Chapter 30: Chapter 14.2 “Husband? Where’s my husband? What are you talking about?”

Zhang Junda also sighed when he saw that the middle-aged woman was dragged away, “I heard that this woman is very poor, and her child was born with severe cerebral palsy. As soon as the child’s father saw the child, he advised the woman to throw the child away,

and have another one with him in the future. The woman refused, so the man ran away, and has not come back since.”

“He left the woman alone to raise the child. The expenses of the whole family depend on her meager income alone. Now she has been dismissed on the grounds of absenteeism. She can’t even get the financial compensation. She is in her 40s and has no special skills. I’m afraid her next job would be hard to find. She is really driven to a desperate situation…Hey, let’s not talk about it. Du Xinyi is coming here.”

Almost as soon as Zhang Junda’s voice fell, Bai Duanduan looked up and saw Du Xinyi walking towards herself. She smiled at Bai Duanduan, her tone was quite mocking and her expression was very provocative, but her voice pretended to be simple and puzzled, “Miss Bai, I heard that you dealt with a particularly simple case before, how did you lose? Don’t you claim that you have more experience and better ability than me, and you usually refuse to take me with you? But now that I have won my case, how did you lose your case so badly?”

Du Xinyi glanced at Bai Duanduan, pretending to be cute and pouting, “One shouldn’t rely on old people in the future. It’s really embarrassing that the experienced qualified old people can’t win a simple lawsuit.”

After she finished speaking, she smiled and left Bai Duanduan’s desk.

After a while, Zhang Junda’s WeChat came—”Bai Duanduan, ignore her. She acts like a white rabbit whenever she’s in front of partner Lin, as if she’s so innocent and unworldly. But once partner Lin is not around, she walks around the office, not bothering to hide her nature at all. Full of arrogance, does she really think she is the boss’s wife and became ZhaoHui’s half-owner?

Bai Duanduan sighed, and returned Zhang Junda’s text with a word of  “en”.

Bai Duanduan had no interest in office politics. The atmosphere in ZhaoHui was not bad in the past, but now, even if she wanted to stay out of it, she was afraid that she would not be left alone. She could clearly feel that there were two columns in ZhaoHui and one of the factions was led by Du Xinyi.

Most of them were new employees in recent years. The people in this faction were not outstanding in business ability. However, the gangs were very skilled at stepping on the weak and fighting against dissidents. They have a sweet mouth with a very vicious mind. Although they were not good at work, they were especially good at reporting and grabbing credit, and every day they were trying to figure out how to get along with Lin Hui.

The other column is composed of relatively practical and hard working lawyers who are good at business, but not good at self-marketing and they lack interpersonal communication skills.

Because of Lin Hui’s connivance with Du Xinyi, Du Xinyi has an unabashed two-faced attitude and arrogant retaliation against the rest of the employees. Although everyone has quite a few complaints, none of them dare to clash with Du Xinyi head-on.

It was better to offend a gentleman than to sin a villain. ;

What’s more, she was a favored person of Lin Hui, who was almost unprincipled in his protection of her.

It’s just that Bai Duanduan couldn’t learn to be so vain. An hour later, when Lin Hui returned to the office, Bai Duanduan put down the documents in her hand and entered his office with a stern face.

Lin Hui looked dusty, and when he saw Bai Duanduan he nodded, ;

“Duanduan, you’re just in time, I was looking for you.” As he poured water, he said, “Xu Zhixin’s case, you lost to Ji Lin last time, didn’t you? Forget that case, it was a temporary case that was passed on to you, and the bid amount was small, but afterwards, when you choose your own case. You should never choose a case that you will obviously lose. We at ZhaoHui now accept the case after talking about the winning rate first.”

“Well, if you will be like this, it will be easy to ruin your reputation. In addition, the next layoff case needs a good fight, and the other party’s lawyer is Ji Lin again. Last time you were alone and fell down badly against him. The next case involves 300 employees. It is a big case. You may have a hard time dealing with Ji Lin alone. I’ll ask Du Xinyi to assist you, she is actually quite good, she just won a case for our client and fired an old employee at a minimal cost… …”

Du Xinyi, Du Xinyi again! It was better if he didn’t mention her, but when he did, the fire in Bai Duanduan’s heart simply crackled and started to burn.

