When discussing how lawyers should communicate with business teams, Attorney Yeman Xie points to a small but easily overlooked detail.

A business professional explains something, but the lawyer struggles to understand and asks for clarification. Then another issue comes up, and once again, everything has to be explained from scratch. After several rounds of this, the business professional may simply lose interest in continuing the conversation.

“Forget it. I'll just say less.”

This is how Xie imagines the other person's unspoken thoughts. There is no argument, nor necessarily any obvious unwillingness to cooperate. The conversation simply becomes a little shorter. Yet what lawyers need to understand is often hidden precisely in what goes unsaid: why a particular policy was never implemented, why a payment was made ahead of schedule, or where exactly a business process has become stuck.

In Xie's view, the first step in corporate compliance work is making business professionals feel that the lawyer sitting across from them genuinely understands what they do.

As a senior partner at Dacheng Law Firm, Xie is direct when discussing her work. Asked about professional expertise, she talks not only about legal judgment but also about the people involved: who needs to participate, who should be kept informed, and when she herself needs to step in if communication breaks down. When speaking about younger lawyers, she is equally candid. Some produce lengthy legal analyses without ever answering the question that matters most to the client.

“You've spent all this time analyzing the issue, but you still haven't told me what I should actually do. What are the pros and cons of taking that approach?”

She often puts questions from the company's perspective. This mindset has been shaped by more than a decade of handling litigation and serving as long-term legal counsel to central and local state-owned enterprises. Over time, it has also become a defining habit in her compliance practice. Once a legal opinion has been delivered, the company still has a long list of things to do. Xie is willing to follow that process a little further, thinking through what comes next.

Attorney Yeman Xie's involvement in compliance work began in the field of data compliance.

At the time, lawyers within Dacheng had already developed expertise in areas such as data compliance and trade compliance. She began studying these fields alongside her colleagues and gradually became involved with relevant clients. Later, a Shenzhen municipal state-owned enterprise was preparing to establish a compliance management system and implement relevant standards, and invited Dacheng to participate. After winning the bid, Xie worked with the Beijing team to carry the project forward.

It was her first project of this kind. She does not portray the experience as part of a carefully planned career transition. The opportunity arose, and she took it, learning new methodologies while bringing her previous experience to the table.

Over the preceding decade, she had handled litigation and served as long-term legal counsel to central and local state-owned enterprises. She was already familiar with how companies operated, what concerned their management teams, and how courts assessed facts when disputes arose. Now, working with the same types of enterprises, her role had shifted further upstream: instead of dealing with disputes after they occurred, she was considering what measures could be put in place to prevent problems in the first place.

The methodologies of compliance management were new to her, but the inner workings of enterprises were not.

“I actually started taking on other projects before I'd even finished that first one.”

She speaks naturally about those early days. But as the conversation goes deeper, it becomes clear that much of her attention goes to seemingly minor, practical details.

For example, an enterprise may already have a comprehensive set of policies and understand the requirements governing the "Three Major and One Important" matters—decision-making on major matters, appointment and removal of important personnel, arrangement of major projects, and use of large amounts of funds. Yet employees responsible for implementing those policies may still struggle with basic questions: Does this matter need to be submitted to the Party Committee? Does it require approval from the board of directors? Where exactly should the line be drawn?

She recalls enterprises making a very practical request: they wanted lawyers to define the scope of matters requiring approval in as much detail as possible, so that those responsible for implementation would know what had to be escalated and what could be handled at their own level.

Submitting everything to higher levels of management might seem like the safer approach. But doing so could also shift decisions and responsibilities away from the levels where they properly belong. Xie would remind them: “Focus on the big issues and leave the smaller ones to the appropriate people.”

Such decisions involve not only legal and regulatory requirements but also an enterprise's own approval procedures and operational realities. If the boundaries are drawn too broadly, employees may still be uncertain about what to do. Yet adding more layers of approval does not necessarily lead to better management.

