The Hidden Hand Behind the Lawsuit
After we came out of the courtroom, Team Leader Yu called everyone together.
"You all worked hard for this day. Now, this is our legal team tradition: we applaud for the effort."
He clapped so fast and hard it sounded as if a motor had been fitted to his hands, and Attorney Kim and Attorney Byeon burst out laughing. "Has that tradition even been around a year?"
What a good person.
I’d expected him to start with a negative assessment of the bench, or with an analysis of the case. But there was none of that.
He’s nothing like Geuk Ji-ham.
Geuk Ji-ham, the senior partner who had been above me from my first year at Continent Law Firm until the day I quit.
Every time he left the courtroom, he said the same thing.
"Attorney Cha, that’s all you managed? You should have torn into them more relentlessly. Why did you leave them an escape hatch there?"
He’d skim over the complaint and the preparatory briefs I wrote, as well as the evidence I found, without bothering to correct anything, and then he’d badger me anyway.
"Whether the client actually committed a crime or not, what matters to us is that they’re found not guilty."
"You should have had the court by the throat and shaken it. Do you still not understand this is for the client’s sake?"
He always ordered people to dig deeper afterward, to see whether there was anything else he could exploit.
Even if it was illegal.
Even if they were sued or reported to the authorities.
He’d keep insisting it was all legal right up until I received a guilty verdict.
Because he—
"A good lawyer has to kill off their emotions. If you make yourself think of your own body as a tool, work gets a lot easier."
—was always busy brainwashing people with lines like that.
Honestly, it felt rude even to compare Team Leader Yu to him.
Then a tap on my shoulder pulled me out of the past.
"Attorney Cha?"
"Sorry. I was reviewing the trial in my head."
Team Leader Yu said the reason he had such a high win rate wasn’t anything special after all. Then, almost apologetically, he said, "Attorney Cha, I saw how you handled the witness examination. You controlled the rhythm beautifully."
"Every time Attorney Lee Ju-heon objected, the way you defended yourself made me go, 'Wow.' I couldn’t help admiring it, so I watched closely and tried to learn from you. So? Was it similar?"
When Attorney Byeon said, "Looks like Attorney Cha’s embarrassed," I ignored it without even meaning to.
"Yes, well—by the way, Team Leader Yu, how did your call with Representative Han go?"
"That’s actually what I was about to tell you. If you have time, let’s go to Yuria Entertainment. The representative is waiting for us."
"Attorney Cha, are you really embarrassed?"
"Of course not."
I wanted nothing to do with a prison of praise.
* * *
Yuria Entertainment.
The same representative’s office we’d visited with Oh Ye-ji.
The table was loaded with finger foods and all sorts of light snacks.
"Welcome. You all must have skipped dinner, right?"
Representative Han had prepared things that could take the edge off our hunger immediately, even if we were going to eat dinner later. For all his friendly appearance, he was a man who prepared thoroughly.
At Team Leader Yu’s thanks, everyone filled a personal plate with food.
The representative isn’t even touching anything, and we’re doing this anyway?
"Attorney Cha, don’t worry about it. I’ll eat too."
"Mm, then thank you for the meal."
As Representative Han picked up a canapé, I quickly took a bite of the sweet red bean porridge in front of me.
Then I sampled the injeolmi beside it too.
Once the snacking attack had finished, Team Leader Yu called me over.
"Attorney Cha, I briefly explained the situation to Representative Han, but could you go over it once more?"
"Of course."
Whether civil or criminal, litigation follows a flow. In a civil case, especially one like this, the sequence was:
filing the complaint → review of the complaint → service on the defendant → defendant’s answer to the complaint (if not submitted, the court treats it as an admission and rules accordingly) → the presiding judge reviews the record → preparatory hearing for pleadings (exchange of preparatory briefs or face-to-face argument and evidence exchange) → hearing date (concentrated evidentiary proceedings).
But this time—
"The current presiding judge did not organize the defendant’s claims and evidence at the preparatory hearing, and even at the hearing itself, the proceedings were handled carelessly, with the presiding judge and the lead judge both failing to properly review the record."
"That’s serious, right?"
"In the worst case, it’s reasonable to assume the plaintiff’s losing judgment was written in advance."
"...!"
That was, of course, a hypothesis.
"Team Leader Yu, is this an arrow fired from Dive?"
"We can’t say for sure. We need to look into it more, but we’re suspecting a Dive shareholder. That’s what you said too, Attorney Cha."
"Yes."
Leaving aside the fact that it might have been that person or the chairman who reached in with a hand.
Given that Jo Ji-han currently had no money to bribe anyone with, the only theory Representative Han and the legal team could plausibly accept was that it came from a Dive shareholder.
If Twice made a comeback in Southeast Asia through this case, then Dive’s Dailyia would never be able to catch up.
An idol group made in-house, with good songs, strong choreography, and not a single member with an easy flaw to grab hold of.
And they were doing well in the charts, too.
I didn’t know whether Dive had ordered the sabotage, but they were trying to block the group from even being embraced by people who loved K-pop.
"Representative Han, the problem is that if we file a motion to disqualify the judge, the trial will be delayed."
Compared to a strategy aimed at ending things quickly, this was the choice between rushing ahead and risking defeat, or taking the slower path and tapping the stones to see whether the bridge would hold.
"At times like this, being a representative is awfully cruel."
