WHEN THE LIFTING of restrictions on Hong Kong lawyers working on the mainland was announced in the summer of 2000, it was hailed as the beginning of a new era.
'I am extremely thrilled by the policies which will create an additional and exciting dimension of legal practice for Hong Kong lawyers,' said Anthony Chow Wing-kin, the leader of a Law Society delegation which had just returned from Beijing.
Major reforms announced by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in July that year appeared to have opened up the potential goldmine of the mainland market as China prepared to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Hong Kong lawyers, it was revealed, would be allowed to take exams in Chinese law to enable them to practise on the mainland. They would also be allowed to be employed by mainland firms and form partnerships with them..
But a very different picture is now emerging, and ironically, part of the problem appears to have been caused by China's WTO entry in December. Apparently under pressure from other WTO states, the mainland authorities have backed away from granting preferential treatment to Hong Kong, a separate WTO entity. SAR lawyers are still banned from taking the qualifying exams and forbidden to accept jobs with mainland firms.
And when new rules are announced, perhaps later this month, they are expected to be little different from those applying to lawyers from overseas.