Other enterprises face a different problem: a disconnect between written policies and day-to-day operations. Xie has encountered private companies where policies had already been issued, but employees in the relevant departments were unaware of them. In other cases, payments had already been made before internal approvals were completed, while contracts and other required formalities had not to catch up.

The documents prescribed one sequence of steps, but in practice, things happened in a different order. When lawyers became involved, their first task was to understand why this disconnect had occurred.

This is why Xie repeatedly emphasizes the importance of understanding the business. Without a clear picture of how work is actually carried out, it is difficult to identify where a policy falls short—and even harder to persuade the people responsible for implementing it to follow the rules.

Attorney Yeman Xie currently works extensively with clients in energy, new energy, the automotive supply chain, and intelligent manufacturing. When asked about the biopharmaceutical industry, she does not attempt to broaden the scope of her expertise. Instead, she readily acknowledges that she has relatively limited experience in that sector.

When projects arise in such industries, she brings in colleagues who have worked with clients in those fields for many years. Some may have handled litigation for pharmaceutical companies, while others have worked on investment and financing transactions. Their familiarity with industry business models and transaction processes can complement the methodologies of compliance management.

“They understand the industry. We know how to do compliance.”

She sees nothing wrong with acknowledging this division of expertise. After all, when lawyers enter a company to provide compliance services, they cannot afford to leave the client with the impression that they do not even understand how the industry operates.

But bringing lawyers from different practice areas into the same project is only the beginning.

During the interview, we raised a question that clients would likely consider important: If a client has confidence in the lead lawyer, how can they be assured that other teams will deliver the same consistent quality of service?

Xie does not respond simply by referring to the firm's platform or resources. Instead, she begins by acknowledging that differences exist. Lawyers come from different professional backgrounds and have different experiences, which can shape their approaches to work and their understanding of deliverable standards. A large law firm may have many excellent lawyers, but that does not mean the work of several teams will automatically align when they are brought together.

The role she has defined for herself is a “project manager.”

She describes an enterprise project involving four specialized practice areas. The client had its own internal project manager, while Xie was responsible for managing the legal teams. She needed to have a clear understanding of what had to be done at each stage, when deliverables were due, and what standards those deliverables were expected to meet.

Standards, milestones, and templates were established in advance. Lawyers from each specialized practice area prepared their respective professional content, which Xie then reviewed before it was delivered to the client in accordance with a unified set of requirements. She understood the working habits of the teams she collaborated with regularly and was familiar with the quality of individual lawyers' work. That understanding had developed through working together on multiple projects.

Some of the lawyers she works with are older and more senior than she is. Beyond delivering her own professional work, a more important part of her role is coordinating their efforts so that they can concentrate on their respective areas of expertise. But she does not see herself as someone whose job is merely to pass opinions between teams.

She attends important meetings. When communication between a specialist lawyer and the client becomes difficult, she steps in. A client should not have a smooth working relationship with one team only to find that, upon moving to another, everything has to be explained again and a new working relationship established from scratch.

Even more detailed than coordination among lawyers is communication within the client organization itself.

A compliance project involves senior management, middle management, and frontline business personnel. Each group has different responsibilities and expectations of the project. Decisions about when to report progress to senior management and which matters require advance communication are not always straightforward. Even a company's own legal and compliance personnel may lack sufficient experience in managing such processes. And external lawyers who have handled similar projects should offer guidance when needed.

This is also what Xie means by “going one step further.”

She is particularly sensitive to the mindset behind a business professional's decision to "say less." If communication remains consistently burdensome, people may simply answer the questions immediately before them without elaborating. The lawyers may appear to have received all the necessary documents, yet their understanding of how the business actually operates may remain limited.

Therefore,for Xie, professional competence includes something very specific: making other people willing to keep discussing their work with you.

At this point, she draws a distinction between two things that are often treated as one: professional expertise and actual service delivery. Several experienced legal teams may not differ significantly in the quality of their legal judgment, yet the final work they deliver to clients can still vary considerably.

