OK, so I took a three-month hiatus from blogging. Laziness? Too busy at work? Broke my laptop?

None of the above. Several months ago, things started to get extraordinarily weird, in a bad way, at work. The law firm in question, Lehman, Lee & Xu, has had its ups and downs since I started there in 1999. Anyone who is familiar with the China legal market has heard lots of entertaining stories, I’m sure. Most of the challenges over the years were related to the fact that we were a locally licensed firm that was essentially managed by foreigners. All you have to do is look at the name of the firm to figure that out.

Anyway, the latest challenges were of a more bizarre nature. Without going into detail (saving that for the novel I should really write some day), a lot of the attorneys at the firm have had a falling out with management. I reached my breaking point, along with a couple other guys, several weeks ago and essentially just walked out. Since that time, others have followed. It’s gotten rather ugly in recent days, but that’s life.

That’s the bad news. With all the turmoil, I wasn’t really upbeat and focused enough to continue writing even my usual incoherent posts, so I decided to just give it up until things were resolved.

The good news is that as of several days ago, I accepted a great offer with DLA Piper in Beijing. I can’t be more excited about the organization, the work I will be doing, and the people over there. As icing on the cake, so to speak, one of the best lawyers I’ve ever worked with (he just left Lehman, Lee & Xu this week) will be joining the DLA team as well.

All in all, the good news completely overshadows the bad news, so I have nothing much to complain about these days. I’m therefore in a good mood to start blogging again, so expect my first substantive post tomorrow.