On October 24-26, 2025, the 14th King&Capital Law Firm Criminal Defense Practical Training Workshop was held in Beijing, focusing on the two major topics of “reading documents” and “investigation and evidence collection”. New and old students from all over the country gathered together. Course topics by the Northwest University of Political Science and Law Institute of Criminal Defense Honorary Dean, doctoral supervisor, honorary director of King&Capital Law Firm Tian Wenchang, Central University of Nationalities School of Law Associate Professor Wang Yichao, King&Capital Law Firm senior partner Zhang Qiming, Zhang Xiaofeng, Xu Ying comments and guidance. Senior partners of King&Capital Law Firm, Ms. Xu Ying, Ms. Weng Xiaoping and Ms. Zhu Yalin lectured on the topic of volume reading, while senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm, Mr. Zhang Xiaofeng and partner Mr. Liu Jihui shared their experience; and senior partners of King&Capital Law Firm, Mr. Xia Jun, Mr. Zang Desheng and Mr. Zhang Xiaofeng lectured on the topic of investigating and obtaining evidence.
Delegates' speeches
Chu Changzhi
Managing Partner, CEO of King&Capital Law Firm
King&Capital Law Firm managing partner, CEO Chu Changzhi presided over the opening ceremony and delivered a speech.
He pointed out that the King&Capital Law Firm criminal defense practical training workshop draws on the Northwest University of Political Science and Law criminal defense training model, after three years of development and improvement, has developed into an important platform for the improvement of domestic criminal defense skills. Chu Changzhi summarized the significant changes in the trainees' career development, business ability and performance enhancement, and emphasized that the workshop adheres to the principle of “no identity”, “no standards for answers”, “high level of brainstorming”, and “full resources”. He also emphasized that the workshop adheres to the four principles of “identity without priority”, “answers without standard”, “everyone highly brainstorming” and “full sharing of resources”, and promotes lawyers to realize the breakthrough of professional skills through small class immersion teaching. He expressed his hope that the “snowball” training model would help China's criminal defense team improve its ability and promote the development of the industry with the momentum of “a single spark can start a prairie fire”.
Wang Yichao
Doctor of Law, Tsinghua University
Associate Professor, School of Law, Central University for Nationalities
Part-time Lawyer, King&Capital Law Firm
Wang Yichao, Associate Professor of Law School of Central University for Nationalities and Part-time Lawyer of King&Capital Law Firm, pointed out in her speech that the core mission of criminal defense lawyers is to maintain the balance of the rule of law between the state power and the individual, and “reading the documents and investigating and collecting the evidence” is the key ability to realize this mission. She emphasized that the reading of documents is “looking for cracks” in the prosecution's narrative, and the investigation and evidence collection is “opening up new paths outside the prosecution's field of vision”, both of which are the “lifeblood” of criminal defense lawyers, and must be done in a professional, effective and compliant manner. Professional, effective and compliant.
When talking about the characteristics of the training, Wang Yichao mentioned that the King&Capital Law Firm Criminal Defense Practical Training Workshop is highly practical, combining lectures, exercises and interactions to help students improve their skills in an environment of “low cost of trial and error”. She encouraged the participants to put down the burden, actively participate in the course, and realize the resonance between theory and practice in the compact course, and hoped that they could build a solid foundation for their future practice through continuous learning.
Alice Leung
King&Capital Law Firm Senior Partner
Director of King&Capital Law Firm Criminal Defense Research Center
Executive Director of the Third Council of the Chinese Society of Criminal Law Studies
Director of the Third Council of the Chinese Society of Criminal Procedure Law Studies
Deputy Director of the Institute of Advanced Criminal Defense Studies of Northwest University of Political Science and Law
In her speech, Ms. Liang Yali, Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm, reviewed the origin and development of the Kyoto Criminal Defense Practical Training Seminar. She emphasized that the King&Capital Law Firm, combined with the Northwest University of Political Science and Law training model, in the course design to abandon the traditional one-way lecture mode, the use of refined, interactive design, each focus on two topics, through the theoretical sorting, brainstorming and simulation of real cases, guiding the students in the reading of the file, the investigation and evidence collection in the process of generalization of the problem, to find taboos, sum up the experience, and ultimately make the students form a set of standardized and personalized practical operation methods. This will enable the trainees to form a set of standardized and personalized practical operation methods, and effectively improve their professional ability in criminal defense.
