On December 16, 2025, Legal Innovation released its "2025 Annual Power List: Top 20 Lawyers for Overseas Services". Lawyers Zhang Di and Hang Li, partners of Tahota Law Firm, stood out for their outstanding market performance and excellent client reputation in the field of overseas legal services, and earned a place on the list.

Lawyer Zhang Di

As a partner at Tahota Law Firm, Lawyer Zhang Di also leads two practice groups—the Automotive Industry Compliance Group and the Cross-border Investment Group—at Tahota’s Nanjing Office. Endowed with a solid academic background as a Master of Laws graduate from Peking University, coupled with her business-related expertise, she previously worked at a Fortune Global 500 US-funded automotive enterprise and a new energy vehicle startup. She has been deeply involved in major projects such as compliance investigations for well-known foreign-invested car manufacturers and global data compliance initiatives, with a precise grasp of compliance key points spanning the entire automotive industry chain, from procurement, production and sales to after-sales services.

With cross-border compliance in the automotive industry as her core focus, Lawyer Zhang Di has taken the lead in establishing a network of cooperating law firms across the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the Americas in response to multi-faceted challenges faced by enterprises venturing overseas. This has fostered an efficient mechanism characterized by domestic leadership and overseas coordination. By formulating standardized contract templates, compliance review procedures and project management guidelines, she ensures the standardized implementation of cross-border projects.

In recent years, Lawyer Zhang Di has successfully provided legal support to benchmark clients in the new energy vehicle sector, and overseen the completion of investment deployments in countries including Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, and the United States. Her services cover key aspects such as corporate governance, equity structure design, product market access, data compliance, and intellectual property layout, with remarkable implementation results.

In addition, Lawyer Zhang has published more than twenty professional works. These include country-specific compliance guidelines for target jurisdictions like Thailand, Tanzania, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as in-depth analyses of industry pain points in areas such as anti-monopoly practices, data protection, and ESG within the new energy vehicle industry. She has also interpreted trade-related topics including RCEP rules and U.S. tariff planning. All these works have been included in authoritative platforms such as LexisNexis and Wolters Kluwer China Law Insight.

On this basis, Lawyer Zhang serves as the Deputy Director of the Cross-border Trade Professional Committee of the Nanjing Lawyers Association, and participates in legislative research projects commissioned by the National Development and Reform Commission to formulate compliance standards. Endowed with a unique combination of industry insights, mechanism innovation, practical implementation capabilities, and professional empowerment expertise, Lawyer Zhang Di has established a comprehensive overseas legal service system covering multiple regions and the entire project lifecycle, emerging as a core pillar supporting Chinese enterprises in their global expansion initiatives.

Lawyer Hang Li

Lawyer Hang Li, a partner at Tahota Law Firm, holds dual academic backgrounds in law and economics, and earned a Master of Laws degree from Northwestern University in the United States. Endowed with a multidisciplinary knowledge structure and international education experience, she possesses both legal compliance acumen and commercial judgment capabilities, forging distinct professional advantages in the field of cross-border legal services.

Over the past decade, Lawyer Hang Li has been deeply engaged in legal services covering investment and mergers & acquisitions, domestic and overseas capital markets, and the full lifecycle of enterprises’ overseas expansion. She is capable of delivering international market entry solutions that balance compliance security and commercial effectiveness for enterprises across different development stages and industry sectors.

Her practice focuses on overseas destinations spanning "four regions and ten countries", covering Southeast Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Dubai) and Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria). She provides end-to-end legal support encompassing overseas structure design, cross-border transactions, industry market access, industrial transfer, licensing & compliance operations, and dispute resolution.

In terms of cross-regional service models, Lawyer Hang Li has proactively built an international collaboration network, delivering one-stop cross-border legal services that cover the entire spectrum from strategic planning and risk management to project implementation. She has helped enterprises seize opportunities and control risks amid complex legal jurisdictions, and driven the successful execution of a number of landmark projects.

With her solid professional capabilities and keen commercial judgment, Lawyer Hang Li has gained long-term trust from numerous industry-leading enterprises and Fortune Global 500 clients, with her practice spanning core sectors including consumer goods, biopharmaceuticals, and intelligent manufacturing.

Meanwhile, Lawyer Hang Li attaches great importance to industry talent cultivation and social responsibility. Serving as an off-campus mentor at East China University of Science and Technology, she has promoted the in-depth integration of industry, academia, and research. Beyond endowing educational funds, she has also delivered public-interest legal lectures in communities, extending her professional value to public services and the development of young legal talents.

This practice path—combining strong practical capabilities, resource integration prowess, and a sense of responsibility—has enabled her to establish a distinct professional benchmark in the field of legal services for enterprises’ overseas expansion, making her a trustworthy long-term partner in the process of corporate globalization.

The overseas expansion drive of Chinese enterprises is advancing toward a new strategic dimension. As the reach of these enterprises continues to expand—from the steady deployment in infrastructure and manufacturing to the innovative leadership in digital technology and green energy—Chinese companies are deeply participating in the restructuring of the global industrial chain with diverse business formats and strong resilience. This journey not only fosters new opportunities for cross-market growth, but also comes with complex challenges such as compliance, local governance and geopolitical strategy.

To showcase the professional capabilities and service dedication of outstanding lawyers in the field of overseas services and establish role models, the application for the "2025 Legal Innovation Annual Power List: Top 20 Lawyers for Overseas Services" has attracted widespread attention since its launch on October 21, 2025. After a multi-dimensional evaluation process encompassing application review, expert assessment, peer research, and client satisfaction surveys, 20 lawyers with remarkable achievements and an excellent reputation in this field have stood out from the candidates.

All along, Tahota has adhered to an open and inclusive attitude, pursuing the harmonious unity of scale and specialization. After more than 20 years of sustained and rapid development, it has grown into a large comprehensive law firm with coverage across China and connections to the world. Looking ahead to a longer-term future, we will continue to uphold our relentless pursuit of high-quality legal services, and repay clients and the market with premium, efficient and comprehensive legal solutions.