I read with interest the article entitled, “The Road to China — Firms Explore Their Options For Cracking Coveted Market” in your June 7 edition. My firm, Davis Wright Tremaine, certainly agrees that China, the world’s third-largest economy and the fastest growing, is a very important place to be. I thought you might find our experience to be interesting. We were in fact the first United States law firm approved by the Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China to open an office in Shanghai. As compared with the firms mentioned in the article, which have entered China only very recently or are just now considering a China strategy, last year we celebrated the anniversary of our 10th successful year in Shanghai.
In 1992, the Chinese government adopted a regulation permitting foreign law firms to establish law offices in China. Because of our firm’s longstanding relationship with China and the outstanding reputations of Jerry Zhu and Jim Fang in the Shanghai legal community, the Shanghai Bureau of Justice recommended that Davis Wright Tremaine be granted permission to open a law office in Shanghai. In 1993, the Ministry of Justice in Beijing named our firm as the first U.S. firm with legal authority to maintain a law office in Shanghai.
