Plenty of academic deliberation especially in the West has transpired on the journey and challenges as confronted by the Chinese legal profession and the exceptional struggles of Chinese public interest lawyers. This article aims to draw a general picture of the collective knowledge as developed through a data-driven and case-study analysis. Specifically, the article explores three key areas which are absent in the current literature: (a) applying Amartya Sen’s Idea of Justice to explain the political radicalization of lawyering for change in China; (b) an analysis of the challenges of rule of law building and its impact on the state–legal profession relationship in China; and (c) an exploration of alternatives through a case-study analysis on the possibilities to promote a sustainable role of the Chinese legal profession in legal reform and in serving the disadvantaged.