What matters includes whether lawyers have invested sufficient time and attention, whether they proactively alert clients to issues that arise later, and whether they are willing to take an additional step when they see an opportunity to make the work more thorough.

“If I delivered work like that, I wouldn't be able to accept it myself.”

This is how she describes her own dissatisfaction when work falls short of her standards. At the same time, she does not suggest that the scope of legal services should be unlimited. As long as the additional work is manageable within her capabilities and capacity, she tries to do it well.

That sense of limits makes her approach more grounded. Going the extra mile takes time and energy. Before taking on a project, she believes it is important to understand what one can realistically deliver.

When discussing how she leads her team, Attorney Yeman Xie makes a candid observation: the senior lawyers on her team may not be significantly different from her in terms of professional expertise.

But on a large-scale project, the differences came out.

A question raised by a client may involve several practice areas or relate to arrangements across different departments within the company. Therefore, providing an accurate legal analysis is only part of the task. Lawyers must also determine whether the proposed solution meets the client's practical needs, what trade-offs it involves, and who should be responsible for taking the next steps.

Xie has observed that some younger colleagues are capable of producing high-quality legal documents but are not yet accustomed to thinking through these broader considerations. Sometimes, it is not that they are unwilling to think further; they simply have not encountered similar situations before and genuinely do not know what else to consider.

She hopes they can develop this judgment through project experience. They need to observe how partners interpret client requirements, coordinate opinions across different practice areas, and turn legal analysis into practical recommendations that companies can act upon.

She does not believe young lawyers should rush to prove that they are ready to handle everything independently. At the same time, she does not want them to narrow their professional horizons too early.

In the latter part of the interview, the conversation turns to market pressures and whether young lawyers should pursue litigation or non-litigation work. Xie does not see the two paths as strictly separate. Investment and financing transactions may eventually give rise to disputes, while providing long-term legal services to a company inevitably brings lawyers into contact with issues beyond their original areas of expertise.

Some matters can be addressed through independent study, others require bringing in colleagues with relevant expertise, and still others are best handled through cross-team collaboration. But all of this depends on one essential ability: recognizing the client's potential needs and knowing whom to turn to for the right expertise.

She uses trade controls as an example. Not being responsible for that particular practice area does not mean a lawyer can know nothing about it when the subject comes up in conversation. At least, lawyers should understand the types of issues a client might face, who is qualified to handle them, and the extent of the assistance those specialists can provide.

“Don't assume that just because a particular area isn't your responsibility, you have no reason to learn about it.”

Her own practice has developed in much the same way. From litigation to compliance, and from familiar industries to new fields where she needed to draw on the experience of colleagues, she never waited until she knew everything before getting involved. But she did need to understand her own role and what each of her collaborators could contribute.

Reflecting on her professional development, Xie mentions that she is forty-two years old this year. Looking back, she realizes that some of the things she did earlier in her career did not seem particularly useful at the time, only to prove valuable at a later stage.

That is how more than a decade of litigation and corporate legal advisory experience has become part of the work she does today. Rather than leaving those experiences behind when she moved into compliance, she has carried them forward.

At the time of the interview, Attorney Xie was in Shenzhen, having just returned from Shanghai the previous week. She is now devoting more of her attention to Shanghai and the broader East China market.

This decision is closely connected to the companies she has encountered over the years.

Among the enterprises she has served and visited in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, many have already expanded overseas. Their founders understand that international operations require strong compliance support and are willing to invest in it. Lawyers do not need to repeatedly explain why compliance matters; they can move directly into discussions about the work that needs to be done.

While attending industry events, she has also discovered what she calls some “hidden treasure companies.”

These companies are not necessarily based in Shanghai. Some are located in county-level cities across Jiangsu and Zhejiang, where they have built successful businesses and have very practical legal service needs. In the past, when market opportunities were more abundant, such enterprises may not always have attracted much attention from lawyers. Xie is willing to venture beyond the major commercial centers to understand what these businesses actually need.

