(Minghui.org) In January 2013, a local practitioner was illegally arrested and put on trial. In the process of rescuing this practitioner, we decided to hire a lawyer to defend him.

Through many recommendations, we found a lawyer from Beijing. We communicated with this lawyer about his services and asked about his fee (20,000 yuan for each stage, not including traveling and lodging).

During our phone conversation, this lawyer said, “You can go to the Minghui website and see all of the cases I have handled.” There were quite a few links on the Minghui website. It appeared that this lawyer had defended practitioners many times, but there were no details about his performance.

This lawyer is very popular in northwest China. Many practitioners have asked him to work on their cases.

After he arrived, he visited our local practitioner in the detention center. The next day, he was pressured by the authorities to meet with the county610 Office and the county police department's Domestic Security Division. The details of their conversation are not known.

The lawyer collected his fees twice before the trial began (initially 10,000 yuan and then 8,000 yuan, totaling 18,000 yuan).

Many practitioners went to the trial, but only the son of the defendant and the lawyer were allowed into the courtroom. The trial lasted from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. After the trial, we asked the practitioner’s son for details.

To our disappointment, the lawyer did not enter the not-guilty plea and did not mention Falun Dafa in his defense. He quickly left the courtroom after the trial was over.

Master has told us to look within. The following are some questions we should consider:

1. Did we believe that hiring a lawyer was the only way to rescue the practitioner? Did we put our hope in an everyday person and forget that Dafa practitioners are the main players in this period of history? 2. The lawyer’s fee was high, and we gave him whatever he asked for. (The general legal defense fees in our area are 3,000 yuan during a police investigation, 6,000 yuan during the pre-trial stage, and 7,000 yuan during the trial stage.) If practitioners cannot be rational, wouldn't the old forces take advantage of our loopholes by persecuting us through economic means? 3. When we asked the lawyer to enter a not-guilty plea for the practitioner, did we communicate the relevant details clearly? Shouldn't we have discussed payment methods in relation to a successful defense? Dafa practitioners’ money does not come easily, so shouldn’t we act responsibly with this money and handle this matter more cautiously?

I recently heard that practitioners from other areas were planning to hire this lawyer. I feel this is an important matter, so I have written down some details in order to remind fellow practitioners to be rational and cautious, and in accordance with the Fa, when it comes to hiring a defense lawyer.

Please point out anything inappropriate.