榜单公布后，邓友平律师接受了ALB的专访。经授权，以下为全文转发。

竞天公诚律师事务所邓友平律师：

胜诉的关键在于法律关系的掌握和有力证据的捕捉

法律关系是诉讼案件的精髓所在，当事人的权利义务及其责任，主要由法律关系框定。多数案件的法律关系，律师把握起来不难。但是也会存在一些法律关系如迷宫般错综复杂的案件。对于这类案件，我的工作习惯是，在接受当事人委托后，除了倾听当事人对案情的介绍和熟悉案件材料外，最核心的工作就是对案件所涉法律条文进行系统梳理和研读。看似简单明了的法律条文，一旦遇到复杂的商业以及千差万别的案情，含义往往就会变得模棱两可，此时就需要查询并研读大量过往类似案例以及案例中裁判机构的裁审意见，以厘定相关法律条文在案件中的含义和具体适用，并据此进一步确定当事人的权利义务和责任，从而为代理方案以及证据的搜集和准备指明方向。

遵循先例并非中国的司法审判原则，但“同案同判”体现了人们对于中国司法审判的一种朴素期待。疑难复杂的案件，虽然很难找到相同判例以供参考，但可以从繁冗的案件事实中提炼出法律要点，据此检索获取包含相关法律要点的类似案例，从而为案件处理提供指导，有时候案例研究甚至能够带来“柳暗花明又一村”的非凡效果。在我曾经代理的一宗委托合同纠纷案中，在经过通宵达旦地检索和研究过往数十个案例后，我向当事人提出按照行纪合同法律关系确定权利义务和责任的独特代理方案，因为在行纪合同法律关系下，受托人对委托人的责任更大、更清晰，据此在该案中我们最终帮助当事人挽回了所有损失。由此可知，对于法律关系错综复杂的案件，扎实的案例研究很可能为当事人和律师提供开创性的思路和解决办法。

如果说法律关系是案件的灵魂，证据则是案件的骨肉，二者相互依赖、相互成就。多数案件中，代理律师除了需帮助当事人梳理和甄选现成的证据外，还需根据相关权利义务的内容、边界及其被违反/侵犯的责任构成要素等，甚至借鉴过往类似案例中法院对证据的审查和采信意见等，进一步帮助当事人有针对性地圈定证据搜集范围。对于关键事实缺乏现成证据支持的案件，我会穷尽各种办法，依法帮助当事人创造性地挖掘证据。例如，曾经有一起案件，其核心争议是被告是否获得了境外权利方的授权。尽管被告提供了表面自洽的授权书，但我们根据案件事实判断该等授权不可靠，为此，我们直接给境外企业写电子邮件求证，境外企业则否认了其对被告有授权，该等往来电子邮件经公证后作为证据提交，起到了直接否定被告有关其获得适当授权的观点，从而成为己方当事人完胜、被告败诉的关键证据。

Legal relation is the key to handling cases, as the rights and obligations of the parties and their responsibilities are mainly framed by the legal relation. In most cases, they are not difficult for litigators to grasp. But there are also cases where legal relationships are a labyrinth. For such cases, my working habit is that after accepting the entrustment of the client, I systematically sort out and study the legal provisions involved, which I believe is the core work, in addition to listening to the client’s introduction to the case and getting familiar with the case materials. Many provisions that may seem straightforward can become ambiguous when it comes to various cases where the business situations are complex. At this point, you will need to consult and study many similar cases in the past and the ruling bodies’ opinions in those cases to determine the meaning and specific application of relevant legal provisions in the case, and further determine the rights, obligations and responsibilities of the parties, so as to guide the preparation of litigation solution and evidence collection.

Doctrine of precedent is not the principle of judicial trial in China, but “same case, same judgment” reflects people’s simple expectation for it. Although it is difficult to find the exact same precedents for reference in complicated cases, we can still extract some important legal points from the case under question, based on which we can retrieve relevant previous cases, thus obtaining guidance there from. For example, in a case of dispute arising out of an entrustment contract that I once represented, after searching and studying dozens of past like cases all night, I proposed a unique solution to my client where to re-define the parties’ rights, obligations and responsibilities based on the legal relation of brokerage contract other than an entrusting contract, under which the trustee’s responsibility is greater and clearer. In the end we helped the client recover all the losses. Therefore, solid case studies are likely to provide groundbreaking ideas and solutions for litigators in cases with complex legal relations.

If the legal relation is the soul of a case, then evidence is like the flesh and bone of the case. In most cases, in addition to helping the clients sort out and select available evidences, the litigator also needs to determine a search scope of further evidences, dig possible supportive evidences from somewhere and even create some evidence. For cases where key facts are not supported by existing evidences, I will do my best to help the client to search and find relevant supporting evidences. For example, there was a case in which the central dispute was on whether the defendant had gained authorization from a foreign company. Although the defendant provides authorization that seemed solid in the face, we believed that it was not reliable based on the case merits. Thus, we tried to write an email to the said foreign company to verify the authorization matter and it replied that it had never offered the authorization to the defendant. We notarized the email exchanges and used them as powerful evidences, which became the key for us to win the case.