In August, a torrential rainstorm had just swept through Haicheng.
The rain stopped a little after ten that morning, and the sky began to clear.
The glass facades of the high-rises in Lujiazui's central business district looked especially clean after the rain.
Through one of those windows lay the third conference room of Boheng Law Firm.
A judgment lay on the table.
Fang Zhengping, a partner, sat at the table and opened it.
Its contents were simple.
All the plaintiff's claims were dismissed.
Sitting across from him was Boheng's client and the plaintiff in the case, Huang Qihang, founder of the online app Little Duck Dictionary.
After they had sat for a while without the client saying anything, Fang Zhengping broke the silence. "Mr. Huang, as I said before, civil cases involving online infringement are difficult to win. Even our best-case scenario was an order requiring them to make changes, with reduced damages. But what we've encountered is clearly the worst-case scenario."
As a lawyer with years of practice and a senior partner at Boheng Law Firm, Fang Zhengping had faced situations like this countless times.
As many people said, legal services were still a service. What mattered most in the service industry was satisfying the customer, and the key to that wasn't delivering a particular outcome, but managing expectations. He had indeed mentioned the legal risk of losing before the proceedings began, but that had been after the representation agreement was signed.
In any case, they had already collected hundreds of thousands in legal fees, notarization fees, and travel expenses. Continuing the case wasn't out of the question, but clients usually stopped at this point.
Then Fang Zhengping began explaining the judgment from a legal perspective. That was a lawyer's job.
"The grounds for the judgment are clear: the