HYBE Won in Court. So Why Did Its Law Firm Just Quit?

On April 24, five attorneys from Kim & Chang - South Korea's most prominent law firm - submitted mass resignation notices from ADOR's $29 million damages lawsuit against former NewJeans member Danielle and ex-CEO Min Hee-jin. The May 14 hearing was three weeks away. ADOR is now scrambling to find new representation.

That detail has received less attention than it deserves. ADOR has, by every formal legal measure, been winning. A Seoul court ruled in October 2025 that NewJeans' contracts remained valid through 2029. Four of the five members returned. The asset freeze approved in February locked down 7 billion won in real estate belonging to Min Hee-jin and Danielle's mother before any final judgment. The plaintiff in a $29 million lawsuit doesn't usually lose its entire legal team three weeks before a critical hearing. And yet.

To understand what's happening now, you have to go back to August 2024, when HYBE fired Min Hee-jin as ADOR's CEO after accusing her of attempting to seize control of the label. NewJeans sided with Min publicly and in November 2024, all five members declared their contracts void at an emergency press conference. ADOR refused to accept that. The ensuing legal battle became K-pop's most-watched corporate dispute in years - the kind of conflict that US audiences recognized not because they knew the players, but because the structure was familiar: a breakout act, a controlling label, a charismatic creative director at the center of the fight, and a court system asked to decide who owned what.

The court sided with ADOR in October 2025. The members did not appeal. Haerin and Hyein returned first, then Hanni and eventually Minji. Only Danielle stayed out. ADOR terminated her contract on December 29, 2025, and the same day filed a 43.1 billion won damages lawsuit against her, a family member, and Min Hee-jin - arguing that the two were the primary drivers behind NewJeans' 14-month refusal to return, causing the label measurable financial and reputational harm. The legal theory is tortious interference: that without Min and Danielle's family pushing from outside, the group would have returned sooner and ADOR's losses would have been smaller.

What's happened since is less a legal story than a procedural one. The asset freeze went through in February without public notice; it only became known on April 29 when Korean legal sources confirmed it to local media. The first pretrial hearing on March 26 ended with the court encouraging both sides toward settlement. Neither confirmed any such discussions. Then came April 24 and the Kim & Chang exit - five attorneys out simultaneously, less than a month after that first hearing.

The timing is what has legal observers raising eyebrows. In Korean civil procedure, a judge can refuse to reschedule if a delay appears intentional. If ADOR cannot appoint new counsel before May 14, the court may proceed anyway - potentially to ADOR's disadvantage. A second scheduled hearing date of July 2 sits further out, but the sequence matters. The move looks, to outside observers, either like a breakdown in the attorney-client relationship or a strategic calculation about the litigation's direction. ADOR has not commented. Kim & Chang has not commented.

Meanwhile, three members of NewJeans - Hanni, Haerin, and Hyein - traveled to Copenhagen in mid-April for what ADOR described as pre-production work on new music. Minji was not among them. Danielle, still a defendant in a nine-figure damages claim, celebrated her birthday with her family. ADOR has said it is "preparing a comeback" without confirming a full lineup or release date.

The financial stakes are not abstract. Meritz Securities has estimated a NewJeans comeback could generate 60 to 70 billion won in operating profit for ADOR. The 43.1 billion won lawsuit is itself larger than many groups' entire career earnings. What the numbers make clear is that this was never only about creative control. Min Hee-jin's original grievance - that HYBE was attempting to extract and replicate her creative methodology across other HYBE labels - was a dispute about intellectual property in an industry that rarely names it as such. The lawsuit ADOR is now pursuing frames the same conflict as a contract enforcement problem.

The May 14 hearing may or may not proceed on schedule. What it will reveal, at minimum, is whether ADOR has found new counsel and what posture the court takes on the attorney withdrawal. That's a narrow procedural question. The larger one - whether HYBE can rebuild a functioning relationship with a group that declared its contracts void on camera - isn't one any court has been asked to answer.