A few months later, the Yinguangxia financial fraud scandal erupted, severely impacting our IPO business—and suddenly, our workload began to decline. It was at this critical juncture that I once again found myself reflecting on my career path: Should I stick with non-litigation work, or make a bold move and pivot into litigation altogether?

When At the time Beijing's legal profession isn't large—there are only 6,000 lawyers—but the legal services market is similarly modest. Lawyers tend to specialize in relatively straightforward practice areas with distinct characteristics. Meanwhile, the market economy is just beginning to take off, and reforms are underway... Non-litigation practices in areas like M&A and securities finance are booming, offering lawyers lucrative earnings and positioning them as high-end, premium services. It turns out that lawyers who used to specialize in criminal defense or civil litigation have mostly switched over to non-litigation practice. On the other hand, civil litigation primarily relies on contingency fee arrangements—where the risk is high, yet the fees aren’t necessarily lucrative—and lawyers still remain in this field despite having to actively seek out cases everywhere. Criminal litigation, meanwhile, rarely attracts much attention—indeed, many lawyers even "turn pale at the mention of it." The reason is that, at the time, there wasn’t yet the series of criminal policies later introduced to safeguard lawyers’ rights. As a result, representing clients in criminal cases carried enormous risks, and lawyers were often subjected to professional retaliation by investigative authorities. Handling criminal cases is also highly challenging. During the investigation phase, lawyers aren’t yet considered defenders, making it necessary to make multiple visits before finally being able to meet with the suspect—since such meetings require approval from the investigating authorities and must be conducted in the presence of two lawyers at once. Sometimes, investigators even need to supervise the meeting directly. As a result, the overall cost of representation tends to be relatively high, yet lawyers are paid shockingly low fees—often just a few thousand yuan, which is considered quite generous.

After much deliberation, I still believe that non-litigation work isn’t the right fit for me. My expertise lies in criminal law—not civil or commercial law, let alone securities and finance-related areas. As a result, I don’t have a natural foothold in this specialized field. To succeed here, I’d likely need to put in ten or even twenty times more effort than others. Moreover, when it comes to thinking critically about these types of non-litigation cases, what’s required is a strong business acumen—constantly weighing costs against potential benefits. Unfortunately, my naturally laid-back and straightforward personality simply doesn’t lend itself to that kind of analytical mindset. On top of that, I’ve never really thrived in an office-based, desk-bound work environment. Internally, I often feel more like a typical corporate employee than a lawyer—and externally, I struggle with maintaining an equal footing in professional interactions. Too often, I find myself bowing down to clients’ ever-changing demands, which ends up being both mentally exhausting and frustrating. This isn’t at all what I envisioned my legal career to be. Instead, I long for the high-stakes, adrenaline-fueled world of courtroom battles—where I could truly leverage my unique strengths, engaging in the kind of sharp, dynamic professional confrontations that have always captivated me. It’s a vision of lawyering that feels far more aligned with who I am deep down.