By Yang Chia-Ling, Attorney-at-Law
The Day of the Verdict
Today is January 30, 2026. Outside a courtroom of the Taipei District Court, camera flashes filled the air.
Lin Yun-Chen (Ms. Lin) walked out of the courtroom, faced the cameras, and could no longer hold back her tears.
I knew those were tears of victory—and also the release of everything she had carried for more than two years: all the grievances of a single mother standing alone against the powerful and enduring ridicule. Choking back sobs, she said to the cameras: “I hope that through my case, every woman who has suffered pregnancy discrimination can find a little courage to stand up and speak for herself.”
Hearing those words in the online news, I thought of how that prominent senior attorney had once, in a birthday post, alluded to this relationship as the “withered leaves” obstructing his spiritual cultivation, thankful that heaven had blown them all cleanly away.
I also thought of a veteran internet-celebrity female lawyer who had mocked her online morning, noon, and night, insinuating that she was vain—that she had taken the English name “Chanel” because she wanted to attach herself to the rich and powerful. But today, watching the resolve in her eyes before the media, I want to tell you about the real “Chanel” as I see her.
The Real Chanel
The Coco Chanel everyone knows was the queen of a fashion empire. But few remember that she came out of an orphanage and grew up in bitter poverty. She was once a mistress dependent on others, and she was once looked down upon by French high society. But she refused to remain a canary in a gilded cage. She picked up her scissors, cut away the corsets that bound women’s bodies, and cut out a freedom that belonged to the modern woman. She created the finest of French fashion, and the very socialites who had once scorned her came, one after another, to insist on wearing the trends she created.
The name Chanel has never stood for an expensive price tag. It stands for the soul of an orphaned girl who refused to bow to fate.
When the man who held the power of life and death over her career forced her to choose between her “job” and her “child,” this widely misunderstood female lawyer made a braver decision than that so-called “spiritual mentor” ever did:
- She chose her child.
- She refused an abortion.
- She refused to become the “withered leaves” that man could sweep out of his life at will.
In that prominent attorney’s eyes, this unexpected life was a nuisance obstructing his path to being “free of all attachments.” But in my eyes, this child is a tender sprout struggling to survive in a crack in the rock. And to protect that sprout, Yun-Chen did not hesitate to make an enemy of enormous power. Even with her livelihood cut off, even with labels pinned on her, she kept her back straight.
Over these two years, through the bar association’s occupational union, I and our firm’s team walked with her through her complaint before the Department of Labor. Attorney Chao Wen-Kuei later joined us to support her through the ordeal of the hearings, and through the work of dismantling pleadings that twisted black into white with every possible sophistry. I watched her transform from a panicked, newly dismissed rookie lawyer and new mother—for whom pregnancy had meant instant unemployment—into the strong mother who stood before the cameras today, encouraging other women who have suffered the same.
What Makes a Good Lawyer
All of this has made me think hard about what it truly means to be a “good lawyer.”
A good lawyer is not someone who sits behind a keyboard weaving touching, feel-good stories in flowery prose to harvest millions of views, then turns around and treats his own flesh and blood, and his own employees, with cold indifference.
A truly good lawyer is someone willing to walk into the mud, take the hand of a person covered in wounds, and tell her: “Don’t be afraid. The road ahead is long, but we will walk it with you.”
Just as we once did before the Constitutional Court, when we stopped a cross-border attempt to seize a child from that flight-attendant mother; or when we helped victims of non-consensual intimate images. This time, once again, we did not bow our heads. We stood in the way of bullying by the powerful.
Although the written judgment has not yet arrived, the verdict announced today tells us this: a life is not withered leaves, and the dignity of the vulnerable is not dust to be blown away at will.
Yun-Chen, congratulations. Today, you are worthy of the name “Chanel,” because you have lived out a legend that is entirely your own—one that cannot be defined, and cannot be knocked down.
I am Attorney Yang Chia-Ling. In the courts, we protect real lives; in the storm, we stand guard over every “Chanel.” We never give up.