About 700 internal legal advisors of companies have become the first corporate lawyers in China, according to the Ministry of Justice Sunday.

A trial project to license corporate lawyers has progressed since the Ministry of Justice started it two years ago, said Shi Hansheng, deputy director of the Department of Lawyers and Notaries Administration under the ministry, at the first Corporate Lawyers Forum held here in central-south China's Hunan province on Sunday.

The country's first batch of corporate lawyers have served in some 150 big companies in 22 provincial administrative divisions of the country, Shi said.

Before 2002, China had two kinds of lawyers: those in law firms and military lawyers. The company employees who handled corporate legal affairs and gave legal advice were not permitted to get law degrees.

As Chinese companies are doing more complicated business, these people have become increasingly crucial. And law is playing a more critical role in economy than before.

"People call them legal advisors, who provide legal service but, not being lawyers they are out of supervision from the judiciary. We don't know whether they are qualified to offer the service and whether they violate rules," Shi said.

According to a temporary regulation issued by the ministry, a person has to pass the national judicial exam -- by which the country selects judges, prosecuting attorneys and lawyers -- to be a corporate lawyer. Corporate lawyers are still only allowed to serve clients as in-house counsel.

Once they get licenses of corporate lawyers, they will enjoy the rights and follow the obligations of China's Law on Lawyers, which will make their work easier, Shi acknowledged.

Corporate lawyers will now be allowed to join lawyer associations, which have consisted of law firm lawyers only.

Corporate lawyers are still new for China, he said, and a host of problems have yet to be answered, such as how to guarantee their professional ethics when their clients are also their bosses.

Besides corporate lawyers, China is also trying to introduce government lawyers who only serve the government or provide legal aid.

The present Law on Lawyers has no item on the two kinds of new lawyers. The ministry is lobbying to add relevant items into its draft amendment, added Shi.

Through the two trials the judiciary expects to change the simple makeup of lawyers so that there will be various kinds of lawyers to meet the varying requirements of legal services, Shi said.