In stark contrast to the protagonist, Shu Yinan (played by Yan) comes from a middle-class family with an impressive educational background — he studied at Peking University as an undergraduate and received a master's degree at the University of Oxford.
However, through a twist of fate, they both end up working at the same law firm and eventually befriend Zuo Na, a diligent and hardworking intern, played by actress Jin.
Despite having written several legal shows before, such as the 2014 hit Divorce Lawyers, Chen has been reflecting on how this new series marks her first in-depth examination of the lives of interns, who endure immense stress during their 12-month tenure before ultimately trying to pass the exam to become practicing lawyers.
"I heard of a widely circulated meme. It reads: To hire a babysitter might cost around 6,000 yuan ($853) per month. To hire a driver, it's around 4,000 yuan. However, to get someone to help you work on legal cases, run all of your errands and make you tea, you only need to pay 2,000 yuan," she says.
Although Chen initially brushed it off as a joke, she soon realized that there was some truth to it. Legal interns are often paid low salaries, yet they are expected to handle an enormous amount of work, which ranges from comforting bad-tempered clients on lengthy phone calls to performing tedious administrative tasks.
One such case in the series depicts the protagonist Pan assisting in a divorce case between a businessman and his irritable wife. During their first meeting, the woman gets so angry, she rips Pan's purple suit. In the following days, he goes to great lengths to try and meet her again, including disguising himself as a landscape worker at her residential community and even leveraging the experience of his own mother, who herself had been through a divorce, in a bid to empathize with the woman.
