A day in the life of Lawyer Chen Zhenhua from Hangtianxin Law Firm providing legal aid in Jingning She Autonomous County

The Zhejiang Lawyers' Legal Aid Volunteer Action is jointly organized by the Lawyer Work Office of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Justice, the Provincial Legal Aid Center, the Provincial Lawyers Association, and the Provincial Legal Aid Foundation. Its aim is to provide talent support and service guarantees to areas within the province with severely insufficient lawyer resources, alleviating the shortage of lawyers in some parts of the province and promoting the balanced implementation of public legal services.

Seven lawyers and nine law firms from Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, and Jinhua will be dispatched to 16 counties (cities and districts) with insufficient legal service resources and clear needs, such as Shengsi, Qingyuan, and Wencheng, starting from the beginning of January next year, to carry out one year of legal aid volunteer service. Our firm actively signed up for this volunteer action and sent several lawyers, including Chen Zhenhua, Chen Chunping, and Zhan Shaofen, to conduct legal aid in Jingning She Autonomous County.

Starting January 1, 2020, Lawyer Chen Zhenhua will be the first member of our firm's volunteer team to go to Jingning County to begin his formal legal aid work. Lawyer Chen Zhenhua has been practicing for nineteen years. He is a member of the China Democratic League in Shenyang, specializes in civil and commercial litigation, has a patent agent qualification for new plant varieties, has experience as a senior executive in a large enterprise, served as the deputy principal of Shenyang Manchu Middle School in charge of legal affairs, and has been awarded the title of Shenyang's Outstanding Legal Aid Volunteer Lawyer. Starting today, our firm will provide a series of reports on the work and life of our aid lawyers in Jingning County. The following is a day in the life of Lawyer Chen as an aid lawyer.

On the night of January 10, 2020, at 12 o'clock, Lawyer Chen Zhenhua was still working hard at the legal aid site. Mei **, a 49-year-old migrant worker from Chengzhao Township, Jingning County, was hired to load and unload glass. While loading glass on a truck outside the construction site gate, the glass accidentally fell and cut her thigh. The skin, flesh, and bone in her upper thigh were severed, resulting in a very serious injury. The employer and the victim's family have been arguing over the payment of Mei **'s medical expenses. Because the employer was unwilling to advance the treatment expenses, multiple departments including the letters and visits office, labor inspection, labor arbitration, and judicial departments jointly worked on the case. Lishui Television Station also participated in the mediation and reporting. Lawyer Chen analyzed the handling of such personal injury disputes in judicial practice from legal and reasonable perspectives to the employer and the victim's family. After more than five hours of negotiations, the employer finally agreed to pay 100,000 yuan for the victim's treatment. At this point, Lawyer Chen's legal aid work came to a close. Next, Lawyer Chen will continue to follow up on this case, mediating on aspects such as the victim's subsequent treatment and the allocation of responsibility, striving to resolve the case properly from the root cause.

Zhejiang volunteer lawyers work in legal aid institutions in the assigned counties (cities and districts), mainly undertaking the following seven responsibilities:

★Actively handle legal aid cases, receive public legal consultations, and draft legal documents;

★Conduct legal lectures and publicity work;

★Provide legal business knowledge training and guidance to legal aid workers and grassroots legal service personnel in the service area, and conduct mentoring and assistance;

★According to local needs, serve as legal counsel to the local party committees and governments, providing legal opinions and suggestions for promoting the rule of law;

★Participate in window duty, village (community) legal counsel and other public legal services;

★Strive to resolve social conflicts and maintain social stability;

★Complete other work tasks assigned by the local legal aid center and lawyers' association.