In 1990, The Institute of Legal Professional Ethics at CUPL (ILPE) was established, replacing its predecessor, The Teaching and Research Section of Lawyer Ethics. The ILPE was renamed in 2003 and is currently the only academic institute for legal professional ethics studies in China.

The ILPE has ten members including 4 professors, 3 associate professors, and 3 assistant professors. In 2015, the ILPE employed James E. Mliterno of The University of Washington and Lee as part-time professor.

On the teaching front, the ILPE offers thirteen areas of study for all students of the CUPL, including undergraduate courses such as Legal Professional Ethics, Legal Professional Behaviour Guidance, Trial Advocacy Skills, Legal Writing, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Lawyer Studies, Notarial Studies, Lawyer’s Skills (Non-litigation), and Legal Clinic. The training that ILPE provides to post-graduate students includes Legal Practical Skills, Judicial Organisation, and Seminars for Notarial Studies etc. The Legal Writing module has been praised as one of the CUPL’s first batch of selected classes.

On the research front, the ILPE has undertaken twelve projects at ministry-level and published almost two hundred articles, forty monographs, and twenty textbooks. Legal Writing and Training has been marked as the textbook of the eleventh Five-Year Plan for national development and Beijing’s selected textbook. Moreover, the ILPE has organised various academic activities and held in-depth dialogues with universities and research institutes, both inside and outside of China, concerning various topics, such as legal ethics, lawyer’s skills, legal writing, and notarial studies and so on.