Vol. 29, No. 3 #2 (June 2006). Chinese Justice: Starting from Scratch.

• Author: By Mary Angell

Wyoming Bar Journal

2006.

Vol. 29, No. 3 #2 (June 2006).

Chinese Justice: Starting from Scratch

WYOMING LAWYERJune 2006/Vol. 29, No. 3Chinese Justice: Starting from ScratchBy Mary Angell

Jackson attorney Curt Haws is studying law in a country where the average citizen has no idea what a lawyer is. He's a student of the Tsinghau Law School in Beijing, China, enrolled in the first formal legal course ever offered to law students and professionals. Now in his second semester at the school, Haws said his life has come full circle. His interest in China was sparked nearly 30 years ago when he was a missionary in Taiwan, where he learned the language and fell in love with the culture. He subsequently earned his Bachelor's in Asian Studies and International Relations.

"My plan was always to go back to Asia," he told the Wyoming Lawyer during a visit home last December.

Haws and his wife, Charisse, met and were married while in law school. After graduation from Brigham Young University in 1987, they moved to Los Angeles, where he worked for Jones, Day, Revis and Pouge. When the couple traveled to China in 2004 to adopt their second daughter, Mia, his love of the country was rekindled.

"When I found this opportunity I thought, 'Boy, I really want to be part of that,'" Haws said.

His wife and daughters have remained in Jackson, where he maintains a private practice in addition to serving as general counsel to Town Square Inns, which operates the Antler Hotel, the 49er, the Cowboy Village and other hotels and restaurants.

Driven by its economic success, China is enacting laws at a "mind-numbing pace," Haws said.

"If you were to buy a set of statutes last year, it would be woefully out of date by now," he said, adding that because China has had no court system, no judges and very few laws, the average citizen doesn't even know what constitutes a crime.

"That's precisely how Mao Tse-Tung wanted it," Haws said. "Whatever he decided was a crime was a crime."

As the country strives to develop its first legal system, the instructors are learning more from their students than vice versa.

"They are far less interested in the exam process than in our analyses of their system and our suggestions for where improvements could be made," Haws said. "It's literally a chance to be involved in the development of a (legal) system."

"I've spent a lot of...