Zang Desheng
Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm
Director of Case Law Research Society of China Law Society
Practical tutor for graduate students of China University of Political Science and Law and other universities
Zang Desheng, senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm, made a special speech centering on the topic of “reading documents and investigation and evidence collection”. He pointed out that criminal defense is essentially a “defensive counterattack” tactical system, reading the file constitutes the basis of effective ‘defense’, to help lawyers grasp the logic of the prosecution, build the defense path; while the investigation and evidence collection is the " Active attack“, in the key cases to break the prosecution evidence system, rebuild the fact cognition, realize ”both broken and established".
Zang Desheng further emphasized that investigation and evidence collection is not only the key to promote the breakthrough of the case from the factual level, but also an important way to reflect the professional ability of lawyers. He hoped that through the combination of reading and evidence collection, to help students systematically master the “defense and counterattack” strategy, and comprehensively improve the practical ability.
Xia Jun
Senior Partner, King&Capital Law Firm
Tutor of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Senior Researcher, Institute of Criminal Defense, Northwest University of Political Science and Law
Xia Jun, senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm, shared her views on the topic of “investigation and evidence collection”. She pointed out that investigation and evidence collection is a “necessary skill” for criminal defense lawyers. In practice, lawyers should actively exercise the right of investigation and evidence collection according to the needs of the case, and maximize the objective facts of the case through lawyers' investigation and evidence collection work, and strive for acquittal or mitigating results for the defendants and suspects. Lawyer investigation and evidence collection is very challenging work, the process of investigation and evidence collection not only to face a lot of difficulties, but also to face the risk of investigation and evidence collection, therefore, clarify the red line of evidence collection, standardize the operation process of investigation and evidence collection is particularly necessary.
Xia Jun lawyers, this course will systematically sort out the concept and method of investigation and evidence collection, covering to witnesses, units and victims and other different subjects of evidence collection skills and considerations, aims to promote the lawyers through the collective seminar in practice to effectively broaden the defense ideas, enhance the investigation and evidence collection methods and skills.
Yang Damin
Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm
Editor-in-Chief of “King&Capital Law Law Firm” Magazine
Director of Nanjing Branch, Institute of Criminal Defense, Northwestern University of Political Science and Law
Yang Damin, senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm, recalled the contribution of King&Capital Law Firm in promoting the development of criminal defense for thirty years. He said, King&Capital Law Firm criminal defense training seminar is the “experimental field” of Mr. Tian Wenchang's training experience at home and abroad, combined with the training model of the Northwest University of Political Science and Law, has gradually formed a unique “Kyoto style” of the practice of defense training system. He believes that the whole process of criminal defense is disassembled into the reading of documents, investigation and evidence collection, questioning and other modules for special training, can help more criminal defense lawyers to improve their personal skills, so that the group of criminal defense lawyers in the development of professionalism to achieve an important leap.
Lecture
Tian Wenchang
General Counselor of King&Capital Law Firm
Founding Partner and Honorary Director of King&Capital Law Firm
Honorary Advisor of China Criminal Law Research Association
Advisor of Criminal Committee of All-China Lawyers Association
Honorary Director of the Institute of Criminal Defense of Northwestern University of Political Science and Law, Doctoral Tutor
In the evening, Tian Wenchang, Honorary Dean of Advanced Research Institute of Criminal Defense of Northwestern University of Political Science and Law and Honorary Director of King&Capital Law Firm, made an in-depth analysis of the importance and practical dilemmas of lawyers' right to investigate and collect evidence during the investigation stage with the title of Importance of Lawyers' Right to Investigate and Collect Evidence during the Investigation Stage and Path to Realization. He pointed out that the investigation stage is a critical period for evidence preservation, and timely intervention by lawyers can prevent evidence from being lost, contaminated or hidden, especially in cases of self-defense and economic crimes.
