Trust Across Borders
Chapter 3: Helping Before Being Hired
Published as part of the Trust Across Borders series.
What Does It Mean to Help Someone?
When a person contacts a lawyer, there is an obvious commercial question:
Will this person become a client?
But there is another question that comes before it:
Can I help this person?
The two questions are not always the same.
Sometimes the answer to the first question is no, while the answer to the second is yes.
A person may have a legal question that can be answered in a few sentences.
A business owner may have misunderstood a basic point of Chinese law.
Someone may be considering a lawsuit without understanding the likely cost or difficulty.
Another person may have a dispute that is simply too small to justify professional fees.
In these situations, it is tempting for a professional to think:
There is no business here.
But I have gradually come to think differently.
If I can help someone understand their situation better, that has value even if no engagement follows.
Perhaps that person will never become a client.
Perhaps I will never hear from them again.
That does not make the help meaningless.
Why I Started Giving Information Away
This was one of the reasons I continued writing in English.
I could have kept my knowledge inside paid consultations.
That would have been commercially understandable.
But I also knew that many foreign businesses were making decisions before they ever spoke to a Chinese lawyer.
They were reading contracts.
They were negotiating with suppliers.
They were transferring money.
They were trying to understand unfamiliar Chinese business practices.
By the time a serious dispute reached a lawyer, many important decisions had already been made.
Sometimes the most valuable legal advice is advice given before a dispute begins.
That was something I wanted my writing to provide.
Not a substitute for legal representation.
Not a promise that a business would never encounter problems.
Simply a better understanding of the risks.
The Information Gap
Cross-border business creates a particular kind of information gap.
A foreign entrepreneur may be highly experienced in business and still know very little about the Chinese legal system.
This does not mean that the entrepreneur is inexperienced.
It means that experience is often country-specific.
A successful business owner in Germany, Japan, Australia, Peru, or the United States may understand contracts, negotiation, finance, and management extremely well.
But that experience does not automatically explain how a Chinese company is registered, how Chinese courts handle evidence, how a contract should be enforced in Hefei, or how a dispute with a Chinese supplier should actually be approached.
The foreign business therefore has to make decisions while knowing that something important is missing.
That missing knowledge can be expensive.
Sometimes it costs money.
Sometimes it costs time.
Sometimes it costs an entire business relationship.
And sometimes it cannot be recovered at all.
I believe one of the most useful things a lawyer can do is reduce that information gap.
Writing for Someone I Had Never Met
One unusual thing about writing online is that you rarely know who is reading.
When I wrote an article, I did not know whether the reader was a company owner in Europe, a purchasing manager in Asia, an entrepreneur in Africa, or someone simply researching a problem.
I did not know what they would eventually do with the information.
They might contact a Chinese lawyer.
They might consult their own lawyer.
They might decide not to proceed with a transaction.
They might simply become more careful when dealing with a supplier.
That uncertainty is part of the nature of public writing.
You give something to people you may never meet.
There is no guarantee of a return.
But that is also what makes it meaningful.
Not Every Question Needs a Paid Engagement
As a lawyer, I naturally have to distinguish between information and professional legal services.
A detailed review of a contract is different from answering a general question.
Representing a client in litigation is different from explaining how Chinese courts generally work.
Conducting a legal investigation is different from pointing someone toward the issues they should investigate.
Professional work has a value, and lawyers need to be paid for serious professional work.
I do not believe that everything a lawyer does should be free.
But I also do not believe that every interaction should immediately become a sales conversation.
There should be room between the two.
There should be room for education.
There should be room for honest information.
There should be room for telling someone:
“You probably do not need to hire me for this.”
That sentence may not generate revenue.
But it can generate something else.
Credibility.
The Importance of Saying What People Need to Hear
One of the easiest ways for a professional to lose trust is to tell people only what they want to hear.
A client may want to believe that their case is extremely strong.
They may want to believe that they can certainly recover their money.
They may want to believe that litigation will be quick and inexpensive.
Sometimes the honest answer is different.
A case may be legally possible but economically unreasonable.
A claim may have merit but still be difficult to prove.
A Chinese court may have jurisdiction, but enforcement may still present practical difficulties.
A contract may contain rights that are difficult to enforce in reality.
These are not always pleasant things to hear.
But a lawyer’s responsibility is not to provide reassurance at any cost.
It is to provide an honest assessment.
That principle also applies before someone becomes a client.
If I cannot genuinely help someone, I would rather tell them that than persuade them to spend money unnecessarily.
The First Value Comes Before the First Fee
Over time, I began to see a connection between my writing and my legal practice.
A person might read an article today.
Six months later, that person might encounter a problem with a Chinese supplier.
A year later, they might remember the lawyer whose article helped them understand Chinese law.
They might then make contact.
When that happens, the relationship did not actually begin with the first email.
It began much earlier.
It began with information.
That is why I do not see public legal writing simply as marketing.
It can be the first stage of a professional relationship.
And sometimes that first stage happens long before there is any discussion of money.
Trust Cannot Be Purchased at the Last Minute
There is another lesson in this.
When a serious dispute occurs, a foreign business may suddenly need a Chinese lawyer.
