去年，贝克?麦坚时国际律师事务所(Baker & Mckenzie)从中国监管部门手中得到了其梦寐以求的“001号”执照。该执照确认了该律所将成为首家获准在上海自贸区设立联营办公室的外国律师事务所。与之联营的中国律所是奋迅律师事务所(FenXun Partners)。

Overseas law firms have long been frustrated by the restrictions they encounter in China. When they recruit talented Chinese lawyers, for example, their hires must give up their local law licences — and thus their ability to represent their new employers’ clients in Chinese courtrooms. In many industries, most notably banking, it is far easier for Chinese companies and service providers to go overseas than it is for their foreign rivals to enter China.

海外律师事务所长期对他们在中国受到的监管限制感到沮丧。例如，在他们聘请有才华的中国律师时，接受聘请的律师必须放弃本土律师执照——这使他们不能在中国法庭上代表新雇主的客户。在很多行业（银行业最为明显），中国企业和服务提供商前往海外要比外国竞争者进入中国容易得多。

Foreign law firms are revelling in the continuing Chinese mergers & acquisitions bonanza, advising local companies on overseas purchases that exceeded $100bn last year and then surpassed that amount in the first quarter of this year alone. But their ability to service multinationals in the world’s second-largest economy is far more constrained.

外国律师事务所正陶醉于中国持续的并购热潮，为那些收购海外资产的中国企业提供咨询。去年中国企业海外收购规模超过1000亿美元，而今年仅在第一季度内便超过了这一数字。但是外国律所在世界第二大经济体为跨国企业提供服务时受到的约束大得多。

However, Baker & McKenzie’s unique arrangement in the Shanghai FTZ demonstrates that there are some interesting liberalisation experiments that could in time open China’s professional service sectors to meaningful overseas participation. This is particularly important in an era when international law firms, like the industrial multinationals they advise, have become increasingly reliant on global supply chains of their own. They support deals in the US, for example, with the help of low-cost back-office operations in Ireland and the Philippines.

然而，贝克?麦坚时在上海自贸区的独特安排表明，目前有一些有意思的自由化实验，有望在一段时间后开放中国专业服务领域，让海外提供商实质性地参与。在如今国际律师事务所（就像他们提供咨询服务的工业跨国企业一样）日益依赖于自己的全球供应链的时代，这一点格外重要。例如，他们利用设在爱尔兰和菲律宾的低成本后台业务，为美国的交易提供支持。

Baker & McKenzie’s collaboration with FenXun is carefully labelled a joint operation, as opposed to a joint venture, because the two partners remain “structurally separate”, says Milton Cheng, managing partner for the firm’s China and Hong Kong operations. Despite this, a Baker & McKenzie lawyer assigned to the operation can in effect advise the firm’s multinational clients on matters of local law anywhere in China. In this way, local hires who gave up their China licences to join the Chicago-based firm can “revive” them. “If there’s one thing you learn from being in China, it’s patience,” Mr Cheng says. “We see this FTZ development as a very positive step?.?.?.?If it all works it will help the liberalisation process.”

贝克?麦坚时中国内地和香港业务管理合伙人郑维明(Milton Cheng)表示，贝克?麦坚时与奋迅的合作被谨慎地贴上了联营、而非合资的标签，因为两家合作律所在结构上仍然是独立的。尽管如此，贝克?麦坚时被指派投入联营的的律师，实际上可为该律所的跨国客户提供有关中国本土法律问题的建议。这样一来，为了加入这家总部位于芝加哥的律所而放弃了中国律师执照的本土律师就可以“复活”这种资格了。“如果你能在中国学到什么的话，那就是耐心，”郑维明称，“我们把自贸区的发展视为非常积极的一步……如果一切顺利，它将有助于自由化进程。”

There have been some headaches along the way. While the Baker & McKenzie-FenXun joint operation was formally established in early 2015, it took almost a year for the new entity to get clearance to open its own bank account, making it difficult to do something as simple as issue invoices.

在此过程中有一些令人头痛的问题。尽管贝克?麦坚时-奋迅联营办公室在2015年初就已正式成立，但这个新实体几乎花了一年时间才获准开立自己的银行账户，此前连开具发票这样简单的事情都很困难。

Among developing economies, China has not been alone in frustrating some of the world’s best legal minds with Byzantine market entry barriers. The Indian government is known to be hostile towards foreign professional service providers, having scuppered what would have been a landmark global services agreement in 2014. Malaysian rules require that Baker & McKenzie can only call itself Baker & McKenzie if it actually employs a lawyer named Baker and a lawyer named McKenzie in its local operation. With a dearth of qualified Malaysian lawyers having either of these Anglo-Scottish surnames, Baker & McKenzie’s Kuala Lumpur office instead bears a “Wong & Partners” shingle.

在发展中经济体中，中国并非唯一设置繁复的市场准入壁垒，让世界上最优秀的一些法律人才碰壁的国家。印度政府对外国专业服务提供商不友好是出了名的，2014年印度的反对使一项具有里程碑意义的全球服务协定化为泡影。马来西亚的规则要求，贝克?麦坚时律师事务所除非确实在该国有一名叫贝克的律师和一名叫麦坚时的律师执业，否则就不能用这个公司名。该所找不到这种盎格鲁-苏格兰姓氏的合格马来西亚律师，结果只能挂上“Wong & Partners”的招牌。

A key benefit of the establishment of Baker & McKenzie’s Shanghai joint operation is that the firm’s clients in China will be able to tap into global supply chains that today affect law firms as much as they do manufacturers. “For the last eight years we’ve been investing a lot in understanding pricing and getting much more conscious about how to keep contracts within reasonable margins,” says Eduardo Leite, Baker & McKenzie chairman. Mr Leite notes that his firm deals with price-conscious “procurement officers” who keep as close an eye on legal bills as they do invoices from component suppliers.

设立贝克?麦坚时上海联营办公室的一个关键好处是，该律所在中国的客户能够利用其全球供应链。如今供应链对律所的影响不亚于对制造商的影响。“过去8年来，我们在理解定价、大力增强把合同保持在合理利润范围内的意识投入了很多，”贝克?麦坚时董事长爱德华多?莱特(Eduardo Leite)说。他指出，该律所要和对价格敏感的“采购经理”打交道，这些人密切关注法律服务账单，就像对待零部件供应商的发票一样。

It is now only a matter of time before Baker & McKenzie’s back-office support centres in Belfast and Manila begin to support legal casework in remote parts of China. That will start to entwine the world’s second-largest economy into global service supply chains as deeply as the manufacturing ones it revolutionised a quarter of a century ago.

现在，贝克?麦坚时在贝尔法斯特和马尼拉的后台支持中心开始支持中国偏远地区的案子只是时间问题。那将开始把世界第二大经济体深深地嵌入全球服务供应链，就像四分之一个世纪以前中国融入全球制造供应链，并带来一场革命那样。