Li Mingkang froze for a moment. Tilting his head slightly, he asked uncertainly, “Miss Ming, what did you just say?”
Ming Mei looked at Li Mingkang and replied, “I asked how much I’d need to pay in annual salaries to hire you and your entire legal team to work exclusively for me from now on.”
Li Mingkang let out an awkward laugh. “Are you joking?”
Ming Mei smiled at him. “I’m completely serious.”
Li Mingkang fell silent for a moment.
Then he slowly began to speak. “My personal annual salary is over ten million Longguo yuan.”
He looked at Ming Mei and continued, “If you want to hire me, my team, and the entire law firm to work exclusively for you, the annual cost would be at least eighty to ninety million yuan. You need to think this through carefully. We only sign three-year contracts.”
Ming Mei nodded and picked up her phone to make a few arrangements.
Less than two minutes later, the phone Li Mingkang had placed on the table chimed.
He glanced at it and saw a bank notification. Assuming it was the remaining payment from his previous case, he didn’t pay much attention to it.
He never answered calls or sent messages during working hours. Anyone with a genuinely urgent matter would call his assistant’s phone instead.
Ming Mei tilted her head and smiled at him.
“Lawyer Li, aren’t you going to check what the bank sent you?”
Remembering how Ming Mei had been using her phone just moments earlier, Li Mingkang wondered whether she’d transferred money to him.
He smiled at her. “In that case, excuse me for a moment, Miss Ming. Let me check the message.”
As he opened his phone, his entire body stiffened.
【Your XX Bank account has received a deposit of 300,000,000 yuan. Your remaining balance is XXXX yuan.】
Li Mingkang stared at the long string of zeros. His head began to spin.
After a long moment, he put down his phone and looked at Ming Mei.
“Miss Ming, what exactly do you mean by this?”
Ming Mei leaned back in her chair and stirred her coffee.
“There’s no special meaning. One hundred million yuan a year. These three hundred million yuan are the fees for hiring you, your team, and the entire law firm for the next three years. This is just the base salary. Whenever we handle a case, I’ll pay additional bonuses separately.”
Li Mingkang stopped smiling. He looked at Ming Mei seriously.
“Are you being serious?”
Ming Mei raised her chin, gesturing toward the transfer notification on his phone.
“What do you think?”
Li Mingkang lowered his head slightly and thought rapidly. A moment later, he raised it again with a broad smile.
“Miss Ming, thank you very much for your confidence in me. Personally, I’m willing to accept your offer, but I still need to consult my team. Please give me an hour. We need a little time to discuss this among ourselves. If my team has no objections, I’ll bring the contract to you personally.”
Ming Mei was very pleased with how sensibly Li Mingkang handled the situation. She nodded and watched him leave.
The moment Li Mingkang stepped outside, his expression turned serious. He immediately called for his secretary and assistant.
“What’s going on, Lawyer Li? Weren’t you meeting a client? Why are you rushing around like this?” Li Da teased him while quietly reaching for his phone and turning on the recording function.
Whenever Li Mingkang summoned him in such a hurry, it usually meant a huge pile of tasks was coming his way. That was why Li Da had learned to record Li Mingkang’s instructions every time.
Li Da was Li Mingkang’s junior from the same university. They had known each other since childhood, and their families descended from the same ancestral clan. Neither of them had ever been willing to admit defeat to the other.
After graduating, they had faced off against each other in three consecutive lawsuits. Li Mingkang’s junior had lost all three. Thoroughly convinced of Li Mingkang’s abilities, he resigned from his job and joined him instead.
He had once been one of the core lawyers at Mingkang Law Firm. Nowadays, however, he rarely took on cases himself and mostly assisted Li Mingkang behind the scenes. The two had an excellent relationship.
“Li Da, gather all the lawyers and staff who are currently available and bring them to the large conference room. I have something important to discuss with everyone.”
Seeing Li Mingkang’s serious expression, Li Da realized this wasn’t the time for jokes. He immediately wiped the smile off his face, nodded, and began contacting everyone in the group chat.
About five minutes later, Li Mingkang entered the large conference room. He swept his gaze over the crowd and saw that everyone who could attend was present. He was quite satisfied.
Li Mingkang sat down in his executive chair, took a sip of bottled water beside him to moisten his throat, and began speaking.
“Since everyone’s here, I’ll skip the formalities and get straight to the point. A major wealthy client has taken an interest in our firm and wants to sign a three-year exclusive employment contract with us. During those three years, we’ll work exclusively for this client. The annual base salary for the entire team will be one hundred million yuan, with additional bonuses paid separately for individual cases.”
Li Mingkang raised his head and looked around at everyone before him.
Apart from Li Da, whom he’d gone to great lengths to recruit, everyone else was one of his junior schoolmates. He’d personally recruited them straight out of university and trained them from the ground up.
Over the years, he’d worked tirelessly to mentor them one by one, regardless of their gender, age, height, weight, or appearance. Through years of effort, he’d finally built his law firm into one of the top three in the country.
The firm had become one of the highest-earning law firms in the legal profession.
He’d made his alma mater and mentor proud, and his firm had become one of the industry’s trendsetters.
The people on his team weren’t merely his junior schoolmates, his students, or his protégés. They were also his right-hand men and women, and his family.
That was why he wanted to inform them before making such an important decision.
For some lawyers, establishing a team dedicated exclusively to serving a single client would be an extremely comfortable arrangement.
For others, however, working exclusively for one person would limit their opportunities to explore and deepen their legal expertise. It could also encourage complacency, so they wouldn’t be willing to accept such a deal.
Therefore, Li Mingkang wanted to hear everyone’s opinions.
If too many people disagreed, he wouldn’t proceed with Ming Mei’s offer.
“Those who agree, please raise your hands. If you disagree, simply leave your hands down. This time, I’ll let the team’s wishes guide my decision,” Li Mingkang said.
About a minute later, Li Da raised his hand.
Another minute passed, and the others gradually followed suit.
Li Mingkang looked around and saw that every single person had raised a hand. A smile appeared on his face.
“Since everyone agrees, excellent. Li Da, go print out the contract. Everyone else, please stay for a little while. I still have a few things to discuss.”
“Starting now, salaries will be paid on an annual basis. The salary distribution ratios will remain the same as we previously agreed…”
Li Mingkang spent roughly forty minutes arranging the salary distribution ratios and establishing the rotation schedule for lawyers sent out for external training and case assignments. By then, Li Da had also finished printing the contract.
Li Mingkang took the contract, flipped through it briefly, and confirmed that everything was in order. He then picked it up and headed toward the reception room.
Meanwhile, Ming Mei was playing on her phone.
When she saw Li Mingkang enter, she smiled and asked, “Lawyer Li, how did the discussion go? Have you brought the contract?”
Li Mingkang held the contract in both hands and placed it in front of Ming Mei.
“Miss Ming, this is the contract we’ve drafted. Please take a look. If you have no objections, simply sign it, and you’ll officially become the owner of our law firm.”
He continued introducing his team.
“My team consists of two trial attorneys, including myself—the senior courtroom advocates often referred to as barristers—four well-known lawyers in the industry, six elite lawyers, twelve regular lawyers, and several assistant lawyers.”
He pointed to the QR code at the bottom of the contract.
“The QR code at the bottom contains the contact information of everyone on our team. Once you sign your name, my team and I will work exclusively for you for the next three years.”