He is based on practical teaching,

so that students can gain and grow in finding problems.

He encouraged innovative thinking and guided students to achieve good results in moot court competitions.

He is a teacher and also a friend to students,

and is the most popular top ten teacher among students.

He is eager to help others,

has been providing legal advisory services for many years,

and is the warmest legal educator.

……

He's Li Jinming, associate professor of School of Law.

Practice makes true knowledge

"The defendants, Mr. Chen and Mr. Wang, were making profits, knowing that these were criminal gains, but they still provided bank cards, Alipay, WeChat, etc. to others to receive and transfer funds, and cooperated with facial verification to cover up and conceal criminal gains of 218,541 yuan and illegal gains of 500 yuan. What kind of crime does the defendant's behavior constitute?" In the classroom of Criminal Law Practice, Li Jinming often quotes real cases for students to analyze and discuss. Li Jinming's class is characterized by his emphasis on practice, rich cases and warm discussions.

In 2001, after graduating from China University of Political Science and Law, Li Jinming worked as a teacher in the Department of Law of Beijing Institute of Technology. Before that, he had worked as a prosecutor in local grass-roots procuratorates for eight years, with rich experience in handling cases, which laid a foundation for his subsequent promotion of practical law teaching.

Law is a subject with strong practicality. We should not only learn and explain it thoroughly, but also make good use of it, so that practice can give us true knowledge.

"The General Theory of Criminal Law and the Sub theory of Criminal Law are the theoretical basis for handling criminal cases. Criminal Law focuses on the deep logic of law formulation and application, while Criminal Law Practice is a practical course based on case analysis, and Law Clinic focuses on the cultivation of practical ability..." In 2009, Li Jinming took the lead in offering practical courses and began to implement practical teaching. Over the years, a course has connected all links of legal talent training, and gradually formed a full chain talent training model of "legal provisions + theoretical vision + practical application".

Li Jinming's first practical course is Criminal Law Practice, which makes full use of a large number of practical cases to carry out classroom teaching and promote students to learn and use flexibly. "The biggest feature of this course is that there are many practical cases, which are very enlightening and practical. This has made me very interested in criminal law, and has also become the starting point for me to engage in criminal law research." Long Tianming, a 2017 student who once attended the Criminal Law Practice course, said. "Both theory and practice are emphasized, focusing on discussion and analysis, which is meaningful and vivid. I think it is very beneficial." Liu Jiahao, a 2022 law (law) major, said.

In order to expand the case source of another practical course, Legal Clinic, under the active promotion of Li Jinming, the School of Law has reached an agreement with Beijing Haidian District Bureau of Justice and Fangshan District Bureau of Justice to jointly build a legal aid center, and built a "trinity" legal talent training mechanism inside and outside the campus for BIT, judicial units and legal workers, so as to realize the dual promotion of teaching and educating people and serving the society. The center successfully applied for the legal aid project of the special lottery public welfare fund of the central government, which enabled students to participate in 29 cases with "real weapons" and greatly improved their practical ability.

In 2014, Li Jinming led students to the Fangshan District Court to have a discussion with judges

The lively and practical teaching method has made Li Jinming's courses very popular. In 2011, Li Jinming was awarded as one of the top ten teachers of the 6th session of "I love my teacher" of Beijing Institute of Technology. In 2012, his educational reform project "Training Mode of Applied and Compound Legal Talents in Science and Engineering Colleges" won the second prize of Beijing Municipal Teaching Achievement Award; In 2015, the teaching reform project "Construction of the" Joint Cultivation Mechanism inside and outside the University "of Law Master won the second prize of the first session of Beijing Institute of Technology Postgraduate Teaching Research and Teaching Reform Achievement Award.

The key to the labyrinth of law is an unsolved problem

"Through the trial, the court found that the evidence of the defendant's robbery case was insufficient, and the defendant was acquitted." As the hammer fell, the representative team of Beijing Institute of Technology, as the defense, cheered and rushed to the auditorium to celebrate the victory with the teacher, Li Jinming. This is the scene of the 11th Beijing University Students' Simulated Court Final held in China University of Political Science and Law in 2019. Associate Professor Li Jinming, as the instructor, led the students of the Law School to go through the difficulties and finally won the first prize, the best pleading award and the excellent instructor award.

What kind of talents are needed in the new era? After 20 years of teaching experience, Li Jinming deeply realized that legal thinking is crucial to the cultivation of students.

Law education is not only to impart knowledge to students, but also to cultivate students' unique critical and innovative legal thinking.

