Mr. Li is a seasoned corporate lawyer with entrepreneurship spirit. He has extensive work and life experience in both China and the US. Recently, Mr. Li has focused his energy on facilitating communications between cultures, leveraging his rich cross-border practice insights to help close deals.
In more than 30 years of practice, Mr. Li has built and transformed himself several times, from a rising banking lawyer in Shanghai to a vanguard IPO lawyer in China, from an established cross-border M&A practitioner to a trusted US/China business transaction advisor. His ventures took him from Shanghai to New York, from California to Washington, and he has been deeply rooted in the local communities wherever he goes, and has therefore become a valuable asset to connect, often with very plain language (English or Chinese), in the legal, business world and beyond, for his clients interested in understanding a different world and investing there.
Mr. Li’s regularly represents Fortune 500 companies investing in China and has been the lead lawyer in several “deals of the year” type of M&A, investments, and joint ventures, involving automobile, clean energy, healthcare, hospitality, life insurance, online retail, and etc. He counsels many more companies on corporate governance and compliance for their China operations. He has also advised in more than 200 IPOs and bond offerings, listed in Shanghai, New York, Hong Kong and on other world’s leading stock exchanges, many were first of its kind, or largest IPO, either in the history of that stock exchange, or of the year globally.
Mr. Li regularly advises entrepreneurs and corporations to invest and operate in the US, especially in the West Coast. While focused on corporate practice, he often partners with his colleagues and specialists from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley, from New York to Washington DC to help his clients navigate through complicated issues such as CFIUS, export control, data protection, and etc..
Since 1990s, Mr. Li has been consistently ranked as a leading corporate and M&A lawyer. In the past several years, he has been consecutively named as an Eminent Practitioner by Chambers & Partners, a Highly Regarded Lawyer by International Financial Law Review, included in Who‘s Who Legal and entered the Hall of Fame by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific. Early in his career, Mr. Li was the key founding partner of a “Red Circle” law firm based in Shanghai.
Mr. Li is active both in local and international legal communities as well as in charitable organizations. He is currently a director of Seattle Chinese Bar Association, a former Vice-Chair of China Committee, American Bar Association, Section of International Law, a current member and former director of Shanghai Bar Association, a current member and former executive of Chinese American Lawyers of the Bay Area. He teaches in Shanghai University of Finance and Economy, and is an arbitrator with Shanghai Arbitration Commission.
J.D., LL.M., Columbia Law School, New York, New York, U.S.A,
LL.M., LL.B., Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Admitted to practice in the People’s Republic of China
Admitted in New York State, U.S.A.
Admitted in Washington State, U.S.A.
Bilingual English and Chinese
Chambers Global 2024