What should I do? (question about legal training)

Legal Legal - Work
1

Hi, I hope this is in the right section.
I would really appreciate any advice. My situation is like this:

I am working now to save enough money to attend the GDL (formerly ‘CPE’) course which is a one-year law ‘conversion’ course for non-law graduates in England and Wales (similar to a US JD degree but shorter and probably less comprehensive). I have a place on the course for this September.

I once studied Chinese for a few months in Taipei, and I really liked Taiwan and would love to go back and work there in the future. My first degree was in Chinese (so I have also lived in Beijing). I considered applying for an MA in Law course at Tai-Da but I decided against it because my written Mandarin is not good enough yet.

I read through posts here and it seems that in fact there are some non-Taiwanese lawyers practising in Taiwan. I also saw that there are some non-Taiwanese Partners in a couple of the big international firms in Taipei. It would be great if anyone might tell their opinion on whether I can plan a legal career so that I would be able to work in Taiwan at some point.

I have had a careers interview recently but they basically didn’t know much about eligibility to work as a lawyer in Taiwan and couldn’t help me much.

I have a few ides so far on how it might be possible:

  1. Do the GDL, LPC and (hopefully) qualify in England. Later on, would there be any scope for working in Taiwan?

  2. Do the GDL in England, PCLL in Hong Kong (PCLL being the Hong Kong equivalent to the LPC), hope to get a training contract in HK and qualify in HK, leaving the possibility of returning to England open via Qualified Lawyer’s Transfer Test. Try get employment in a HK firm which has offices in Taiwan?

  3. Don’t do GDL (CPE) in England, go to Mainland and improve my Mandarin for a year or more, then apply to the Tai-Da LLM, aiming to work in law in some capacity in Taiwan. Perhaps this is totally unrealistic?

  4. Other?

Ok, to anyone still reading THANK YOU. :slight_smile:

If you could let me know what you think, that would be great. Is there a way for me to both become a lawyer and live in Taiwan in the future?

2

If you finish your course (or even if you don’t) and your Chinese is good you should be able to get some kind of job in a Taiwanese law firm. This would depend on your work status in Taiwan, so if you are a recent graduate, you will need a couple of years of documented work experience in a ‘relevant’ field. Ideally this would be as a paralegal, but a firm could hire you as an English editor or translator if you can show some kind of work experience.

The ‘best’ way to get hired would be as an Attorney of Foreign Legal Affairs. This is a special status for foreign lawyers in Taiwan. The rules for getting it are complex, but I think you have to be a member of your bar in good standing and you need to practice for two years in your home jusrisdiction.

AFAIK, all the lawyers with this status in Taiwan are American JDs, and you may encounter all kinds of problems if you are the first English lawyer trying to do this. The Taipei Bar doesn’t want competition from foreign lawyers and it will raise all kind of nit-picky stuff if it can, and it will be able to if the English system doesn’t conform to their expectations of how lawyers should be licensed and regulate.

Another route to a legal caeer here might be to do a law course at Taida or Suchou University. Suchou might be better because it is a more Anglo-oriented course and it will probably be more flexible than Taida. After you finish you can sit for the bar in Taiwan (good luck!) or you coud get paralegal work. The disadvantage would be that this path would tend to limit your career to Taiwan at a time when all the business seems to be China-oriented.

So there’s more than one way to do it, and you’ll probably figure something out. But think carefully: the legal market here has changed greatly since those foreigners you see in high positions here got started. The sun might be setting in Taiwan just as yours is rising.

If you are interested in the law, get the best training you can and get some real world experience at home before coming back to Taiwan. That kind of education and experience is at a premium here.

3

[quote=“hou de chuan ren”]

  1. Do the GDL, LPC and (hopefully) qualify in England. Later on, would there be any scope for working in Taiwan?

  2. Do the GDL in England, PCLL in Hong Kong (PCLL being the Hong Kong equivalent to the LPC), hope to get a training contract in HK and qualify in HK, leaving the possibility of returning to England open via Qualified Lawyer’s Transfer Test. Try get employment in a HK firm which has offices in Taiwan?

  3. Don’t do GDL (CPE) in England, go to Mainland and improve my Mandarin for a year or more, then apply to the Tai-Da LLM, aiming to work in law in some capacity in Taiwan. Perhaps this is totally unrealistic?

  4. Other?

Ok, to anyone still reading THANK YOU. :slight_smile:

If you could let me know what you think, that would be great. Is there a way for me to both become a lawyer and live in Taiwan in the future?[/quote]

I did the CPE and then an LLM in Chinese Law in SOAS before coming here. I’ve worked in Taiwanese law firms for three years now. I’d say that if you really want to live in Taiwan and you want to work in law you can do it but you will really need to choose which is most important to you. Otherwise you will end up frustrated and unhappy.

