"Wang Yu enjoyed quite a reputation in the lawyer industry. Although she earned it mostly from shrewish quarrels and public exposure, it was an indisputable fact that everybody knew her," Zhou said.

According to Zhou, people like Wang was exactly what he needed to raise the firm's reputation and hype up cases.

Referring to Huang Liqun, another suspect under police custody, Zhou said, "he was an official within the governmental system and had huge influence. I could take advantage of his resources, and use his influence to expand my own."

Judges who had encounters with the group during trials also noted that their aim was to delay hearings and pressure courts into reducing and even revoking defendants' sentences so as to boost the firm's reputation.

A suspect surnamed Gou revealed that he once reached out to Zhou for a case on payment delays for migrant workers, but contrary to Zhou's previous image as a rights lawyer, he showed no interest in the case and refused.

"It was all about profits. They were not interested because defending the migrant workers won't earn them much money," Gou said.

According to multiple suspects, the firm claimed to accept cases free of charges, but would later organize donations to solicit funds online in the name of rights protection. Use of the charity funds was seldom monitored or recorded, and many went to the lawyers' own pockets.

"An online donation was held for a high-profile case in Heilongjiang Province last year, with more than 100,000 yuan collected. I was supposed to be the supervisor, but I hadn't a chance to see the ledger and had no idea where the money had gone," Liu said.

In a trademark dispute in 2014, while other lawyers recommended reducing sentences, Zhou claimed to be able to prove the defendants' innocence so as to win the defendants' trust and manage the case. He reportedly promised to return the one million yuan as the attorney's fee if he couldn't get half of the arrested released.

Zhou's group then resorted to the usual tricks of disrupting court orders, verbally attacking judges and hyping up the case on the Interent, but the court still found all the defendants guilty.