The following are seven highlights of the legal aid program in Guangdong province in 2015.

One

Sound legal system

The province's legal aid bureau coordinated different departments to improve the legal aid system. It revised the Guangdong Legal Aid Regulation, drafted Opinions on Improving the Legal Aid System and revised Interim Measures on Funding Legal Aid.

Two

Public legal service hotline

A 7/24-hour hotline, 12348, has been set up to offer free and professional service in several languages including Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakka. It answered questions from 34,714 callers from Dec 8 2015 to Jan 28 2016.

Three

Building a standard system

The provincial bureau of legal aid has started working on a series of standards. A legal aid system has started trial operation in Guangzhou. The bureau has also organized a 10-lawyer team to assess the quality of legal aid cases.

Four

Trial operation of criminal case settlement

The provincial bureau of legal aid has started trial operation of rapid criminal case settlement in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. A total of 132 such cases were settled in the two cities in 2015.

Five

Publicity

The provincial bureau of legal aid held trainings in May and promotion fairs in September during which 7,000 people received legal counseling.