That evening, the lecture centered on from the legal level and practical level to explore the lawyer in the maintenance of procedural justice and legal authenticity of the duties and functions. The atmosphere of the scene was warm, and the participants asked questions enthusiastically about the problems they actually encountered, which were meticulously answered by Mr. Tian Wenchang.
Theme of “Reading Documents and Investigation and Evidence”
Xu Ying
Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm
Young Lawyer Leader of All-China Lawyers Association
Practice Tutor of Law School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Mentor of criminal defense students of Northwest University of Political Science and Law.
Director of Criminal Society of Beijing Municipal Law Society
Weng Xiaoping
Senior Partner, King&Capital Law Firm
Doctor of Criminal Law, Beijing Normal University
Training Instructor of Northwest University of Political Science and Law Advanced Institute of Criminal Defense
Practice Tutor of Law School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences University
Visiting Professor, School of Law and Public Administration, Hunan University of Science and Technology
Zhu Yalin
Senior Partner, King&Capital Law Firm
Senior Researcher, Institute of Criminal Defense, Northwest University of Political Science and Law
Director of Beijing Criminology Research Association
Zhang Xiaofeng
Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm
Researcher of the Institute of Criminal Defense, Northwest University of Political Science and Law
Zhang Qiming
Senior Partner of King&Capital Law Firm
Liu Jihui
Partner of King&Capital Law Firm
In the section of marking, Mr. Xu Ying, Mr. Weng Xiaoping and Mr. Zhu Yalin discussed the theoretical issues of marking system and its development and evolution in depth, fully shared various methods and techniques of marking with the participants, discussed the impact of artificial intelligence AI on lawyers' work of marking, rehearsed and summarized the risks and contraindications in the process of marking and cited examples of the legitimacy and use of electronic data in the criminal proceedings; Mr. Zhang Xiaofeng and Mr. Liu Jihui explained the importance of marking techniques for the whole process of criminal defense by Zhang Xiaofeng and Liu Zhihui, by demonstrating the visualization of the method of paper reading, to explain the important auxiliary role of paper reading skills on the whole process of criminal defense. Wang Yichao, Zhang Qiming and Zhang Xiaofeng, as the special consultants, systematically shared the difficulties encountered in the practice of reading documents, and combined with the experience of handling cases, pointed out that the reading of documents plays a crucial role in digging out the details of the case and refining the key points of the defense.
In the investigation and evidence collection part, Zang Desheng, Xia Jun and Zhang Xiaofeng firstly focus on the process and precautions of evidence collection, and clearly sort out the preparation work of lawyers by dismantling the different stages of investigation and evidence collection. The course was explained through brainstorming, practical exercises and review, and Tian Wenchang, Wang Yichao and Xu Ying commented on the performance of the participants' exercises, which enabled them to have a deep understanding of the complexity and techniques in the process of investigation and evidence collection by lawyers.
At the end of the course, Mr. Tian Wenchang emphasized the unique “high-intensity, high-brainstorming” training mode of King&Capital Law Firm's Criminal Defense Practical Training Seminar.
He pointed out that effective training should make the participants feel tired and unfulfilled, and that the sublimation of concepts and the deepening of skills can be realized through time-consuming thinking, enthusiastic speeches and even arguments.
He especially to “investigation and evidence collection” topic as an example, pointed out that lawyers must review, clear work in the “bottom line, red line”, clearly define what “absolutely can't do” “shouldn't do” and “shouldn't do”, and then discuss how to “do a good job” on this basis.
At this point, the 14th King&Capital Law Firm Criminal Defense Practical Training Seminar has been successfully completed, and the 15th session of “Quality Assurance” will be held in March 2026, and we welcome all the lawyers to pay close attention to it.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
