What's wrong with this lawyer?!

Chapter 62: Chapter 52: Guarding at the Brink of Death

"Hello Director Wang, what can I do for you? Something on the internet? Are you talking about Li Changming's case? Yes, the association indeed failed to manage properly, and we are actively improving..."

"Ah? Are there other issues? I'm not aware of any others at the moment..."

On the other end of the phone, Director Wang had already started yelling, "So you're not aware, right? Fine, I don't feel like saying much more. Go check the internet yourself and then immediately handle this matter properly. Understand?"

After speaking, Director Wang hung up the phone directly.

Hearing the dial tone, Yin Deyuan hung up the phone in confusion. Li Changming's case had blown up quite a bit; it was understandable and normal for the leadership of the Judicial Bureau to call and be angry about it. He was already prepared for that.

The Jingzhou City Lawyers Association was also preparing an apology statement, saying that the association had been negligent and unaware of Li Changming's issues.

After all, who could know about such criminal matters before the public security department made an arrest? Any slightly sensible person would understand that with a good attitude, the issue would pass.

However, the leader's tone made him feel that the matter might not be that simple. Director Wang's attitude was extremely serious, what exactly had happened?

Yin Deyuan quickly called for his staff, as he was too old to deal with the intricacies of the internet.

Montesquieu once said a classic phrase, "Power is only accountable to its source of power."

The Lawyers Association is the father of lawyers, but the Judicial Bureau is the father of the Lawyers Association!

A thousand complaints from others are not worth as much as one word from the 'father'.

"Tell me, what's happening on the internet, anything related to our Lawyers Association?" he asked urgently as soon as he saw the staff member come in.

The staff member was stunned—how could the president of the association not know about such a significant scandal?

But he quickly responded: "President, the internet is full of criticism towards our Lawyers Association, look..."

While speaking, the staff member found the iconic short video and showed it to Yin Deyuan, saying, "There are all sorts of comments, and it's been shared tens of thousands of times already..."

Yin Deyuan quickly took a look. The comparison images made his head spin. Then he looked at the comments section and plopped down onto the couch.

"President, are you alright?"

"No... nothing's wrong. How could you not tell me about such a big issue? And, wasn't it said that it was deleted? Where did this screenshot come from?" Yin Deyuan shouted.

The staff member could only reply, "President, we thought you knew about it because it's been trending on multiple platforms. You can see it as soon as you open your phone."

"As for this screenshot, we did delete the post very quickly, but... netizens are really fast with their fingers; even something deleted in a second gets screenshotted."

Yin Deyuan wanted to say something, but he was speechless. After reading those comments, he finally realized why the leaders of the Judicial Bureau were so furious.

Because many netizens were not just attacking the Jingzhou Lawyers Association, their accusations pointed directly at Jingzhou City's Judicial Bureau, the political and legal system, and even the entire governance system of Jingzhou City...

There was no choice; netizens are experts at escalating attacks. If a man harasses a girl, needless to say, all men become potential criminals.

If someone from a province commits a crime, then without a doubt, the whole province gets attacked, or if nothing else, at least the local city...

For administrative organs, stability is above all. If an issue that sparks a public outcry is significant enough, then it might be suppressed.

But now, this trouble caused by your 'son' in the Judicial Bureau, such a trivial issue has stirred up such a big fuss. You tell me what to do!

Basically, it's always like this, issues that are dealt with swiftly don't really amount to anything serious...

But what now? Yin Deyuan knew his own business best. The disciplinary action that was taken was indeed half-hearted; there was no substantial evidence. It was just the Lawyers Association getting used to being overbearing.

But now there was no choice, the 'father' had given an ultimatum.

"Release a notice, say... say it was a staff member who posted it privately, and that the Lawyers Association has already terminated them."

"Internal investigations show no issues; thus, no disciplinary action was taken. Additionally, contact Song Tengfei and inform him we are revoking his disciplinary action, and tell him not to talk nonsense!"

It was the same old tactics—blame it on a staff member who must have been bored and acted on their own. We as leaders had no clue about it.

