On the morning of 8 November, the “2025 SGLA National Market Insights Summit” successfully took place in Chongqing. As a key segment of the “SGLA National Partners’ Convention & 5th Anniversary Carnival”, the summit brought together nearly 300 delegates from every regional office and invited guests. Centred on “regional synergy, resource integration and business innovation”, the event delivered in-depth exchanges and experience-sharing, injecting fresh momentum into the firm’s nationwide integrated development.
Moderator:
Partner Yang Xiao, Chief Operating Liaison Officer, SGLA Shenzhen Office
Keynote 1:
Partner Roy Zou, Managing Partner of Hogan Lovells and Vice-Chairman of the SGLA National Advisory Committee, presented Hogan Lovells’market-development and business-collaboration mechanism, offering SGLA partners a detailed look at proven international practices to inform the construction of SGLA’s own integrated operating system.
Keynote 2:
Han Deyun, Chairman of the SGLA National Management Committee, outlined SGLA’s national market-development and business-cooperation framework. He explained the operating philosophy of “national co-ordination, regional synergy, office autonomy” and the unique SGLA “N+1” model for joint brand-building and resource linkage. Han emphasised that the integrated operating mechanism is managed on three levels through:
1. The Chief Operating Liaison Officer system
2. The Internal Cross-Office Business Co-operation Guidelines
3. The Practice Conflict-of-Interest Rules
These tools channel market resources smoothly among SGLA’s 22 regional offices. The next priority, he said, is to advance from“individual lawyer case-sharing”to “team-based cooperation”and ultimately to “regional market integrated development”, achieving a quantum leap in nationwide collaborative capacity.
Regional Snapshots
Senior and managing partners from six macro-regions used solid data and landmark cases to showcase differentiated growth paths and synergy aspirations:
- East China – Senior Partner Shen Ronghua, Shanghai Office
- South China – Managing Partner Li Yuanyong, Shenzhen Office
- Central China – Deputy Managing Partner Wang Hao, Zhengzhou Office & Managing Partner Yu Kai, Wuhan Office
- Bohai Rim – Senior Partner Zheng Shiwen, Dalian Office
- Northwest China – Partner Lin Hongyu, Lanzhou Office
- Southwest China – Senior Partner Zhang Hongzhang, Chengdu Office
Yang Run, Managing Partner of the Guangzhou Office, together with representatives of Y. L. L. & Co. (Hong Kong), focused on cross-border services, illustrating how SGLA links the Mainland with Hong Kong, Macao and the globe.
“1+5” Brainstorming Panel
Six Chief Operating Liaison Officers closed the summit with a high-energy discussion on cross-regional collaboration, resource sharing and brand alignment:
- Yan Xiang, Guangzhou Office (also Member, National Executive Committee)
- Xu Yujian, Nanjing Office (also Member, National Management Committee)
- Deng Jun, Wuhan Office
- Xie Minmin, Beijing Office
- Chen Mo, Xi’an Office
- Lian Gaopeng, Kunming Office
The session generated practical and innovative ideas for leveraging their liaison roles to drive integrated operations.
The successful summit built a bridge for deep inter-regional dialogue, forged consensus on synergistic development and furnished a wealth of actionable experience. By deeply integrating resources and jointly exploring market opportunities, SGLA will accelerate its nationwide integrated operating programme, strengthen regional linkage and professional synergy, continuously enhance brand influence and market competitiveness, deliver higher-quality and more comprehensive legal services to clients, and write a new chapter amid the evolving tides of the legal industry.