The Red Circle ("红圈" in Chinese) is an informal term for leading

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...

s in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

that are perceived as prestigious or high-quality, similar to the

Magic Circle A magic circle is a circle of space marked out by practitioners of some branches of ritual magic, which they generally believe will contain energy and form a sacred space, or will provide them a form of magical protection, or both. It may be mark ...

firms in the UK and

white-shoe firm A white-shoe firm is an American term used to describe prestigious professional services firms that have traditionally been associated with the upper-class elite who graduated from Ivy League colleges. The term is most often used to describe leadi ...

s in the US. The term was first used by ''

The Lawyer ''The Lawyer'' is a legal business information product for law firm leaders, commercial lawyers, barristers A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. The ...

'' magazine in a report in March 2014, which used the term to define eight top-tier law firms in China. The eight firms include: Commerce & Finance (通商),

Global Law Office Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

(环球),

Haiwen & Partners Haiwen & Partners () is a Chinese law firm focused on cross-border securities, M&A transactions, private equity, general corporate and commercial dispute resolution practice. Haiwen is a fully integrated partnership with a modified lockstep comp ...

(海问)
Jingtian & Gongcheng
(竞天公诚), Jun He Law Offices (君合),

King & Wood Mallesons King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) is the largest global law firm in Asia. It has 30 offices and more than 3,500 legal professionals in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. Its predecessor firms include ''SJ Berwin'' of the United Kingdom's ...

(金杜), Zhong Lun (中伦), in Beijing; and

Fangda Fangda Partners is a law firm headquartered in Shanghai, China with offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. It is one of the 15 largest China-based law firms measured by number of lawyers. It is one of the most profitable law firm ...

(方达) in Shanghai. The list was later repeated by ''The Lawyer'' in its 2014 issue of a China-focused legal market report. Since then, it has gained wide popularity within the Chinese legal community as well as law graduates when it comes to recruitment. Although their sizes vary greatly, the Red Circle firms have much higher average revenue per lawyer (RPL), revenue per equity partner (RPP) and profit per equity partner (PEP) compared to their top 30 rivals. However, according to ''

'', two firms outside of the conventional Red Circle group – Beijing-based elite firm Han Kun (汉坤) and Shanghai-based LLinks (通力) – stand out from the crowd, having exceeded the Red Circle threshold across the RPL, RPP and PEP metrics in 2017.

References

{{reflist Law firms of China Neologisms

See also

References