If all else fails, just claim the account was hacked. There are plenty of excuses, right?

The netizens who had been eagerly following the drama online finally got a response from the lawyers association, and they couldn't help but laugh after seeing it.

The response was truly classic, all you can say is that classics never go out of style.

Luckily, the heat of the whole incident was slowly dying down. After all, the internet always had fresh gossip, and just like that, another scandal that shook the entire web surfaced. A female influencer claimed she was forcefully asked to drink by a man at a meal with her best friend. Despite her repeated refusals, it caused a sensation across the internet...

Meanwhile, inside Tengda Law Firm, Song Tengfei hung up the phone and laughed, "Done, the disciplinary actions have been retracted. Now I actually want to thank that netizen."

Tang Fangjing nodded. It was always good when things got resolved. He wasn't worried about himself; he just didn't want to cause any trouble for Old Song.

He needed to hurry up and get his practicing certificate. Otherwise, the system's tasks might be in jeopardy. He wasn't afraid, but Old Song definitely wouldn't be able to handle it.

Shengda Law Firm was now riddled with holes by internet trolls, with several lawyers applying to transfer and a few partners wanting to withdraw. Director Wu was now cursing every single day.

There was no helping it; once a law firm's reputation was tarnished, getting cases would become difficult.

Appealing would only make things worse, especially when there was absolutely no hope of winning an appeal.

The Bright District's judgment already showed a certain stance.

Therefore, they did not appeal. Luckily, there was the insurance company, so the law firm didn't bleed too much...

That worked out well; there wasn't much time on his hands. If something could be settled at the first instance, better not to drag it out to second instance.

Everything was going smoothly. After the case ended, Li Changming would probably return the property from the fraudulent lawsuit, and the homeowners' association would have an extra sum of money.

The emergency general meeting of the Yuefu Residential Complex was successfully convened, and some property owners even did a live broadcast.

They simply wanted those online trolls to see that we are indeed distributing money in our community.

That's right, the money won back by the lawsuit, after deducting the lawyer fees and relevant taxes, was used partly for repairs of the aging infrastructure of the complex and partly put into the maintenance fund for reserves. The rest was distributed among the property owners!

This was different from Old Liu's plan. Previously, Old Liu had thought about using this money to offset the property management fees. The newly hired property management company had a good reputation in the industry and operated on a reward system.

However, the property owners widely opposed it. In the words of the elderly men and women, it was safest to keep the money in their own hands.

Tang Fangjing naturally also supported the distribution of money. Offsetting property management fees, no matter how substantial, was never as direct as putting real cash in everyone's hands.

It was a completely different experience. Just like before the tax reforms, many people didn't care about individual income tax, but after the reforms, once they knew they could get a refund, their level of attention was entirely different...

......

Inside Feixiang Law Firm, Zhang Wei was discussing a contract with a burly client, but Xiao Yan, the girl beside him, was somewhat distracted.

She never expected that Lawyer Tang would send her a private message, and he even used phrases like "big bro is awesome!"

Although they had very little contact, she greatly admired Lawyer Tang. Everything he did, every case he handled, was beyond expectations.

It was said that Lawyer Tang was in the late stages of cancer and wanted to do as much good for society as he could before dying. Alas, good people don't live long.

Old Tang, of course, had no idea that the netizens who enjoyed color commentary greatly admired him. All his attention now was focused on the system panel.

"Such a high completion rate, they should give me some extra benefits, or if not, money is also fine..."

The execution was already in place, and the task completion showed 300 percent, slightly less than last time.

Tang Fangjing was satisfied. The previous case had taken so much effort to reach 400 percent, but this time, whether it was gathering evidence or courtroom battles, none were as difficult as before.

The extra completion percentage was probably because he had managed to get Li Changming behind bars.

"System reward has been issued..."

The life expectancy reward remained the same, half a year. Added to his original life span, he now reached one year and three months.

And yet another reward left Tang Fangjing a bit stunned.

"Death's Guard?" Tang Fangjing muttered to himself, "And it's only three times?"