The lawyers in the changing society of modern Shanghai (Chinese text)

This is a study of the system of lawyers in the city of Shanghai during the late Qing and early Republican period when the city went through a process of rapid changes and dynamic transformation from a treaty-port to become the most modernized city in Asia.; The objectives of this dissertation are threefold: First, it attempts to trace the origin and initial development of the lawyer system in Shanghai in the post-Opium War years, and to examine and analyse the changing roles and functions of the lawyers in the Foreign Settlements of Shanghai, discussing the conflicts and tensions of Chinese and western legal traditions and assessing the impact of modern lawyers in the rapidly changing society.; This part of the dissertation focuses on the introduction of the lawyers system and the role of foreign lawyers in Sino-western litigations under the Mixed Court. The law offices operated by lawyers from various foreign countries, and the range of their legal activities are carefully examined and discussed. As this dissertation attempts to show, the lawyer system, though initially confined to the Settlements, had gradually expanded in the late nineteenth century to become a publicly accepted and recognized legal element in the Shanghai community at large.; The second part of the dissertation, focussing on the Republican period, discusses and analyses the native lawyers and the role and function of the Bar Union of Shanghai which served as an important link between the judicial department of the Government and the practicing lawyers in the community.; The last part of the dissertation is analysis of the social status of the lawyers as an emergent elite group, and to show, through an examination of concrete cases, the collective impact of the lawyer system on the transformation of the modern city of Shanghai.