Page "Legal history of China" Paragraph 5

The Han dynasty ( 206 BCE-CE 220 ) retained the basic legal system established under the Qin but modified some of the harsher aspects in line with the Confucian philosophy of social control based on ethical and moral persuasion.

Most legal professionals were not lawyers but generalists trained in philosophy and literature.

The local, classically trained, Confucian gentry played a crucial role as arbiters and handled all but the most serious local disputes.