Zhiheng Sharing | From Productization to Organization: Luo Yingchao's Zhiheng Dream - Providing a Reference Sample for the Chinese Lawyer Industry- Zhiheng Law Firm

This article is organized by the live broadcast content of "Director Zhiheng Face to Face Phase II: Cena Dialogue with Luo Yingchao".

In April 2026, Luo Yingchao officially joined

as the national executive director.

In the past two months, the 50-year-old manager has traveled to Zhiheng branches across the country. Many people are curious: why did a "veteran" who has been deeply involved in the field of law firm management for more than 20 years choose to start a new chapter in Zhiheng? The answer may start with the 800 yuan case 26 years ago.

From "not having enough to eat" to generating tens of millions of revenue:A lawyer's initial awakening to "product"

In 2000, lawyer Luo Yingchao started his career as a lawyer, earning a meager income and relying on part-time lectures to make a living. The first case he took on was a divorce case, and the representation fee was only 800 yuan. On the eve of the trial, he lay in bed and rehearsed it repeatedly, "playing movies" in his mind of every controversial point and every court statement.

At the end of the trial, the judge specially walked down from the bench, shook his hand and said, "Future barrister." This sentence came from the judge's encouragement, which he remembered until now. But at that time, he had not even enough food and clothing.

In the early days of his practice, Luo Yingchao developed a case source by actively approaching senior lawyers who were busy with business, starting from assisting in handling cases, and accumulating word-of-mouth in each case.

His first big client came from a small case referred by a classmate. He went all out and won trust with his unexpected service. He was recommended to a well-known local building materials business owner, thus opening up a new customer base.

Luo Yingchao only took a few years to break through the 1 million, 8 million, and 20 million. But what really made him think deeply was not the accumulation of wealth, but a core question:Can the lawyer's service get rid of the contingency of the case source and become a predictable, replicable and scalable "product"?

Therefore, he continuously focuses on similar cases of similar customers, achieving large-scale customer acquisition and high-quality delivery through division of labor and collaboration.

What is the "productization" of the legal profession? - Luo Yingchao's "positioning"

In Luo Yingchao's view, the "productization" of the legal profession is not a simple standardized packaging or marketing talk, but a positioning revolution.

"What exactly is a product? You have to be able to answer the question: who can I bring what?" He points out that the root cause of many lawyers' "panacea" -style busyness and anxiety is the ambiguity of positioning.

He emphasized,A product is essentially an "idea"."You have to plant an idea in your audience so that when someone encounters a certain type of problem, they will think of you first." This concept requires lawyers to break down the service process into manageable links - from market leads to opportunity judgments, from contract delivery to cash collection.

Whether it is the delicate work of individual lawyers or the teamwork of division of labor, as long as you follow this set of logic, you can get rid of the "anxiety" of winning customers by luck and handling cases by feeling.Only with a clear product positioning can we achieve sustainable scale expansion.

Two challenges, one answer: from individual heroes to "organisational empowered"

When personal ability and income reached a peak, Luo Yingchao felt a deep anxiety: the traditional mentoring system or solo mode was doomed to face two ceilings -Cross-regional expansion challenges and organizational dilemmas of team scale.

"Barristers work locally, rarely across regions; when the team gets bigger and bigger, how to divide and motivate internally is all a challenge." In order to solve these two problems, he resolutely stepped out of his comfort zone and threw himself into the deep exploration of law firm management.

The process has not been smooth sailing. He has spent huge sums of money in Beijing to recruit experts, develop systems, build law firms, and have also faced the disintegration of local branches. But each *************** has made him more certain: a truly successful organization must be free from"Able person"Dependence, build a set"Scientific management system".

It is this system that has allowed Kuangzhen to start in Changsha and expand to 28 branches across the country, creating an industry miracle among corporate law firms.

"Fu Weifu lives, so I won't go"- This quote from Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" is the best footnote to his management philosophy. A truly successful organization must get rid of its dependence on "capable people." Only when the founder does not put himself in that irreplaceable position can the system last for a long time and the cause can continue to be passed down.

Why Zhiheng? - a platform that carries the mission of the industry

When asked why he chose to start a new chapter in his career at Zhiheng, Luo Yingchao replied: "I think it's still a'fight 'with the legal profession."

In his opinion, China has a large and unique single legal services market in the world, which superimposes the international opportunities brought about by globalization.China is bound to have world-class law firms.