"Then, Representative, why don’t you hand it over to Attorney Byeon, who’s been watching for an opening this whole time?"
"Oh? So now I’m supposed to call you Team Leader Yu and not Team Leader Yu?"
The responsibility for the decision rested entirely on the representative’s shoulders, but Team Leader Yu and Attorney Byeon lightened the burden with jokes.
"Representative Han, there’s no single right answer here. If you lose, you can always go to the second trial. And there’s no guarantee you won’t lose even if you file for disqualification. Just think of it more lightly."
At Attorney Kim’s words, Representative Han clenched both hands tightly.
"Thank you, all of you."
"Not at all."
"While we’re at it, let’s show them what the representative can do!"
When I saw Attorney Byeon fling both arms high into the air, I couldn’t help laughing.
"Attorney Cha, will the motion to disqualify the judge even be accepted? I’m worried we’ll just get marked by the current bench for trying."
Whether a disqualification motion was accepted depended on the reason.
It wasn’t like we were inventing a flimsy pretext just to stall the proceedings. We had a clear basis, one that anyone looking at it as a layperson could reasonably use to question the fairness of the trial.
"There have been rulings that recognized disqualification when there were circumstances that would make an ordinary person doubt the fairness of the trial."
Representative Han’s eyes flashed.
"Then it’s settled. We’ll file the motion. I’ll have the PR team push the public mood as well. We’ve already planted the seeds, after all."
He immediately called the head of PR.
"Everyone, let’s go to the PR office."
"Yes, sir."
We had to head into that place, overflowing with power E energy.
When we entered the PR office—
The atmosphere feels like they burned a tree in here.
Unlike before, when the room had been bursting with laughter, every PR employee was now in battle formation.
"Representative, cyber unit is fully ready."
As the PR chief, standing in front of the whiteboard, requested permission to advance, Representative Han said, "Let’s begin."
The crackling of typing never stopped, as if the room itself were on fire.
"Indonesia, Thailand, and Southwest Asia official uploads are done. Friendly articles about Twice have also gone up."
"Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, and China official uploads are done. We got word that the Chinese articles are slow."
"Correction: posts are starting to pour out on Baidu!"
"Japan, company official is complete. On X, the retweets are at 1,789! 2,580! 3,407!"
"U.S. official cleared. Reddit’s up too. Huh? Representative, it’s on Billboard News!!"
What?
Billboard News means they prepared this in advance. So that’s what he meant by planting seeds earlier.
I glanced sideways at Representative Han. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
"It’s possible because they made it onto the Billboard chart. Keep watching the numbers, please. I’ll step out for a call."
Team Leader Yu stood beside the PR chief and kept emphasizing the updates.
"Korea official complete!"
"Korea complete!"
Then he called the PR chief over to a corner.
"A post has gone up on a K-pop fan community. Want to take a look?"
"Manager Lee, I’ll come over there."
The PR chief, Team Leader Yu, and I walked to the corner together.
Everyone’s eyes went to the monitor.
(Official image file)
"Huh? Team Leader Yu, this person who wrote the comment, looks like they were in the gallery earlier?"
"Seems like it. The details are too specific."
They’d posted that they were a Yuria fan who’d attended the trial, then written more comments describing what the court had done and how Yuria had handled things well.
To go so far as to write that the lead judge hadn’t thoroughly reviewed the record, and that the presiding judge stood by and did nothing...
He was one of our own, from the legal world.
An employee refreshed the page and scrolled down to keep watching the comments.
There were remarks about how this was different from the parent company, Sinine, and comments that seemed to be criticism or concern about picking a fight with AB Broadcasting. Someone from overseas had even posted a meme saying they wanted to burn the producer at the stake, complete with shocked emoticons.
Representative Han, who had stepped out briefly for a call, came back and exchanged a glance with the PR chief.
"Representative, how did it go?"
"AB News has just posted it as an exclusive."
For a moment, I thought I’d misheard him.
"AB News aired the story? As breaking news?!"
This was on a completely different level from the usual power struggle between the drama and variety departments.
As Assistant Director Park Woo-chul had said, networks cared about face, and the only practical benefit the news division offered was traffic for NewTube. There was no way this was a deal someone could make lightly.
Just like me, both Attorney Kim and Attorney Byeon stared at Representative Han with blank expressions.
"In exchange, I agreed to let them handle the CM song for the news division."
"...What?"
A CM song? They bit that hard just for that?
Why on earth?
Was the representative some kind of CM song king? No, that wasn’t it.
The composer known in Korea as the master of CM songs was nothing like him in age or school background. Attorney Byeon, who usually patted his stomach happily at every meal like a walking evangelist of joy, exploded.
"What do you mean you’re handing AB a CM song?! Cancel it now! I can’t watch our legal team ace being treated like that!"
Attorney Kim also said,
"Representative, that crosses a line."
The PR chief agreed that he’d handed over a winning card too easily.
I was the only one there who looked genuinely puzzled.
Then—
Representative Han met my eyes.
"Ah..."
He laughed awkwardly, then said,
"Attorney Cha."
"Yes."
His mouth worked for a second before he spoke again.
"This is a little embarrassing to say myself, but... I’m Small Martin."
Twenty-three songs that had hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers had named him Songwriter of the Year ten times.
And he had won Producer of the Year at the Grammy Awards.
The living legend of pop music, one of the greatest producers to ever exist, was standing right in front of me.
"...Why are you here?"