In this issue, we invite Lawyer Jenny Meng to jointly interview Lawyer Ellie Gu from SHANGHAI VERITAS LAW CORPORATION. Lawyer Gu shared with us his study experience, career path, and working content, explaining in depth the family wealth transfer, the introduction of foreign investment and other businesses, and put forward his own insights on the career planning of young lawyers.
Lexloong: please introduce yourself briefly.
Ellie: I am a young lawyer who has changed tracks many times. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in international economic law from ECUPL and went on an exchange study in Spain during my bachelor's degree. After that, I attended the LLM program at Boston University and earned a degree in AML in International Business Concentration. After graduating, I worked in the front office, back office and law firm, accumulating valuable experience in legal and financial business.
01 Work
Lexloong: can you introduce your working experience?
Ellie: My work experience covers a wide range of fields, mainly around foreign-related fields and financial business. Initially, I worked in the front office of a foreign family office, where I was responsible for various business development and undertaking work, including the establishment of VIE structures, the design of cross-border investment structures, the establishment of offshore funds, the establishment of offshore trusts, and the identity planning of some small Caribbean island countries, such as Dominica and Grenada.
Because my first job was in the business department, I focused more on business development and project promotion matters, and I felt that my development was a little limited in the later stage, and I wanted to focus more on my professional ability, so I chose to change jobs. After that, I moved to the risk management department of a fund administration company as a legal director and had a small team of my own. The responsibilities of the back-office legal work include the handling of regular compliance affairs of the enterprise, the legal support of the front-end business, and the risk control audit work related to some fund institutions. In this position, in addition to providing legal advice on business undertaking and daily operation of the company, reviewing business contracts and making templates, updating and revising the company's system and process, accessing supplier due diligence, and participating in business negotiations, I also have the opportunity to have an in-depth understanding of the fund industry, including the TA/FA business (share registration/valuation accounting) of RMB funds, the registration of private equity fund managers, product filing, information disclosure and other matters, as well as participating in the management of securities declarations, the landing support of financial technology business lines, etc. Assist in the bidding projects of banks and securities, the internal audit of each business line, and the emergency response to emergency risk events. At present, he has joined a domestic law firm managed by a company system, mainly focusing on cross-border legal business.
Lexloong: If you are engaged in fund business, do you need to have some relevant tax or financial background to be able to analyze?
Ellie: In the fund industry, in addition to legal expertise, it is important to have knowledge of finance and taxation. Generally, projects will involve professionals with accounting or finance backgrounds, but if you have both tax and legal knowledge, you will undoubtedly have a competitive advantage. I believe that this is common in the field of pan-asset management.
Lexloong: If you are involved in a particular area of expertise, would you also ask an professional lawyer for their opinion?
Ellie: When dealing with fund business, it is essential to consult a professional lawyer. However, in order to continuously improve my professional ability, I will prefer to gradually acquire relevant professional knowledge and skills on my own. For example, you can actively participate in the training of fund practitioners by AMAC to understand the latest industry trends and regulatory changes. At the same time, thanks to the information age, you can also pay attention to the latest relevant academic articles on the Internet and the interpretation and sharing of professionals, and continuously improve your professional quality through self-study. Those who are familiar with the industry should know that there are a lot of new regulations in the fund field this year.
Lexloong: Can you talk about the challenges you have faced when studying abroad or working abroad?
Ellie: Since I haven't studied abroad for a long time, maybe even shorter than most of my readers, I may not be able to provide effective advice in this area. Basically, language and cultural differences are one thing, each country has its own culture and taboos. In addition, the differences in legal systems and different classroom methods are also a challenge, requiring serious study of legal search and adaptation to Socratic method.
In terms of work, my current focus in the law firm is foreign business, and more than 80% of our clients are foreign investors and foreign-invested enterprises from all over the world. In my current role, I will be in contact with customers and partners in many countries, including Russia, Singapore, Indonesia, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, etc. I feel that there are many issues worth paying attention to in foreign-related work, and the most common problems encountered are communication and coordination. Communication and coordination with customers often take more time and effort due to time differences and language barriers.
The first problem is jet lag: when communicating with overseas clients or colleagues, jet lag can be an obstacle. When booking a video conference, you need to pay attention to the time zone of each party and choose a time that is more suitable for both parties. At the same time, the time difference can be fully used to move the project forward.
The second is to understand and adapt to different work styles: each country and every business has its own work habits and styles. In foreign-related work, it is very important to understand and respect the working habits of the other party. For example, some countries may prefer to communicate via email, while others may prefer to use instant messengers (even voice, and some prefer to turn on the camera uniformly).
Again, it is necessary to clarify the "needs": to clarify the needs of customers, to help customers consider all aspects behind the needs he puts forward. For example, customers may only focus on customs when consulting import and export, but in fact, there will be many other details of international trade, such as insurance, transportation, warehousing and so on. When communicating, you should also be clear about your needs, such as whether you tend to quickly connect with only a fee range, when the DDL is, and whether there are specific requirements for content or qualification. This is also related to the second one, such as asking for a quote, some suppliers may quickly provide an estimate through the body of the email, but there are also suppliers who may delay a few days and then provide you with detailed documentation.
