The Law Society of Hong Kong (LS) was founded in 1907, and its counterpart, the Hong Kong Bar Association (HKBA), in 1949. The functions of the two organizations are not dissimilar. Like the HKBA, the LS is the self-regulatory body and professional association for solicitors. To ensure that high legal standards are maintained, it closely monitors the conduct of law firms and individual solicitors.

Moreover, the LS’ portfolio is multifaceted. While developing the interests of its members in all areas of the law, legal practice and procedure, it also acts as their voice in the wider community. Whenever necessary, it makes the case for legal reform.

The LS is also outward-looking. Through its International Legal Affairs Committee, it is active on the global stage (including international arbitration). Closer to home, its Greater China Legal Affairs Committee develops legal exchanges and cooperation on the Chinese mainland (including promoting Hong Kong’s legal services and exploring business opportunities for its members).

Some LS members have passed the Ministry of Justice’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Legal Professional Examination. This enables them to provide legal services in the nine mainland municipalities in the Greater Bay Area (invariably on specified civil and commercial matters governed by mainland laws). This, in turn, facilitates national development.

Like the HKBA, the LS was severely tested during the black-clad violence that erupted in 2019. However, whereas radical elements (some associated with the barrister-controlled Civic Party) were able to infiltrate the HKBA and turn it into a quasi-political party hostile to China, they made little progress with the LS. Their attempts to insinuate themselves significantly into the LS were finally thwarted in August 2021 when elections for its governing council were held.

This was primarily due to the resilience of the then-LS president, Melissa Kaye Pang, and her top team (including her successor, Chan Chak-ming). If Pang’s supporters had not carried the day, the LS could have become marginalized, like the HKBA, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government might well have decided it had no choice but to sever its links.

As one of the successful candidates, Careen Wong Hau-yan (now a vice-president), explained, she and her colleagues had done their best to unite the profession and uphold professionalism, and their victory helped turn the tide. In consequence, the LS remained focused and true to itself and was able to provide leadership to the legal profession at a time when it was lacking elsewhere.

However, when Pang succeeded Thomas So Shiu-tsung in 2018, neither could have had any inkling of what lay ahead.

During his own tenure (2016-18), So was a doughty advocate of the rights of solicitors and an ardent supporter of judicial independence. A modernist, he invariably focused on the wider picture. Apart from advancing rule of law issues, he also encouraged, for example, the greater use of the latest technology, enhanced continuing professional development, and governmental funding for the legal profession and its projects. He also urged legal professionals to be fully engaged in the Belt and Road Initiative and sought to raise the profession’s profile internationally.

Once the storm broke, Pang stepped up to the plate. She was ably supported by her vice-presidents who, apart from Chan, included Amirali Nasir (who has rendered yeoman service to the LS over many years), and Brian Gilchrist (a steady hand in difficult times), and also by So (as immediate past president, he retained his LS council seat). It was a classic instance of “cometh the hour, cometh the lady”, and Pang was a strident voice of reason throughout the insurrection and its immediate aftermath. Unlike her HKBA counterpart, Philip Dykes, she was never accused of being mealy-mouthed or insincere when it came to condemning the black-clad violence.      

In January 2020, for example, she denounced the mobs’ depredations, including the arson in public and private areas, the damage to public transport, and the physical attacks on people with different views. She said, “Under no circumstances can these criminal acts be tolerated in a civilized society”, something the Civic Party (despite being barrister-heavy) could never bring itself to frankly acknowledge.

Moreover, at the legal year opening in 2021, Pang said that “to prevent unreasonable attacks on judges the LS has taken it as its duty to clarify misunderstandings and unfair criticisms at the first opportunity”. In other words, the LS (which she said remained “a professional body and not some pseudo political party”) stood foursquare with the Judiciary in its time of need.

With its firm leadership, the LS emerged intact from the crisis with its reputation enhanced, and strengthened by its experiences. Pang’s successor, Chan, inherited an organization that knew where it wanted to go. Like Pang, he was determined to ensure the successful implementation of the “one country, two systems” policy. He also became a powerful advocate for Hong Kong and its legal system and spread positive messages internationally, some of which were heeded.

At the outset of his presidency, Chan pinned his colors firmly to the mast. He said solicitors “have a duty to articulate and promote a proper understanding of the rule of law and to protect it from being undermined, eroded or misused” (Hong Kong Lawyer, October 2021). He denounced “open defiance of law and order, abusive graffiti against named judges, life threatening calls to judicial officers and unsound public criticism of court judgments, all attempting to pressure and influence the decision-making process of judges”. This was spot-on, and his observations must have been music to the ears of the Judiciary (then, as now, facing existential threats).  

When, moreover, two senor British judges, lords Reed and Hodge, who sat on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA) as nonpermanent judges, suddenly resigned in March 2022, following political pressure exerted by the United Kingdom’s then-foreign secretary, Liz Truss (who the former governor, Chris Patten — to his credit — roundly denounced), Chan immediately contacted the London-based Commonwealth Lawyers Association to set the record straight. He explained that concerns about judicial independence were groundless and that the Judiciary was as impartial as ever (he could also have pointed out that anti-China elements in the UK wanted to weaken the HKCFA as a means of undermining the “one country, two systems” policy, but this was left for another day).