Taiwan is not a well developed legal services market and will be viewed as a backwater by any magic circle firms that look at your CV later on. Here the type of work will be pretty boring most of the time with the occasional really interesting case. You will rely on native English skills at least as much as any legal skills you have. You will have to learn to draft in arcane and obsolete American-style legal English if you want anyone to take you seriously… because that’s that they mostly know.

You will get sometimes more and sometimes less responsibility than you would at home, but all in a very random way depending on how Taiwan colleagues percieve you and your skills. You will do everything from drafting mind-numbingly simple emails to unbelievably complex public procurement tenders. Many Taiwanese lawyers will want to use your work to boost their careers and only exceptionally confident colleagues will give you the share of client contact that your work and responsibilites merit. However, in the early years that may well be more than you would get on a training contract or recently qualified in England.

There are some foreigners who have made a breakthrough and registered as ‘Attorneys of Foreign Legal Affairs’ and some have become partners. These are a small minority and notable and known mainly because they are exceptions.

Then you will need to be aware of the work permit requirements. You may be hired directly by a law firm or by the ‘consulting company’ associated with the firm. Your work permit would be issued according to the rules of the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Economic Affairs, respectively. Check out the requirements for a permit. They are different and higher than those which apply to English teachers.

If you qualify in HK I think you are pretty much exempted from the QLTT. Bear in mind that it is almost impossible for a foreigner to get a place on the PCLL or a permit for a training contract in HK.

I love being in Taiwan and I am happy with the decision I made. But I would say that if you want a ‘proper legal career’ as a foreigner in Taiwan the odds are against it.

These are just my opinions… others may have more sensible advice to contribute. Feel free to do a search as I think some of these questions have been asked before, although not by someone from an English law background.

[Edit: Didn’t See Feiren’s post above when I was writing. Agree with what he said!]

4

Thanks Feiren and Dreamer, I think I understand a lot better now. :sunglasses:

I found a couple of interesting links for anyone that’s interested:

http://www.winklerpartners.com/htmlffiles-english/Publications/articles.htm
(Article on changes to the ‘Lawyer Law’ on this page)

http://www.moj.gov.tw/chinese/ns_d3_11_lawyer_law_english.aspx
‘Lawyer Law’ in English (shouldn’t that be ‘Lawyer’s Law’?)

It seems as though there are heavy restrictions on practice areas for these lawyers and I wonder if there are more foreign lawyers working as an "Attorney of Foreign Legal Affairs’ or more working as a paralegal with locally qualified lawyers to work around the restrictions. (Lawyer Law:“Article 47-7:An attorney of foreign legal affairs may only practice laws of his/her home jurisdiction and the international laws adopted by the said home jurisdiction.”).

Yes, I think I will have to rule this out as an option, even if I did study Law in Taiwan I’d still be obliged to return to England and get the necessary work experience before I could work in Taiwan.

Ok, it looks like that is the best way forward for me then. I will definitely take up my place on the CPE/GDL. There is the definite possibility that Taiwan wouldn’t recognize it as fulufilling their requirements but that’s a risk I will have to take. I don’t have the funds to support a two-year course.

I will need to consider whether to continue and qualify in England+Wales or to copy Dreamer and study for an LLM and go down that route. What would be the best areas of law to get experience in in England if I were planning on the GDL/CPE+LLM+experience route? It seems like that way would give you more flexibility to work in diiferent practice areas.

I also think it would be extremely difficult for me to get a training contract in a firm that practices International Law and also to be taken on by the International Law Section post-qualification so that I could gain the necessary five years of PQE (3 if you work as a consultant/assistant for 2 years before applying for ‘AFLA’ status). Isn’t International Law in England dominated by firms like Allen+Overy etc.? I don’t stand a chance of getting a training contract with that kind of firm . :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

I did post on a HK board asking about this, I think no-one wanted to break the bad news to me that no-one will give a gwailao a training contract…they were just being nice . They did warn me that about how difficult it is to get a training contract in HK for anyone though. That’s a shame because I have a friend who would rent a room to me in her appartment in HK and I have a lot of friends there who would support me.

So it seems like there are two main possibilities here for me:

  1. CPE/GDL+LPC+training contract+3-5 years PQE in International Law
    => apply for ‘Attorney of Foreign Affairs’ status in Taiwan.

  2. CPE/GDL+LLM in Chinese Law+2 years relevant work experience =>
    apply for paralegal or editing work in Taiwan.

Basically the first idea means up to nine years before I could work in Taiwan and it all hinges on getting a training contract in a firm which practices International Law, getting that International Law experience and the CPE being accepted in Taiwan. hmm…

Thanks everyone for the help (this post has taken me aaaaaaages lol).

I might have made some mistakes in terminology here because it’s all new for me.