But choosing a lawyer in the middle of a crisis is difficult.
The client has little information.
The lawyer is a stranger.
The amount of money at stake may be substantial.
There may be very little time.
In such circumstances, trust becomes extremely important.
That is one reason I believe in building trust before it is needed.
Writing articles is one way of doing that.
Publishing practical information is another.
Being transparent about who I am and what I do is another.
None of these guarantees that someone will choose me.
They should not.
The purpose is not to manufacture trust.
The purpose is to give people enough information to make their own judgment.
Reputation Is Built Before You Need It
A professional reputation is similar to an emergency fund.
You cannot create it instantly when you suddenly need it.
It has to exist beforehand.
Every article contributes something.
Every conversation contributes something.
Every client interaction contributes something.
Every time a lawyer refuses to exaggerate a case, every time he tells a client an inconvenient truth, and every time he does careful work when nobody is watching, a little more reputation is built.
The opposite is also true.
A single dishonest act can damage years of work.
That is why reputation cannot be separated from professional ethics.
They are essentially the same long-term project.
Why I Do Not Measure Everything by Immediate Results
There is a strong temptation in modern business to measure everything.
Revenue.
Return on investment.
These numbers are useful.
But they cannot measure everything that matters.
An article may receive very little traffic and still help one person.
A conversation may generate no fee and still leave someone with a better understanding of their situation.
A professional decision may produce less money today but protect a reputation that becomes valuable ten years later.
Some things have delayed returns.
Some things cannot be measured easily at all.
That does not mean they have no value.
It means that their value operates on a longer time scale.
The Freedom to Think Long Term
This idea is also connected to where I practice.
I have been fortunate that my living expenses in Xuzhou are relatively manageable.
That gives me a degree of freedom that I do not take for granted.
I do not have to maximize every possible source of income.
I do not have to accept every case simply because someone is willing to pay.
I can sometimes say no.
I can spend time writing.
I can answer a question without immediately asking whether it will become a paid engagement.
This may sound like a small thing.
I do not think it is.
Financial pressure can influence professional judgment.
When a person is under intense pressure to make money, short-term interests can gradually become more important than long-term principles.
I believe one of the greatest professional advantages a lawyer can have is enough independence to say:
This is profitable, but it is not right for me.
Or:
This person needs help, but does not necessarily need to hire me.
That freedom is worth protecting.
What Happens If the Circumstances Change?
I am also conscious that this freedom should not be taken for granted.
If I moved to a much more expensive city, my living costs would probably increase.
The pressure to generate income could become greater.
That might make some decisions more difficult.
This is one reason I believe professional ethics cannot depend entirely on circumstances.
A person should know what they believe before circumstances test those beliefs.
It is easy to say that long-term values matter when life is comfortable.
The real test comes when money is scarce, competition is intense, and a short-term opportunity is difficult to refuse.
That is when principles become more than words.
They become choices.
Helping Is Not the Same as Working for Free
There is an important distinction here.
I do not believe that professionals should give away all their work.
A sustainable professional practice is necessary.
Lawyers have employees, offices, technology, research costs, taxes, training, and families to support.
Professional knowledge has economic value.
Charging appropriate fees is not inconsistent with helping others.
In fact, a profession cannot serve society for the long term if its practitioners cannot sustain themselves.
The principle I believe in is different:
Do not make money the only measure of value.
A good professional should be able to create value before, during, and sometimes even outside a paid engagement.
The fee is compensation for professional work.
It should not be the only reason the professional cares about the person on the other side.
The Business Case for Trust
Ironically, this approach can also make good business sense.
People remember those who helped them.
They recommend professionals they trust.
They return to people who treated them honestly.
They are more comfortable paying for serious professional work when they already understand the value of that work.
In other words, helping people and building a sustainable practice are not necessarily opposites.
The difference lies in the time horizon.
A short-term approach asks:
How much can I earn from this person today?
A long-term approach asks:
What kind of professional relationship am I building?
The second question is much more important to me.
What Writing Taught Me About My Profession
Looking back at the years I spent writing, I realize that the articles taught me something about being a lawyer.
A lawyer’s work does not begin when the engagement letter is signed.
It begins with knowledge.
It begins with responsibility.
It begins with the willingness to understand another person’s problem seriously.
And sometimes it begins with simply answering a question honestly.
The legal profession is built around trust because clients often give lawyers access to things that matter enormously to them.
Their money.
Their businesses.
Their contracts.
Their disputes.
Sometimes their livelihoods.
That trust has to be earned before it can be exercised responsibly.
A Small Principle With a Long Life
I do not know how many people have benefited from the articles I have written.
I probably never will.
Some readers may have forgotten them.
Others may never have needed them.
A few may have made important decisions because of them.
That is enough for me.
I have come to believe that professional life should not always be measured by the number of people who pay you.
Sometimes it should also be measured by the number of people whose decisions became a little better because you were willing to share what you knew.
That is not charity.
It is part of what I believe a profession can be.
A way of using knowledge responsibly.
A way of creating value.
And, ultimately, a way of earning trust.
Continue Reading
← Chapter 2: The Values That Shaped My Career
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