Li Jinjin (September 1955 - March 14, 2022) was a native of Wuhan, Hubei Province. He joined the People's Liberation Army at the age of 15, and became a police officer in Wuhan after demobilization. In 1978, he was admitted to the Law School of the Hubei Institute of Finance and Economics (now the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law), and then to the Law School of Peking University, where he studied constitutional law. He returned to Wuhan after graduation in 1985 to teach, and then went back to Peking University to pursue a Ph.D. in Constitutional Law. During Li's doctoral studies, the 1989 democracy movement broke out, and he worked as a legal counselor for the Beijing Workers' Autonomous Federation. After being arrested and detained for 22 months in the aftermath of the June Fourth incident, Li traveled to the United States in 1993 as a visiting scholar at Columbia University; he then studied law at the University of Wisconsin, where he received his J.D. degree. Upon graduation, Li became a licensed attorney in the State of New York, focusing on immigration matters, and served as the president of the Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang Memorial Foundation.
On March 14, 2022, Li was stabbed at his law firm, allegedly by a client due to disputes. He was taken to the hospital and died on the same day.