And Zhiheng is the ideal platform in his eyes to carry this mission.

was established in 1995. After launching a strategic transformation in 2021 and introducing a professional manager management model, it has developed into a large-scale and comprehensive law firm in just four years. At present, Zhiheng has 29 domestic branches and 4 overseas offices, with nearly 2,000 practicing lawyers, and the growth rate of the number of lawyers ranks first in the country.

The unique feature of Zhiheng is that it has established a very good institutional foundation.

The integrated operation model of "direct investment, direct sales, and direct management".The headquarters implements unified investment and operation of national branches to ensure the national connection of brands, standards and resources. This model breaks the loose structure of traditional law firms and gives the platform real organizational capabilities.

Professional manager system.Zhiheng has built a unique professional manager operation system - the executive directors of each branch have many years of industry experience and focus on the operation and management of the law firm, which frees lawyers from the complicated affairs of administration, finance, product publicity and so on, and allows them to devote themselves to the business.

What can Zhiheng do for lawyers? - Director Luo Yingchao's three answers

Someone asked Luo Yingchao: "What can Zhiheng give a lawyer?"

He thought about it, but didn't answer directly. Instead, he asked, "What kind of lawyer do you want to be?"

Then he told three stories.

The first story is about the "pool".

"When I first became independent, it was a problem to even eat," Luo Yingchao said, "How did I survive later? I relied on the lawyers to work on the case. They were too busy, so they gave me a little bit. I did it seriously, and when I did it well, the next one came to me. Slowly someone introduced me, and slowly I became independent."

He paused: "Think about it, if there weren't enough lawyers in that office back then, and there weren't enough cases flowing out, what would I do?"

He said that Zhiheng now has 29 domestic branches, 4 overseas offices, and nearly 2,000 lawyers, which is a mine in itself. There is a lot of room for cooperation between partner lawyers, key lawyers, and young lawyers at different levels. Specialization and productization are also based on division of labor and cooperation, so Zhiheng's scale will continue to be strengthened.

The second story is about "security".

"I had a master in my early years who was very kind to me and gave me a lot of cases. But he thought too much. One time he said he wanted to do business, and the other time he said he wanted to emigrate." Luo Yingchao recalled, "I thought at the time, if he really left, what would I do? I still remember that kind of insecurity."

Later, he did his own management and kept thinking about one thing: how to make the people who follow you feel at ease?

"You can only exchange if you have division of labor. If you don't divide labor, you do everything yourself, so there is no need to exchange." He says the law firm platform is like a "government" - not interfering in the specific handling of lawyers' cases, but the system and environment must be done well. The rules are transparent, cooperation is predictable, and everyone can settle their own accounts. "With a sense of security, he dares to concentrate and focus."

Third story, ambition.

Someone asked Luo Yingchao: "You have seen so many lawyers, what kind of person can become big?"

"Ambitious people," he said.

"You have a good product and a certain customer base. If you want to go from 10 million to 100 million, and if you want to expand from one place to the national market, what is missing? A system of management methods."

"I know how to do this, cross-regional market management, cross-role project management, how to build the process, how to set up the system, and how to distribute the income," said Luo Yingchao. These technologies have been used by lawyers in Kuangzhen for 17 years and have achieved great results.

In Zhiheng, provide a reference sample for the future of China's legal industry

Looking back, Luo Yingchao's identity has changed from the young lawyer who couldn't sleep all night for the 800 yuan case to the manager who is now in charge of the Thousand People's Institute and is committed to exploring a new paradigm for the industry, but his sincerity towards the lawyer profession has never changed.

He went from a successful lawyer to a full-time law firm manager, dedicated toBuild a system and platform that allows more lawyers to succeed.

"Whether it is a law firm or a mechanism that can be used by lawyers? In both cases, I actually care more about the latter."

At Zhiheng, he is turning this knowledge of more than 20 years of sharpening a sword into a practical force for driving change in the industry. Just as the count system created by the US law firm Kaiwei has influenced law firms around the world for a century, he hopes that Zhiheng's practice can become a "reference answer" for the industry.

For legal professionals who aspire to break through the professional bottleneck and go further on the professional path, this is not only a new starting point for their career, but also a grand experiment in the future of the legal profession.

This may be the next chapter that Luo Yingchao wants to write in Zhiheng -It is not the legend of one person, but the co-evolution of a group of people.

Guest introduction

Luo Yingchao

Zhiheng National Executive Director

Ralena

Zhiheng Management Consultant

Twenty-one years of service as a lawyer