Finally, there is a problem of fees and communication: when agreeing on service charges, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the fee structure to avoid misunderstandings, unexpected expenses or even disputes to affect the customer experience.
Lexloong: The "family wealth transfer" business you are engaged in has a strong momentum of development in Chinese mainland, can you popularize the situation in this field?
Ellie: Family wealth has been quite popular in recent years, and the types of family offices that have seized the family inheritance track in China are still relatively diverse, including some traditional wealth management or asset management institutions such as commercial banks, trust companies, securities companies, futures companies, etc., family offices set up by entrepreneurs, third-party wealth management institutions or consulting institutions, and some family offices set up by professional service institutions such as lawyers and accountants.
Family wealth inheritance requires a series of services such as identity planning, wealth management, tax planning, legal advice, family governance, and back-office education for family businesses or wealthy families. Clients usually hope that their wealth can be smoothly passed from one generation to the next, with a certain rate of return and appreciation on a safe basis, and at the same time, they also want to minimize tax burdens and legal risks in the process of inheritance. Therefore, family wealth inheritance advisors need different professionals to be involved in order to provide a full range of solutions, including lawyers, tax accountants, financial professionals, etc.
Different customers will have different needs and positioning, and for individuals, it may involve cash flow control, inheritance and inheritance planning, second-generation marriage property planning, inheritance tax reserve, tax source planning, etc.
Lexloong: What other ways do you think family wealth transfer is commonly used? What are the possible challenges?
Ellie: The most common inheritance tools are wills, insurance, trusts, funds, and family offices, and there are many articles on the comparison of inheritance tools on the market. I can briefly talk about some of the general issues to be concerned about in the early stage of communication:
First of all, the nationality and identity of the family members, I previously dealt with the situation where Chinese clients want to deal with overseas assets, mainly in the form of offshore trusts, and now my law firm is more exposed to the situation of foreign nationals dealing with domestic assets. When approaching customers, they generally first understand some basic information, such as the customer's own nationality and the international status of the customer's family members. In one of my previous cases, there were cases where three of our children were of different nationalities.
The second is the question of the application of the law. Different nationalities and different ways of inheritance may touch multiple jurisdictions, because Chinese lawyers cannot express opinions on foreign laws, and sometimes need to contact some foreign lawyers to give legal opinions. In the past, some clients encountered that the form of notarized documents made in the early years could not meet the requirements of foreign law, and finally there were problems with their validity. For foreigners, it is not only necessary to consider how to effectively handle their domestic assets in China, but also to consider the convenience and circulation of asset inheritance procedures, such as inheritance tax in some countries.
Then the client's assets will be sorted out: the client will have domestic and overseas real estate, company equity, stocks, funds, insurance policies, cash (RMB, foreign currency). Cash is actually a little more sensitive, and it is necessary to verify the source of funds, so it is recommended to ask a tax accountant to issue tax advice on unpaid assets and deal with them in accordance with the procedures and compliance. There are also other things to know about debt, children's education plans, and more. There are many matters that are linked to identity planning, and now many of them are instrumental identity planning, such as the purpose of children's education and tax planning, and most countries have immigration supervision procedures before permanent residence or naturalization, in fact, the cost of immigration is very large for customers.
Lexloong: What do you think are the risks of family succession arrangement?
Ellie: In my opinion, a compliant family succession plan should fully consider various risks: legal risks (illegal structure, blurred property rights, nominee shares, criminal confiscation, debt bankruptcy, contract performance, etc.), financial risks (market fluctuations, leverage amplification, accidental losses, debt recovery, manager credit, investment and financial management, etc.), tax risks, and property division risks (divorce, children and grandchildren are disappointed, etc.)
Lexloong: Based on the overall environment and the current situation of the economic situation, has this area been affected by the overall environment?
Ellie: On the contrary, I feel that the number of personal business inquiries has increased after the epidemic has been relaxed, and everyone is still paying attention to the issue of inheritance this year. I have heard a lot of feedback from friends that the capital market is still very difficult this year, and then this year's foreign business is basically waiting and watching or considering exiting, and the amount of investment or M&A consulting in China is significantly not as much as in the past, and I tend to be more receivables, cancellations, layoffs, executive negotiations and even restructuring and other businesses this year.
02 Life
Lexloong: Do you think you have achieved work-life balance now?
Ellie: There are still difficulties at the moment, and it is still quite busy at this stage. On the one hand, I am responsible for the marketing and product promotion of our law firm, and on the other hand, I follow the partners to do business development, participate in various activities and forums, and visit customers and partners. In addition to this, I am also working on quotations, following up on projects, etc. I still develop in the direction of non-litigation, but to be honest, non-litigation and litigation are not so absolutely separated, and most lawyers still have to face the pressure of life if they consider independence in the later stage, and they may not have enough to eat if they only do this aspect of business. Moreover, you can't completely ignore litigation when doing non-litigation business, because the contracts and documents issued must be able to land, and the things that are made without understanding litigation will be in the air, and you may even find that you can't operate at all when a dispute occurs! If you want to develop in the legal profession for a long time, you must continue to expand yourself whether you are practicing law or being a lawyer, and you must always maintain a state of long-term learning.
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