In Memoriam: Jim Li

AILA member Jim Li was slain in his Queens office by a disgruntled and unstable prospective client who has since been arrested.

Read AILA President Allen Orr's statement in response to Mr. Li’s slaying.

Excerpt from an article in the New York Times:

Mr. Li was born on Sept. 7, 1955, in Wuhan and joined the Chinese Army at the age of 15, said his friend Mr. Zhu. He then worked as a policeman and studied at a university in Wuhan, where he focused on law. He majored in constitutional law at Beijing University, graduating in 1985. After working as a professor in Wuhan, he returned to Beijing for his doctorate, where he had a high place in the student government.

“Usually people at that level means they have a very bright future with the government and with the party,” said Jianzhong Gu, a longtime friend of Mr. Li’s. “But Jim Li was not working in that way. He had his own ideas.”

Mr. Li was a doctoral student in 1989 when the Tiananmen Square protests began with thousands demonstrating against the Chinese Communist Party, criticizing corruption and calling for democratic freedoms. He served as a legal adviser to the Beijing Workers Autonomous Federation, the key organization of workers that aligned itself with the students seeking freedom.

He was interrogated a number of times while detained at Qincheng Prison, but told friends and colleagues that he had never cooperated.

In the United States, after his studies at Columbia, he initially struggled, telling a newspaper at the time that he was unable to find work in a law firm because of his shaky English. He considered working in a restaurant.

But soon afterward, he was able to attend the law school at the University of Wisconsin, where he became a fan of the Green Bay Packers.

In New York, he helped clients gain admission to the United States and devoted himself to pro-democracy programs, his friends said. He was one of the lawyers who represented Zhou Yongjun, a student leader in the Tiananmen Square movement who was detained by the Chinese authorities in 2008 and charged with fraud. He fought against the Chinese government’s practice of using Interpol red notices to apprehend political opponents. And he worked with many clients, including Ms. Zhang, pro bono, Mr. Zhu and Mr. Lebenger said.

“He helped a lot of Chinese people who had the experience of being persecuted by the Chinese government,” Mr. Gu said.

Mr. Lebenger said that Mr. Li had hoped to do less legal work so he could devote more time to his pro-democracy activities, to reading, writing and activism. “If I did anything worthwhile, it was freeing Jim up to do more of that work,” he said.