Lin Hui was oblivious to Bai Duanduan’s emotions, and he continued to take care of the situation, “The Labor Insurance Bureau and the Judicial Bureau have also called me to express that since the labor issue involving 300 employees will have a large social impact, it must be handled harmoniously. Whether it is to negotiate a settlement with Ji Lin or an eventual arbitration lawsuit, we must appease the emotions of the 300 parties on our side. Don’t make it a social news, the impact would not be good.”

Lin Hui said upto here and took a deep meaningful look at Bai Duanduan, “Duanduan, you are sometimes too direct and too careless about human feelings, so it is easy to offend people. Learn from Du Xinyi on this point.”

“Learn from her? Learn what? Learn to use unorthodox techniques to deceive the other party in order to save money for your own client?” Bai Duanduan finally couldn’t help herself and said in a mocking tone, “Teacher Lin, do you know what method Du Xinyi used to win the case? She went and cheated the other party! Taking advantage of the inequality of information! Do you think this method should be advocated?”

Bai Duanduan said while staring at the ugly animal sculpture on Lin Hui’s desk.

Lin Hui raised his eyelids, “Whether it’s a white cat or black cat, a cat is good as long as it can catch a rat. Du Xinyi’s method is not illegal. It is entirely based within the scope of the labor law. Because of her final operation, this corporate client is very satisfied and has decided to sign a long-term consultancy agreement with us.”

Lin Hui’s voice was calm, but it was also meaningful, “Bai Duanduan, this is not the same as a few years ago. Now the legal market is becoming more and more saturated and competition is becoming more and more fierce. If you can’t do the same for your client as Du Xinyi, naturally, other lawyers will do it. Then why would this client stay and choose you? Other people in the industry follow this kind of operation nowadays. So just because you could win a case before, doesn’t mean that you can continue to win the cases now.”

You shouldn’t be so naive.

Although Lin Hui didn’t say it out loud, this subtext was already passed on to Bai Duanduan.

“This time since it happens that you directly came looking for me, then I will also be straightforward with you. Before you were in B city, I did not care much about your ways of doing business there. There were also many good cases. Obviously the bid amount was also very large, but because it was a corporate client, you refused to take it. You handed over such a good source of cases to the rest of the law firms in B City in vain. I didn’t mention it to you then.

“There were also some cases, which were very low budget cases of representing individual employees in labor disputes, but you accepted it. It required you to travel back and forth. Travel expenses, probably just tied with agency fees, almost all of them can be counted as legal aid, which was not beneficial to the income generation of the office, and I did not say anything to you then also. It is clear that some cases could be won by Du Xinyi’s operation, but you insisted on not doing so, so I turned a blind eye to you for a while, but now that you have returned to the head office, you are working under me. There are some rules, and you have to pick them up.”

Lin Hui’s tone was cold, and his eyes were also very cold.

Bai Duanduan bit her lip. Lin Hui was dissatisfied with her. In fact, Bai Duanduan had felt it half a year ago. The revenue generated by ZhaoHui was getting better and better, but the relationship between Lin Hui and herself was getting more and more saber rattling.

When ZhaoHui was founded, Bai Duanduan struggled along with Lin Hui. For half a year, Bai Duanduan didn’t ask for a salary, relying entirely on her gratitude to Lin Hui and her enthusiasm for her profession. At that time, it was not easy to win a case with no money, no contacts, no resources, no experience, and nothing. At that time, Bai Duanduan thought that the philosophy and persistence of the law between herself and Lin Hui were the same, until now, she found out that it wasn’t anymore.

“Mr. Lin, since you brought up this topic, then I won’t be subtle with you. Let’s not mention whether I recognize Du Xinyi’s approach to the case or not. Let me just ask, should our lawyers’ intention be focused on serving clients or marketing?”