LawMay's Inaugural Note: Looking for Two Definite Answers on the Front Line of U.S. Courts

LawMay opened this publication to record the practical experience, lessons, and reflections accumulated across the many matters we handle each year on the front line of U.S. courts.

That includes the calls made under extreme time pressure, the trade-offs made under budget and background constraints, every exchange with opposing counsel in court — and the satisfaction of the wins along with the disappointment of the setbacks.

We will share what we see and what we take from this path, in the hope that, through the record, we can work toward answers to two questions.

Question One: How Much Marginal Benefit and Real Value Can a U.S. Attorney Actually Bring to a Client in a U.S. Matter?

In practice we repeatedly encounter situations that are asymmetric but entirely real.

Even the same judge may apply subtly different calibrations across different cases; some judges favor frequent hearings that force the parties into direct confrontation, while others move matters forward on the papers.

On the same procedural question, different courts and different judges differ in pace and in latitude — and that is before accounting for differences among local rules and among judges' standing orders.

That kind of granularity in judicial practice is often the variable that determines where a case goes, beyond the statutes and the case law.

The U.S. litigation system is not merely the operation of legal text; it is the interplay of the rules of evidence, the body of precedent, and adversarial procedure.

We are well aware that the cost boundaries a client can bear at each stage directly determine which legal strategies are realistically available. Our work is therefore not only to explain the law, but to find, among those variables, the most cost-effective path for a client to survive and break through.

Through repeated work on these matters, a settled understanding has taken shape:

U.S. litigation is not a script written in advance.

When counsel is willing to stay affirmative within the rules, to keep looking for openings under pressure, and to keep testing and advancing with professional judgment, cases often move in directions well beyond initial expectations — and produce genuinely valuable change for the client.

At the same time, we know our present judgment has limits. At many decisive points, what actually makes the difference may not be technique itself but a difference in perspective drawn from longer and broader practice — and it is that difference in perspective that determines whether a case can be reconceived, taken apart, and given new possibilities.

Returning to the original question, then: whether a U.S. attorney can bring marginal benefit and real value to a client in a U.S. matter appears to have a definite answer. But how much depends on two things: at the tactical level, the initiative, flexible judgment, and resilience the attorney shows; and at the strategic level, the difference in perspective shaped by long and broad practice.

As for the ultimate answer to "how much" — it may not lie in any single case or any single ruling. It is closer to something that must be tested across an entire career.

That is the purpose of this firm and this site: to begin with the end in mind, and — alongside those who follow us — to keep observing, reviewing, and distilling from real matters, so that together we can move closer to that answer.

Question Two: How Far Can We, as U.S. Attorneys, Actually Go?

We remain grateful for this unusual moment. The turbulence of U.S.–China trade has brought together enterprises and individuals of every scale and every objective.

That density of commercial connection has not only generated complex and varied cross-border legal needs; it has given our generation of practitioners an incomparable field of practice — a large supply of real and complex scenarios in which to work.

It is a moment full of tension. The times have granted opportunity and, rightly, imposed responsibility.

Countless trading companies, cross-border sellers, and manufacturers have met us at their hardest moments. Listings restored, funds recovered, accounts unfrozen, stores restarted, businesses brought back to life — each thank-you email and each case result is itself a direct footnote to this moment. Every crossing from suspension to release, from standstill to resumed sales, is hard evidence of our value.

The year-over-year rise in the number of Chinese candidates sitting for and passing U.S. bar examinations likewise reflects, from another angle, our generation's investment in and expectations for cross-border legal practice.

Behind the curiosity and the enthusiasm, however, we also hold a concern.

We are in a period of change. The markers our predecessors left remain clear, but the surrounding routes may already have been redrawn. Where are the real depth, breadth, limits, and boundaries of our practice? Some stopping points may be reality meeting a wall; others may be rules being remade in the difficulties of a transition.

But we also know that a road is made by walking it, not by contemplating it — and that rather than looking for the endpoint while hesitating, it is better to meet the future in each advance.

The road is underfoot; only those who walk it go far.

Within the working span of our own practice, we are willing to keep exploring — alongside others committed to U.S.–China cross-border legal practice — that boundary, which may exist and which continues to extend and deepen. That is part of why this publication exists.

And we continue to believe, as the name LawMay suggests:

At every point of difficulty or of striving for a breakthrough, believe in the possibility the law holds out. LawMay intends to stand alongside you through change, to pursue and realize that possibility, and to see the breakthrough with you.

Law May, We May.

Sincerely,

LawMay P.C.