Firm News
The Law of Trust: Duan & Duan UK on 《攀登者》
· Last reviewed
Jackson Ng and Leon Chua discuss trust, cross-border legal services and the Chinese community in the United Kingdom.
Jackson Ng and Leon Chua of Duan & Duan UK LLP appeared on 《攀登者》 (The Climbers), a programme from 中央新影, broadcast on its Old Stories Channel (老故事频道), in an episode titled 《信任的法则》 (The Law of Trust).
Asked about the greatest challenge facing a firm such as ours, Jackson's answer was trust. A client who has moved to the United Kingdom, or whose business trades into it from China, may not know whether what a lawyer tells them is right, how the English legal system works, or how they are being charged.
Duan & Duan UK LLP is an English law firm, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Our approach is to practise English law first, and to explain every step in terms our clients understand.
"We're British lawyers first, and then Chinese communicators next."
Transcript
I think there's always going to be competition and difficulties in running a business. Being an entrepreneur on top of being a lawyer is a huge responsibility, and a huge challenge. But specifically in the legal sector, I suppose it's the lack of trust. If you're in a foreign country, or you've migrated to the UK, or your business is trading from China, you might not know whether what your lawyer is telling you is true, how the legal system works, or how you're being charged. Luckily for us, we have been lawyers for many years, I would say about 16 years, and we've run a law firm together as partners for the last seven years, so we have gained people's trust. But of course there are still difficulties. There is intense competition between law firms. But we pride ourselves on bridging the cultural differences and the language difficulty. We're British lawyers first, and then Chinese communicators next. That allows us to gain people's trust over time. You build a business up, you gain trust, and people start introducing you.