged young lawyers to align with broader societal trends by refining and elevating their criminal defense expertise—approaching it from a fresh perspective—and applying these insights to proactive risk-prevention strategies for both businesses and individuals. I also urged colleagues to collaborate closely with attorneys from other non-litigation practice areas, actively engaging with companies through lectures, interactive workshops, and knowledge-sharing sessions. These initiatives aimed to educate organizations about economic crime prevention and occupational fraud awareness, fostering a culture of vigilance and risk mitigation. This forward-thinking approach quickly gained traction among my peers. Within just a few years of the department’s establishment, our team delivered dozens of high-profile presentations at businesses across Beijing and beyond. As a result, we’ve already started seeing tangible collaborative opportunities emerge—most notably, integrating criminal expertise into non-litigation projects handled by other departments. For instance, criminal law specialists now actively contribute to bid documents and large-scale project planning led by colleagues in other practice areas, helping to craft comprehensive service proposals that address both commercial and legal risks. In fact, when traditional, single-service legal solutions are enhanced with tailored criminal risk-prevention strategies aligned to specific projects, they become far more appealing to prospective clients. This not only boosts the attractiveness of our offerings but also significantly improves our chances of winning competitive bids.

During this period, we also took the opportunity of providing criminal defense—whether representing entrepreneurs or corporate executives during their legal battles, or even after the cases concluded—to highlight systemic vulnerabilities and gaps in foundational legal knowledge among executive-level staff, as revealed by these high-profile cases. This approach helped us promote the concept of proactive risk prevention within corporate management. Interestingly, both large state-owned enterprises and leading private companies, all of which had narrowly avoided severe setbacks due to criminal investigations, quickly embraced the idea of integrating criminal law risk management into their operations. As a result, many of these organizations began hiring us as their long-term legal advisors, entrusting us with the critical responsibility of identifying and mitigating potential criminal risks. Yet, a more common scenario unfolds: While companies are beginning to recognize the importance of comprehensive risk management, they often remain hesitant. On one hand, they worry that lawyers’ structured, compliance-focused mindset might disrupt their existing power dynamics or compromise operational efficiency. On the other hand, they’re reluctant to allocate additional human, financial, or material resources toward robust compliance frameworks. This hesitation leads to a peculiar pattern: Companies tend to hire criminal legal advisors but fail to actively engage them in day-to-day decision-making. Instead, they only reach out to their criminal defense attorneys when their internal legal teams suspect a particular issue could trigger criminal liability. At such moments, lawyers step in to conduct specialized analyses on the matters flagged by the company’s own legal team. Unfortunately, even when we flag potential risks—such as the possibility that irregular fund borrowing in a certain business line could escalate into embezzlement—we often find that companies, driven by aggressive revenue targets, simply ignore our advice. By the time they finally seek our expertise for a specific criminal legal service, the underlying risks have already spiraled out of control—often just before disaster strikes. In these instances, while criminal lawyers may still play a role in “preemptive” risk mitigation, their ultimate function ends up resembling crisis response rather than true preventive measures. After all, the key distinction between their work and traditional defense lies solely in whether the case has already entered formal criminal proceedings.

In 2011, two major industrial accidents occurred in China: the ConocoPhillips oil spill in the Bohai Sea and the Wenzhou high-speed train crash. Following administrative investigations into both incidents, both cases now face a significant risk of criminal prosecution. ConocoPhillips promptly retained our department’s lawyers, who conducted a thorough legal analysis of the accident sequence and concluded that criminal liability should not be pursued. Meanwhile, the primary parties responsible for the high-speed train accident were two entities: the railway administration authority and the communications and signaling group company. Of these two, the railway administration was swiftly held criminally accountable, with several officials prosecuted for dereliction of duty. As for the signaling company, however, the investigation has been far more complex due to intricate technical issues. Currently, a specialized task force of over 60 prosecutors from the procuratorate is actively probing the matter. To assist their client, the company also enlisted our team—myself and seven other colleagues—who adopted an immersive investigative approach, working around the clock for eight consecutive days. This involved conducting extensive interviews, meticulously reviewing documents, consulting industry experts, and carefully analyzing both factual details and relevant legal frameworks. By doing so, we managed to deliver a comprehensive, multi-page legal opinion to the company and its regulatory authorities before the judicial task force reached its final conclusions. Our report thoroughly examined the company’s internal management systems, research and development processes, product-testing protocols, as well as external factors contributing to the accident—and ultimately determined that neither the company’s leadership nor its technical staff bore any legal responsibility. Shortly after submitting our report, the special task force withdrew its investigation, sparing the signaling company from criminal charges.

In the years that followed, as economic phenomena such as fluctuations in the securities market, the restructuring of the insurance sector, and the rise of internet-based finance emerged, the number of specialized criminal legal service cases steadily increased—eventually becoming the new normal.

