The following letter / email arrived in our inbox yesterday and we find it quite fascinating.
Any regular reader of our rag will know that we hold in the highest respect China rights lawyers, they are men and women of the same calibre of a Solzhenitsyn or a Mandela.
But what of those who tow the line or those who tread carefully in both worlds
I do hope that the researcher gets enough information through to try and attempt to draw some conclusions about what it must be to be a lawyer in China in 2018
Dear Colleagues,
I hope you are doing well and that you are in a helping mood.
For a while now I have wanted to do a study on the strengths and characteristics of Chinese lawyers and whether successful Chinese lawyers have different a skillset/ personality profile from their western peers. My working hypothesis is that there should be some differences – as many domestic Chinese law firms have different benchmarks for success from “western” firms, and also because Chinese corporate clients often have different approaches and expectations to legal services from “western” clients.
I connected with a British psychologist, Mr. Edward Walker, who recently did a study on UK lawyers, with some interesting implications. He used a tool called the High Potential Traits Indicator (HPTI) that tests conscientiousness (??), curiosity (???), adjustment (????), tolerance for risk (?????), ambiguity (???) and competitiveness (???). In some of these areas lawyers statistically differ from other professionals, and there are interesting differences between lawyers in law firm leadership positions and those not in leadership. We would like to see if that is valid for Chinese attorneys as well, and also how they compare to their UK peers.
The creators of the tool Mr. Walker used have agreed to allow us to use it for this study. We are interested primarily in China licensed attorneys, but the test is open to all. If you would like to help, you’d have to complete an online psychometric test that should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete. You would immediately receive a detailed and personalized report based on the answers you provide during the test. This report will be generated automatically once the test has been completed.
Data collected during the experiment will be analyzed and written up in a research report. The report also has the potential to be published in academic journals and presented at conferences.
Information collected from you during the study will not be personally identifiable to you in any way through these activities. All information will be stored securely and only the researcher sand test provider will have access to your data; we will not keep any identifying information about you.
Prior to completing the test, you will need to provide an email address and password of your choice, this is to allow your personalized report to be sent to you once you complete the test – and then navigate to the test or click on the link below again.
