Law students in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region should deepen cross-border ties with the Chinese mainland and play a larger role in the nation’s foreign trade and economic cooperation, the city’s leading legal figures and educators said on Monday.
At the launch ceremony of a cross-border internship program for law students, they exhorted Hong Kong’s budding legal minds to go beyond “superficial exchange” by becoming educated in mainland judicial practices, honing their professional toolkit, and helping to cultivate an abiding sense of national belonging.
Starting June 7, a total of 34 students from law schools of the University of Hong Kong, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong will first spend a week together in intensive studies at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, with visits to key judicial authorities in the national capital — most notably the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature — before embarking on a month-long internship in courts across multiple mainland cities, including Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
This year’s program — initiated by the Hong Kong and Mainland Legal Profession Association and backed by both the mainland and Hong Kong authorities — is built around the theme “Let law guide actions, steady steps reach far: a national vision for Hong Kong youth”.
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Addressing the ceremony, Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Paul Lam Ting-kwok said this year — which marks the opening of the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) — is of “great significance” and presents a “valuable opportunity” for Hong Kong’s young legal professionals, particularly those aspiring to foreign-related practice.
“What is needed amid all this are legal professionals with a national outlook, mastery of common law, and a firm grasp of the country’s actual circumstances,” Lam said. “And that is precisely the valuable opportunities now placed before Hong Kong’s young generation.”
Jeremy Poon Shiu-chor, chief judge of the High Court of Hong Kong, told students that as exchanges between Hong Kong and the mainland become increasingly frequent, cross-border disputes that cut across multiple fields — technology, family relationships, intellectual property, data protection and personal matters — will present the city’s practitioners with “huge room for development” ahead.
Liu Chunhua, director-general of the Legal Affairs Department of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong SAR, set out in his address several calls to action for the students to carry through while engaged on the program: They should engage in practice, exchanges and mutual learning, and build a deep sense of purpose grounded in their national identity.
Xi Chao, dean of CUHK’s Faculty of Law, said at the ceremony that such internships — which blend knowledge sharing with judicial practice — play a crucial role in enabling Hong Kong law students to appreciate the inner workings of the mainland’s rule of law and judicial operations.
Lin Feng, dean of CityU’s School of Law, taking a career-oriented view, agreed that greater familiarity with the mainland’s legal framework is proving an increasingly vital competitive edge for Hong Kong’s legal practitioners.
Also at the ceremony on Monday, Joey Chan, an HKU student who represented last year’s interns, described the experience as having “reshaped my entire sense of professional purpose”.
A student with years of common law training, Chan said that she initially had limited exposure to the mainland’s legal system. But the internship, she said, has certainly deepened her understanding of mainland legal thinking and allowed her to see up close how its legal practice stays current and carries a humanistic touch.
