About the Seminar

Modernity promises portable expertise: standardized credentials and formal training should allow professionals to work effectively across contexts. We test this promise through Chinese criminal defense lawyers who practice outside their home jurisdictions, whom we call “parachute lawyers.” Analyzing 553,814 criminal cases from 2014 to 2020, we find that parachute lawyers reduce clients’ probability of probation and increase prison sentences compared with local counsel. Elite education offers only modest mitigation, and alumni networks little compensation. Despite China’s unified legal codes, procedures, and bar examination, effective legal practice remains irreducibly local, shaped by jurisdiction-specific “legal microclimates.”

Speaker

Prof Sida LIU, Professor of Law and Sociology, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong

Prof Xiaohong YU, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Tsinghua University

Host

Prof Dong ZHANG, Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, HKUST