Rules for lawyers to collect evidence
1. Lawyers shall investigate and collect evidence in the manner of legal, objective, comprehensive and timely, the lawyer shall pay attention to the authenticity, legality, and relevancy of the evidence.
2. Lawyers shall not imitate or alter evidence nor threaten or induce others to provide false evidence or hinder the other party from obtaining evidence legally, and shall not assist or induce the parties to imitate or alter the evidence.
3. When a lawyer is conducting an investigation or collecting evidence, the lawyer shall provide the supporting letter issued by the law firm for conducting such investigation or evidence collection. The lawyer shall also show his or her lawyer license to related person during the investigation and evidence collection. When the lawyer wants to inquiry some witnesses, there shall be 2 lawyers present. In the case of multiple witnesses, they should be inquired separately.
4. A lawyer should keep strictly confidential of the evidence involving personal privacy. If the lawyers need to show evidence in court, they should be brought before the court in advance to apply for private trial rather than presenting them in public.
5. In the event that the lawyer believes that some evidence needed to be authenticated or assessed. The lawyer shall promptly instruct the client to require the people's court to assign relevant institutions for authentication.
6. If a lawyer cannot timely investigate and collect evidence when representing the divorce case, he may explain the situation to the people's court and apply for deferring the submission of the evidence.
7. If the attorney submits recordings to the court, he or she should also submit the source materials and the original tape. For digital and electronic evidence, it can be recorded into a CD-ROM attached with a written material of the recording data.
8. The number of copies of evidence that shall be prepared according to the number of parties and the requirements of the courts.
9. The lawyer should categorize the evidence submitted by him/her in a specific and clear way and with a brief description of the source, the purpose of proof and the summary of the content of the evidence materials. The lawyer shall produce a complete list of evidences with the signature of the client and date of submission.
10. Based on the circumstances of the case, if the lawyer considers it necessary to apply to the people's court to investigate, or collect evidence, the lawyer shall promptly notify the client and submit a written application to the court for the court to investigate and collect related evidence. If the court disapproves such application, the lawyer may apply for reconsideration in writing for the people's court to reconsider of whether to accept such application.
11. Generally, lawyers do not keep the original evidence, it’s for the parties themselves to keep the originals, lawyers only keep copies of the evidence. However, the client shall bring all the originals to the court during the process of discovery and cross-examination.