Another development that has caught her attention is the changing nature of compliance requirements along supply chains.

When a leading company introduces compliance requirements, the pressure is passed down the supply chain to its suppliers. Upon receiving a due diligence questionnaire from a customer, a company needs to understand why certain questions are being asked, what information can be provided, and what should be handled with caution. Even companies without direct overseas operations may already find themselves responding to requirements originating from international markets.

Here, Xie returns once again to the importance of “understanding.”

Whether companies can understand one another's compliance requirements and whether lawyers can understand what business professionals are telling them are questions at different levels. Yet both affect how smoothly the work can proceed. These practical needs have sparked her interest in the East China market and encouraged her to invest more time in developing her practice there.

“When it comes to developing business, it's important to start early,” she says.

Xie has both expectations for Shanghai and preparations of her own. Through years of working with clients and fellow lawyers, she has gradually become familiar with the market. Many of the lesser-known enterprises scattered across Jiangsu and Zhejiang have built solid industrial foundations and are now navigating increasingly complex business environments. She hopes to work more closely with them and become more deeply involved in their development.

As she expands her practice from Shenzhen to Shanghai, Xie brings with her more than a decade of experience in dispute resolution and corporate legal services. Yet new industries and new clients will inevitably present challenges she has not encountered before. She knows that she must continue learning, find the right partners, and approach each project with care and dedication. It is, after all, the same approach she took when she first entered the field of compliance.

Throughout the interview, she repeatedly returns to questions of how companies can sustain their operations over time and develop management capabilities suited to their stage of growth. Her concern extends beyond whether a particular business activity can proceed smoothly. She is equally interested in whether a company can continue to operate soundly and effectively as it grows over the long term. This is, by its very nature, work that requires a lawyer's sustained commitment.

The next chapter of Xie's professional journey in East China has yet to unfold. What makes it worth watching is the prospect that, as these enterprises with deep expertise in manufacturing, technology, and their respective markets continue to move forward, Xie will have the opportunity to become involved earlier in their development, helping them think more thoroughly about the challenges and decisions that lie ahead.

Attorney Yeman Xie is a Senior Partner at Beijing Dacheng (Shenzhen) Law Firm and the Vice Chair of the Data Compliance Committee of the Shenzhen Lawyers Association. She holds multiple professional qualifications, including CISP-PIP, EXIN DPO, and Data Trading Compliance Professional certifications.

Attorney Xie specializes in corporate compliance management system development and certification, ESG compliance, and commercial litigation. In recent years, she has provided comprehensive legal services to numerous central and local state-owned enterprises, leading private companies, and publicly listed companies. Her services include the establishment and enhancement of corporate compliance management systems, implementation and certification support under ISO 37301, GB/T 35770, and ISO 42001, as well as ESG-related legal advisory services. Her clients include major state-owned enterprises such as Shum Yip Group and its subsidiaries, Shenzhen Energy Group Co., Ltd., China Jushi Co., Ltd., Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Medicine Co., Ltd., PetroChina Shenzhen New Energy Research Institute, and Shenzhen Airport Group. She has also advised leading private enterprises, including DJI, EVE Energy Co., Ltd., Zhenshi Holding Group, GSP Group, Kingdee Software (China) Co., Ltd., and Avary Holding (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. Her experience spans a wide range of industries, including energy, pharmaceuticals, aviation, chemicals, automotive, and real estate. Attorney Xie has extensive practical experience in ESG compliance and anti-commercial bribery, having led and participated in compliance projects for companies such as EVE Energy, Beijing Tong Ren Tang Chinese Medicine, and Zhenshi Holding Group. In addition, she has substantial experience in civil and commercial litigation, having represented clients in numerous complex disputes. Her sharp litigation instincts, strong analytical judgment, and comprehensive dispute resolution capabilities provide a solid foundation for her work on large-scale corporate compliance projects.