In 2016, DC's Criminal Law Committee established the Research Center for Corporate Criminal Compliance and Legal Risk Management, bringing together criminal law experts from its headquarters and numerous branch offices. This move marked the beginning of integrating criminal compliance into the firm’s nationwide institutional research and business development efforts, as criminal lawyers increasingly stepped onto the broader professional stage.

In the third phase, the focus shifts to criminal compliance. As time evolves, each significant milestone ushers in a new chapter. The ZTE and Huawei incidents in 2018 sparked a nationwide surge in interest around criminal compliance, marking the beginning of a new era for non-litigation legal services centered on corporate criminal compliance. This year was widely dubbed by both industry insiders and legal experts as the "Year One of Criminal Compliance." Driven by practical implementation, theoretical frameworks began to take shape: in November 2018, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) released the "Guidelines for Compliance Management of Central Enterprises," while in December 2018, seven government departments—including the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Commerce—jointly issued the "Guidelines for Compliance Management of Overseas Operations," officially placing corporate compliance on the national policy agenda. Against this backdrop, prosecution agencies, increasingly active in shaping social governance, quickly emerged as leaders in this evolving landscape. By 2020, thanks to the proactive efforts of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, grassroots procuratorates in cities like Shenzhen, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Shanghai had already begun pioneering innovative approaches to criminal compliance-based non-prosecution policies—what we now refer to as "corporate criminal compliance." This momentum culminated in June 2021, when the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, along with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance, among other key departments, jointly released the "Pilot Guidelines on Establishing a Third-Party Oversight and Evaluation Mechanism for Corporate Compliance in Cases Involving Enterprises," providing a foundational blueprint for putting corporate compliance into practice. Since then, initiatives aimed at fostering corporate compliance have steadily gained traction, with local pilot programs emerging in Fujian’s Jinjiang and Zhejiang’s Wenzhou, among other regions.

When it comes to criminal compliance, I believe it should be handled by specialized criminal defense lawyers—rather than, as has traditionally been the case with broader corporate compliance efforts led primarily by non-litigation attorneys. This distinction is dictated by the unique nature of criminal law itself. After all, criminal liability directly impacts personal freedom and can be devastating for businesses. That’s precisely why criminal compliance must be approached with utmost professionalism and rigor. I recently worked on a high-profile case involving the chairman of a major bank in Shandong Province, who was accused of bribery, abuse of power, and embezzlement of public funds. Upon stepping in to defend him, I uncovered that just one year after joining the bank, the chairman had implemented a groundbreaking core-employee compensation system. At first glance, this seemed like a well-designed, system-based approach to aligning employee incentives with organizational goals. However, further investigation revealed significant doubts about whether the plan had been properly vetted: while it had indeed been discussed by the board of directors, there was no clear evidence that it had subsequently undergone the mandatory approval process through the shareholders’ meeting—as required by law. This omission ultimately led to the charge of abuse of power. Another key allegation against the chairman involved his decision to launch an employee stock ownership incentive program, which raised over 20 billion yuan in funds. Surprisingly, the initiative was rolled out without seeking prior approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC)—a move that was swiftly halted once discovered. Prosecutors later argued that the failure to secure CBRC approval resulted in financial losses for the bank, including interest payments and other related costs. In response, the chairman claimed that they were already preparing the necessary paperwork for CBRC approval and genuinely believed the plan would go through without issue. Unfortunately, this miscalculation proved costly—and clearly highlighted a critical oversight in the bank’s internal decision-making processes. Most troublingly, neither the chairman nor senior management appeared to have developed even a basic awareness of administrative, industry, or business risks—let alone the far more serious threat of criminal liability. If legal counsel had been engaged earlier in the process, these potential risks could have been identified and mitigated proactively, preventing the situation from escalating into such a complex and high-stakes legal battle.

Currently, criminal compliance is emerging as the cornerstone of non-litigation criminal practice, rapidly gaining momentum. Leading law firms and prominent lawyers are already gearing up, eager to dive into this vast, untapped market. In my view, the first step for lawyers looking to get involved in—or excel at—criminal compliance is to move away from the traditional "solo practitioner" approach. While criminal law remains the core focus, criminal compliance isn’t solely about criminal matters—it’s a multifaceted discipline that intersects with civil, commercial, administrative, and non-litigation areas as well. That’s precisely why I decided to leave my previous firm and establish Beijing Xinglai Law Firm: to create a unified, specialized institution that brings together top talent from diverse fields. By assembling a comprehensive, fully integrated team capable of addressing all aspects of corporate compliance needs—whether criminal, civil, or otherwise—we can provide timely, precise solutions tailored to each client’s unique requirements. Ultimately, building such a robust and sophisticated institutional framework will not only strengthen our ability to deliver exceptional criminal compliance services but also position us as an industry leader, perfectly equipped to meet the evolving demands of today’s businesses.