Legalization of foreign documents is to legalize a foreign document, normally by authentication of the stamp/signature on documents, making it eligibly used in the relevant country. Here below, a brief introduction was made about how it is required in a lawsuit in the territory of mainland China.

For many foreign companies or individuals who has dispute with Chinese, the fisrt step to do, after engaging a lawyer, is to legalize your documents, in order to be legally used in China.

Generally speaking, when you find the right lawyer for you, you need to make an agreement with the lawyer regarding representation on your case. Beside the representation agreement, A Power of Atttorney(POA) and identity documents are needed. A Power of Attorney is a letter of authorizing the lawyer to represent you in the lawsuit. Identity documents is the documents identifying who you are, normally it’s the passport or national ID card if you are an individual, business license and legal representative’s certificate and etc. if you are an individual. The POA and identity documents is a must for proving your identity in a lawsuit and the attorney having the right to represent you to file the lawsuit or respond, and/or attending other legal process.

Even the POA and identity documents are of most important for filing your case, many people don’t understand. They just think that the lawyer could represent him as soon as they make an agreement with a lawyer. Certainly making an agreement is the first step, however only a representation agreement is not enough for a lawyer to represent you in a lawsuit in China. A typical POA will authorize a lawyer to represent him/her to file the lawsuit, change the request, adding claims, attending court hearing, evidence adduce, cross examination, debate and final statement and etc. A typical busincess license is a certificate issued by the relevant governmental authority to prove that your company is legally set up and permitted to operate business.

According to the Civil Procedure Law of  PR.China, Power of Attoreny (POA) and identity documents ( business license/incorporation certificate, a letter of legal representative’s identification, and legal representative’s passport /ID),  are the documents by which you legally authorize a Chinese lawyer to file lawsuit for you in China. When you have a case in China, you are only allowed to have a  lawyer licensed by judicial bureau of China to represent you, foreign lawyers are not recoginzed in China. As per China rules up to date, you need to have the POA and identity documents legalized. How to legalize them?
By way of Apostille if your country is a member of Hague apostille convetion (Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents). ;
You need to have notarized and then authenticated by the China embassy(consulate) in your country if your country is not a member of HCCH 1961 Apostille Convention. In some countries, the documents need to be sent to the foreign affairs department to be authenticated before being sent to China embassy (consulate)