When guiding students to participate in the moot court competition, Li Jinming paid attention to guiding students to analyze the case, explore the clues of the case, and find out the loopholes in the evidence chain. The topic of the final of the 2019 Beijing University Student Moot Court Competition was a robbery, which was not good for the defense. However, the team led by Li Jinming got the defense. The students were depressed and thought it was difficult to defend innocence. "Only focus on legal interpretation, not on fact finding, and a reasonable interpretation does not equal to the facts of the case." When the students were at a loss, Li Jinming opened their minds with such words.

"We should not only look at the defendant's statement, but also at the relationship between the defendant's statement and other evidence, so as to fully understand the facts of the case." Liu Zihan, a 2018 student of the School of Law, said, "Every time our ideas come to a 'dead end', Mr. Li will remind us to look at the problem from another perspective." It was with multi-perspective thinking and argumentation that the team of Beijing Institute of Technology responded calmly and steadily, and won the competition through a complete chain of evidence and reasonable facts.

Group photo with students at the award ceremony of the 11th Beijing University Student Moot Court Competition

Over the years, Li Jinming has guided students to win the championship and first prize for four times, the second prize for three times, and the excellent instructor award for four times. His heuristic guidance method enables each student to play the most important role in the competition, and the unique perspective of thinking benefits students greatly. "Thanks for Mr. Li!" Liu Zihan, who participated in the moot court competition for many times, expressed his gratitude to Li Jinming.

"Mr. Li often said that the key to the labyrinth of law is an unsolved problem, so I should not be superstitious about academic authority." For graduate students, the spirit of questioning is important. Long Tianming often had a heated discussion with his teachers on academic issues during his postgraduate study with Li Jinming. "Whenever I read new ideas and theories, I would immediately share them with Mr. Li. He would first affirm my spirit of studying, then put forward some questions for me to continue thinking, and encourage me to read more articles and monographs from the perspective of other theories, read more, think more, do not heed and trust only one side, and learn from the strengths of a lot of scholars to form my own independent views."

In the writing of his master's thesis, Long Tianming was difficult to promote because of the constraints on the topic selection. Li Jinming did not directly provide him with an answer, but asked a question - "What is the relationship between the criminal law sub theory and the criminal law general theory?" This question inspired him to study the general theory through sub theory. "This research method is applicable until my doctoral study period". In 2019, Long Tianming's master's thesis won the Excellent Master's Thesis of Beijing Institute of Technology, and Li Jinming also won the BIT Excellent Master's Thesis Tutor Award. After his master's degree, Long Tianming went to Renmin University of China to pursue his doctoral degree and pursue his academic ideal on the road of criminal law.

The law has temperature

"My original intention in studying law is to help more people. Legal aid can not only help teachers and students solve legal problems, but also give students more opportunities to practice in this process. Why not?" Since 2009, while carrying out practical teaching, Li Jinming has been providing legal aid to all teachers and students in BIT Labor Union.

Why to carry out legal aid? It also starts with a case handled by Li Jinming when he was a prosecutor. Prosecutors of criminal cases usually deal with criminals most. However, in Li Jinming's opinion, some "criminals" just make mistakes in their work, which is a pity. He once handled a robbery case. A group of teenagers went to Beijing to work. They robbed a mobile phone store because of their weak legal awareness. The two principal criminals faced 10 years' imprisonment respectively, and they were still under the age of 18. Li Jinming felt deeply sad, which also prompted him to think about "the meaning of law".

The existence of law is a constraint, but also for guidance and education. Law is nothing more than reason, and law has temperature.

Group photo with graduate students in the Legal Aid Center in 2020

With this "original intention", Li Jinming takes over dozens of legal consulting cases every year. From divorce cases, inheritance cases, neighborhood disputes and other family affairs to criminal cases such as intentional injury and telecommunications fraud, Mr. Li takes each client seriously. For the neighborhood dispute case caused by the house leakage, he never tires of negotiating with the parties for many times to achieve the perfect outcome of reconciliation; In the face of such criminal cases as telecommunication fraud and intentional injury, he will repeatedly run and investigate to strive for the best interests of the parties.

"Mr. Li is amiable and easy of approach, and I feel so good to work with him. Because of his professional quality and practical experience, whenever I have questions about criminal law or encounter difficult cases, I will be the first to ask him for advice. He always tells everything and gives very professional answers. " Zhang Jiangtao, a teacher from School of Law, said.

In his spare time, Li Jinming likes playing basketball, running and other sports best. He takes part in the campus marathon every year. "Keep a healthy body and high spirit, and work for the nation for 50 years in a healthy state!" Li Jinming said with a smile.

"Law education is a kind of law teaching, which should enable students to master legal professional skills; law education is also a kind of rule of legal education, which should guide students to strengthen their ideals and beliefs, promote social fairness and justice and improve people's well-being with law." In the future, Li Jinming will continue to work hard in practical teaching to cultivate excellent law students; and he will also stick to his original beliefs, practice what he says and teach by example, and be a warm legal educator.