On August 21, 2026, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) published a legislative-column review of the proposed Lawyers Law (律师法) amendment draft, framing the revision as a measure to safeguard the healthy development of the legal profession. The article lands days before the draft's scheduled second and expected final reading on August 25 to 28, 2026, the last public window to track the text before adoption and presidential promulgation. For Hong Kong and Macao lawyers practicing in the nine Greater Bay Area (GBA) mainland cities, the stakes are time-bound: the pilot authorizing their cross-border practice expires on October 4, 2026, and the amendment codifies that regime into permanent law.
First-read by the NPCSC on June 23, 2026 and consulted publicly on the NPC website through July 25, 2026, the draft sits on both the State Council and NPCSC 2026 legislative work plans and was drafted by the Ministry of Justice (司法部). It amends the Lawyers Law of the People's Republic of China, the apex statute for the legal profession, last revised in 2017. The NPC legislative-column article signals three working pillars: codifying GBA cross-border practice, strengthening foreign-related legal-services capacity, and hardening practice-rights and conduct norms PRC-wide.
What does the amendment change for Greater Bay Area cross-border practice?
The draft's most commercially urgent element codifies the GBA Hong Kong and Macao lawyer-practice regime. Since 2020, a State Council pilot has allowed Hong Kong and Macao lawyers who pass a special examination to practice civil and commercial law in the nine mainland GBA cities. That pilot is statutory time-limited and lapses on October 4, 2026.
Codifying the regime into the Lawyers Law would convert a renewable pilot into a standing statutory pathway, removing the recurring question of whether the pilot will be extended each cycle. For Hong Kong and Macao practitioners, their Mainland law-firm employers, and foreign-related legal-services teams, the practical homework is constant: confirm whether the codification carries over the existing qualification, examination and scope-of-practice rules unchanged, or tightens them at the transition. Until the second-reading text publishes, assume the pilot's substantive conditions persist but track the final articles line by line.
Which practice-rights and conduct norms does the draft harden?
The second pillar broadens and hardens lawyer practice-rights and professional-conduct obligations PRC-wide. The current Lawyers Law (Articles 38 and 39) already protects professional secrecy and bars conflicts of interest; the amendment is expected to strengthen procedural guarantees of practice rights (file access, client-questioning presence, protection from obstruction) and to tighten the conduct framework enforced by the judicial administrative authorities and the All China Lawyers Association (ACLA, 中华全国律师协会).
Conduct-hardening does not land in a vacuum. Since January 1, 2025, the revised Anti-Money Laundering Law has imposed customer due diligence, suspicious-transaction reporting and internal-control duties on law firms handling defined transactions, operationalized by the Special AML Preventive Measures in force since February 16, 2026. Read the Lawyers Law conduct amendments alongside that AML layer: a tighter statutory conduct baseline interacts with the AML gatekeeper duties on confidentiality, client risk-rating and reporting, and any tension between the two regimes should be resolved before the amendment enters into force.
Who must act, and by when?
Four audiences carry obligations or exposure here, and the deadline ladder is dense enough to warrant a calendar.
| Milestone | Date | Who it binds |
|---|---|---|
| First reading + public consultation | June 23, 2026 (to July 25, 2026) | All interested practitioners and bars |
| NPC legislative-column review | August 21, 2026 | Tracking signal for all audiences |
| Second and expected final reading | August 25 to 28, 2026 | All audiences (text freezes here) |
| GBA cross-border practice pilot expires | October 4, 2026 | HK and Macao GBA lawyers and their Mainland firms |
| Adoption + presidential promulgation (pending) | H2 2026, set after the reading | All PRC lawyers and law firms on entry into force |
The hard date is October 4, 2026. Hong Kong and Macao lawyers and their firms should not wait for promulgation to assess their position: if codification is delayed past the pilot expiry, a statutory gap could suspend cross-border practice rights until the new law enters into force, and firms with GBA desks need a contingency for that window now.
How does the draft fit the foreign-related legal-services push?
The third pillar strengthens foreign-related legal-services capacity (涉外法律服务), aligning the Lawyers Law with a policy of building PRC firms able to handle cross-border mandates. The State Council Regulation on Foreign Law Firms' Representative Offices (last revised December 6, 2024) already confines those offices to non-PRC-law work and annual provincial registration. Read the amendment's foreign-related provisions as a domestic-supply-side complement, not a loosening of the foreign-office perimeter: foreign firms with representative offices will not see their scope broadened by this draft, but they should expect a more capable and more tightly regulated domestic counterpart.
For compliance officers tracking this kind of cross-border and conduct change, continuous per-jurisdiction real-time monitoring is the practical instrument, and the verified regulatory AI companion helps triage the daily flow without replacing professional judgment.
Take advantage of this real-time watch
What to do next. Confirm whether your firm or GBA-qualified lawyers rely on the expiring October 4 pilot; track the August 25 to 28 reading text for changes to qualification, examination or scope-of-practice rules; map the conduct amendments against your existing AML controls; and brief the foreign-related practice team on the interaction between the Lawyers Law revision and the December 2024 foreign-law-firms regulation.
