CHINESE law for first time notes that individuals can open their own law firm, Xinhua news agency reported today.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress yesterday adopted a draft amendment to the country's 10-year-old Law on Lawyers.

Any lawyer who has been practicing for at least five years on the mainland can open his or her own firm, according to the amendment.

The lawyer should undertake unlimited responsibility for the firm's liabilities, the amendment states, along with some basic requirements covering the firm's name, location, constitution and assets.

The revised law also allows two kinds of partnerships, an ordinary one and a limited partnership.

There should be at least three partners in such a law firm and each must have been practicing for at least three years.

China now has more than 13,000 law firms, more than 70 percent of which are partnerships.

The amendment also says qualified lawyers are entitled to meet criminal suspects or defendants in person once judicial organizations have finished their initial interrogation or taken mandatory measures.

Defense attorneys and criminal suspects will not be monitored when they have a conversation, the amendment says, and defense lawyers are entitled to look up all files and material relating to the case.

Defense lawyers are entitled to apply to prosecuting groups and people's courts to collect and provide relevant evidence, and use courts to get witnesses to testify.