JC Master: A Lawyer’s Story | Choices Amidst the Tides: From “Making Landfall” to Authentic Growth at a Law Office — Reflections from a Young Lawyer’s Internship

Choice: Amid the Tides of Time

The wheels of time keep rolling forward: a decade ago, being a college student was still a compliment, but today, a bachelor’s degree seems almost as commonplace as cabbage. In job postings and civil‑service exam requirements, a master’s degree has quietly become the standard. Caught up in these societal shifts, I navigated two exams a year and, with my law‑certification credentials in hand, successfully gained admission to Nanjing University of Finance & Economics.

Ten years ago, my dream was to become a proud People’s Prosecutor. But by the time I graduated, I suddenly realized that everyone was taking the civil service exam; being a prosecutor had ceased to be a matter of conviction and had become a well‑compensated job. I was forced to reassess my aspirations—what had once symbolized passion had come to stand for stability and social prestige. On top of that, as a native Shandongese, my father’s wish was for me to return home and serve as a judge. In today’s context, no one can resist the allure of “making it” in the civil service.

I call it “temptation” because I have personally experienced the flip side of that so‑called “stability.” During my internship at the court, my tasks were little more than filing and organizing documents and handling routine administrative procedures. Yet what I saw was the incessant ring of the landline on the judicial assistant’s desk, stacks of EMS packages arriving in bundles, file folders worn to shreds from overuse, and the silhouette of a judge rubbing his aching eyes, sighing over mountains of judgments. Even colleagues who had already joined the profession complained to me about skill‑competition challenges, after‑hours case‑discussion meetings, rigorous performance evaluations, and the ever‑increasing number of gray hairs.

After careful consideration, I decided to stay in Nanjing. After submitting my résumé to several offices and going through a few interviews, I joined JC Master. Unlike other interviewers, Attorney Xu kindly offered me a bottle of Pocari Sweat before the interview. That small gesture was both warm and sincere. As I stepped out of the law office’s door, I couldn’t help but reflect on my previous interview experiences: some interviewers spoke at length about lofty ideals like “legal conviction” and “social responsibility,” yet when the conversation turned to practical matters, their responses often boiled down to vague platitudes about workload and compensation.

At that moment, for the first time, I realized that JC Master Law Office seemed different.

Beginner Level: In Pure Refinement

In JC Master, the curtain rose on my legal career. Though I have been with the office for less than a year—so it is still too early to speak of a “career”—my most profound impression is that the work here is remarkably “pure”: every effort is directed toward delivering high‑quality legal services and addressing the genuine challenges faced by our clients.

At first, I often hit roadblocks—my submissions contained errors, and I inevitably had to revise them over and over. But the beauty of this work is that making a mistake once isn’t the end; there’s still room for correction and growth. The lawyer who once handed me an Otsuka Energy drink later became my mentor. He taught me that true legal freedom means that whenever you choose to work, any hour can be work time—the key lies in responsibility and results. Sometimes I’d wake up in the early morning to find a document he’d posted in our group chat at three a.m.—a silent testament to his dedication. My mentor and my colleagues gave me tremendous confidence, enabling me to voice my ideas boldly and to turn to them for guidance when I was stuck. In this role, aside from the law itself, there are no distracting distractions—this is what I appreciate most.

From campus to the workplace, my shift in mindset has been remarkably smooth. I no longer waste energy wrestling with competing theories; instead, I’ve thrown myself into the practical realities of gathering evidence, conducting research, presenting proof, engaging with judges, and drafting advocacy briefs. Legal statutes have ceased to be mere “score‑points” in textbooks and have become tangible “tools” for resolving real‑world problems. I’ve come to recognize that, in practice, legal liability is far heavier than it appears on paper—any oversight can lead to genuine, immeasurable harm. Even so, I am confident that I am now officely on the main quest of “defeating monsters and leveling up,” truly beginning to “solve problems.” The cases I handle may involve claims worth hundreds of millions, yet just moments later, I find myself helping friends, family, or even a shopkeeper I’ve never met figure out what to do when tens of thousands of yuan cannot be recovered. The realm of legal knowledge is boundless, and the journey of learning knows no end.

In the years to come, there may be countless late nights spent poring over evidence lists, and wave after wave of novel legal challenges. Yet that afternoon that shaped the course of my career—and that small, sincere act of kindness—already offered me my first answer: the true essence of legal service has never resided in hollow slogans, but in the resolution of each concrete problem. Perhaps this is the very first lesson JC Master taught me: genuine faith in the law always takes root in the soil of pragmatism.