Moreover, in November 2022, Chan, together with his vice-presidents, traveled to Singapore, the UK, and the United States to tell the “Hong Kong story”. He did his utmost to dispel the false narratives that were claiming, for example, that “judicial independence, fair trials and free speech” were dead in Hong Kong. He also rammed home the message that the rule of law was alive and well with the foreign lawyers who attended the acclaimed international legal events the LS hosted (including the 34th Summit of Presidents of Law Associations in Asia, in June 2024), as part of its efforts to rejuvenate Hong Kong after the black-clad chaos and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Having worked closely with So, Pang, and Chan, the current LS president, Roden Tong Man-lung, who succeeded Chan last June, represents continuity, which is no bad thing. By contrast, when Victor Dawes succeeded the ill-fated Paul Harris as the HKBA chairman in 2022, he had no choice but to make a clean break with the past, given the dire situation he inherited. Fortunately, Tong faced no such problems, and he seamlessly picked up where Chan left off.  

When Tong addressed the legal year opening in January, like his predecessors, he lauded “judicial independence”, and his message was to “think big”. He urged Hong Kong’s lawyers to capitalize on their “distinctive advantages”, including their international experience, familiarity with global standards, and involvement with global networks. If this was done, it would enable the LS to “adeptly address complex legal challenges”. As he discharges his mandate, Tong is fortunate to be able to draw on the fund of goodwill he inherited from his immediate predecessors.

Although the LS has more than proved its credentials over the past decade, its members do not invariably receive the recognition they deserve.  

On Jan 20, the chief justice, Andrew Cheung Kui-nung (at the legal year opening), was correct when he said the HKBA, like “the solicitors branch of the profession”, had been a “staunch defender of the rule of law”.

He explained the Judiciary was greatly assisted by the “strong and independent Bar that the community is fortunate to have”, adding that barristers had a “special role as defenders of the rights and interests of their clients”.

Although this was undoubtedly true, the same can, as So immediately pointed out, also be said of the city’s solicitors (South China Morning Post, Feb 3). He explained that “members of the solicitors branch of the legal profession have been equally staunch defenders of the rule of law and made similarly large contributions to helping the courts administer justice”.

When discussing judicial recruitment, Cheung highlighted the role of the “senior ranks of the Bar” in enriching the Judiciary, given their “strong understanding not only of the law but also of our common law”. The “many ways” in which the Bar had contributed to the rule of law had been “widely acknowledged”.

As So explained, the same was also true of the city’s solicitors. He said that “members of the solicitors branch of the legal profession have made similarly large contributions to helping the courts administer justice”. Indeed, throughout the insurrection, the LS was indefatigable in its defense of the rule of law, fervently (and repeatedly) supporting the Judiciary and its independence.

The Bar has traditionally provided many of the city’s judges and magistrates, although certainly not all. Cheung said the Bar’s support of the rule of law through its senior members becoming judges was “urgently needed”, and this will hopefully happen. However, there are many senior solicitors who can also be considered for recruitment.

Since 2013, for example, a category of solicitors, known as solicitor-advocates, has been allowed to conduct cases in all of Hong Kong’s courts (including the HKCFA). So indicated that there are now over 100 solicitor-advocates, many of whom have “vast experience” of court work and arbitration. This is a reservoir which the Judiciary can also tap, and there are no laws preventing judicial appointments for solicitors at all levels (and they do not necessarily have to be solicitor-advocates, as specialist legal experience of any type is always an asset the Judiciary requires).

So (himself a former deputy district court judge) added that many solicitors had served as “deputy magistrates, deputy district judges and deputy high court judges over the years”. Moreover, solicitors had also previously accepted substantive appointments in the trial courts at all levels, and he emphasized that whenever judicial vacancies arose, solicitors with the right qualifications “deserve equal consideration”.

Although So did not mention it, he could also have pointed out that there is no reason why solicitor-advocates in private practice should not be eligible, like barristers in private practice, to become Senior Counsel (known as “taking silk”). Indeed, solicitors working in the Department of Justice were given the right to apply to take silk in 2021, and the exclusion of private sector solicitor-advocates is irrational. If a solicitor-advocate is considered capable of conducting a case all the way to the HKCFA, he or she should be eligible to take silk (and to assume high judicial office).

After all, in England and Wales, where solicitor-advocates were introduced in 1994 (a move which inspired Hong Kong), they were entitled to apply for silk from the outset (the first two solicitor-advocates were appointed as Queen’s Counsel in 1997).

By any yardstick, Hong Kong’s solicitors are making considerable contributions to its legal system. They sometimes instruct barristers (an historical function), appear as advocates at all court levels (a recent development) and become judges and magistrates (a role that has gathered momentum in recent years). This prompted So to conclude “their contributions cannot be seen to be subordinate in nature” (a common enough view in LS circles).

As with the Bar Council of England and Wales, the HKBA has always been viewed as representing the “top end” of the profession, but times are changing. Recent developments have seen the solicitors’ branch coming fully into its own and parity of treatment should now be the order of the day in most, if not all, areas.

In its 118-year history, the LS has developed, supported, and where necessary, protected Hong Kong’s legal system (including its Judiciary). The community stands to benefit if solicitors can maximize their contributions, whether as advocates, judges or otherwise. Although their functions sometimes differ from those of barristers, Hong Kong’s successes, legal and otherwise, heavily depend upon them. It is high time for the powers that be to appropriately acknowledge not only their worth but also their potential.

The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.