From October 16 to 19, 2025, the 2025 Hainan Free Trade Port Legal Week was held in Haikou. Guided jointly by the All China Lawyers Association and the Belt and Road International Lawyers Association (BRILA), and hosted by the Hainan Lawyers Association, this event gathered over 700 Chinese and foreign legal experts and enterprise representatives from 14 countries and regions worldwide to jointly explore new approaches to building a law - based free trade port.

During this Legal Week, centering on themes such as new opportunities for legal services in Hainan Free Trade Port, international legal service exchanges and cooperation, innovation in maritime arbitration systems and rules, integrated development of the Free Trade Port with the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area, and law - business integration for going global, 16 exchange meetings were held, along with a series of activities including keynote speeches, guest dialogues, arbitration observation sessions, special lectures, signing ceremonies, and a special concert. These events aimed to offer suggestions and advice for the construction of the rule of law in the Free Trade Port.

At the Foreign-related Legal Services Exchange Meeting, 11 guests delivered wonderful speeches and exchanges. Excerpts of their remarks are hereby published for readers' reference.

The following is an excerpt from the speech delivered by Zhao Mingmin, Director of TAHOTA Law Firm (Haikou Office).

The development of Hainan Free Trade Port stands as a crucial institutional testing ground for China's high-standard opening-up in the new era. For the legal service industry, this not only signifies new market space but also a reshaping of capabilities and vision—whoever can provide strong professional and cross-disciplinary legal support for the open economic system will take the lead in the new phase of internationalization for Chinese lawyers.

It is a great honor to exchange some insights with all of you here today. Taking the five-year practice of Taihe Tai's Haikou Office as an example, I would like to share how we have explored the "TAHOTA Model" for foreign-related legal services in Hainan amid the tide of institutional innovation.

First insight: The evolution from a borderland pilot to the forefront of institutional advancement answers the call of the times.

Looking back at the development trajectory of Hainan's legal profession, foreign-related legal services did not take shape overnight.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Hainan’s opening-up centered primarily on the establishment of "foreign-funded enterprises" (joint ventures, cooperative enterprises, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises). Lawyers’ work focused mostly on company registration and basic legal services. At that time, foreign-related legal services were constrained by three major limitations: a narrow scope of practice, low language requirements, and a shortage of high-end talent—only a handful of lawyers possessed overseas educational backgrounds and were familiar with international rules.

Against this backdrop, a generation of Hainan lawyers embarked on an exploratory journey. Starting with providing compliance support for enterprises, they gradually accumulated practical experience in areas such as international transactions, cross-border investment, and dispute resolution.

As the construction of the Free Trade Port advances in full swing, Hainan has evolved from a reform pilot zone into a frontier for China’s legal innovation in opening-up. Correspondingly, the role of lawyers has transformed from "supporters" facilitating the landing of foreign investment to "drivers of institutional development" participating in global transactions, cross-border data flows, and dispute resolution—marking a shift from "borderland legal practitioners" to "co-builders of law-based opening-up."

Second insight: Breaking through talent bottlenecks to build a systematic framework—this is the path of practice.

In 2020, the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port entered a critical phase. As policy dividends were gradually unleashed and the demand for foreign-related services surged, there was an urgent need for professional foreign-related legal service teams with a certain scale, institutional framework, and professional breadth to provide safeguarding support.

That year, TAHOTA's Haikou Office officially launched its operations. Recognizing that future competition ultimately hinges on talent, we aspired to build a foreign-related legal team truly tailored to the institutional innovation needs of the Free Trade Port.

At that time, foreign-related legal talent in Hainan was extremely scarce. We identified "talent introduction, cultivation, and reserve" as our top priority strategy, and vigorously built a team of foreign-related legal professionals. Currently, while TAHOTA's Haikou Office is not the largest in scale within the industry, we boast the largest and most well-structured foreign-related lawyer team across the island.

Over the past five years, we have focused on three key initiatives:

First, "building nests to attract phoenixes"—we recruited lawyers with international backgrounds to form a compound professional echelon. This is not merely about "attracting people," but more importantly about "winning their hearts." We improved incentive mechanisms and optimized work division, enabling lawyers to root themselves in Hainan and grow through practice. Facts have proven that it is precisely these young "cross-disciplinary" and "multilingual" lawyers who have brought the most vibrant growth momentum to the Haikou Office.

Second, "mentoring the new by the experienced"—we established a "mentorship and knowledge transfer" mechanism to transform practical experience into a structured training system. Many young lawyers have evolved from merely understanding legal provisions to mastering international transaction rules and cross-cultural communication, and are now capable of independently leading cross-border M&A and international arbitration cases.

Third, "joint cultivation by universities and law firms"—we have established practical training bases in collaboration with institutions of higher learning such as Hainan University and Southwest University of Political Science & Law (SWUPL), and explored an "order-based training" model. This allows students to engage with real foreign-related legal matters while still at school, and the model has become an important supplementary pathway for legal talent cultivation in Hainan.

Today, the foreign-related legal team at the Haikou Office has grown to nearly 20 members. All of them hold overseas academic backgrounds from prestigious law schools, possess either a Juris Master (JM) or Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) degree, and are capable of working in multiple languages including English, French, German, Korean, and Vietnamese. This has truly achieved a leap in talent development—from scarcity to abundance, and from having a team to building a strong one.

Third insight: From local practice to the "TAHOTA Solution"—this marks the maturity of our model.

Over the past five years, starting from local practice in Hainan, we have gradually developed a replicable and promotable path for foreign-related legal services. Its core lies not in expanding business scale, but in transforming "experience" into a "model" and solidifying "individual practice" into "organizational capability" through institutionalized and systematic development. We call this the "TAHOTA Solution."

The essence of this solution lies in building the firm on professionalism, strengthening it through talent, and governing it with systems. It not only serves the legal development of Hainan Free Trade Port but also provides actionable experience and a replicable path for the internationalization of Chinese lawyers.

Looking ahead, we are more confident and steady in our steps. We also look forward to joining hands with all colleagues to collectively build a new ecosystem for foreign-related legal services in the Free Trade Port, and contribute our efforts to the steady and long-term development of Hainan Free Trade Port.