Robert Lewis is Senior International Counsel of Zhong Lun Law Firm. He is also co-founder and Chief Expert of docQbot, the first bilingual AI contract service platform in China, and co-founder of the China Going Global Think-tank (CGGT), an outbound investment information platform.

Prior to joining Zhong Lun in Beijing he served as managing partner of the Beijing office of Lovells (now Hogan Lovells) for nine years and, prior to his stint with Lovells, he was Asia General Counsel for Nortel Networks. Prior to relocating to China, he practiced for six years in the Los Angeles office of Sidley & Austin. Mr. Lewis was one of the first senior foreign lawyers to make the move from a leading international law firm to a top Chinese law firm.

He has practiced law for almost 35 years, with more than 25 years in China. His practice has focused on cross-border corporate and commercial transactions, with a particular emphasis on M&A, infrastructure projects, project financing, energy, mining, telecoms/IT transactions and strategic partnering arrangements generally. Notable transactions include acting for the lead Beijing municipal government investor as lead international legal counsel on the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube venue projects for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

He also has advised Chinese enterprises on outbound investments in the US, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, India, Russia, Canada, Australia and Africa for the last 15 years. He is the author of the book, The Rules of the Game of Global M&A: Why So Many Chinese Outbound Deals Fail, for which Qi Bin, Deputy GM of China Investment Corporation, wrote a foreword.

He is frequently invited by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), All China Lawyers Association (ACLA), and other leading government organizations in China to make presentations on practical legal skills, the structure and management of corporate law departments as well as management of international legal risks.

Mr. Lewis was also the driving force behind the creation of the Sino-Global Legal Alliance (SGLA) of top regional law firms across China and served as the initial chairman. The SGLA was the first domestic law firm alliance to be recognized by Chambers and now has more than 4,000 lawyers across more than 20 provinces.