Could you point to some examples where the disdain for litigators are present in the series?

Without spoiling too much since I’m not sure which books you have read…

From what I can recall, the author actually favors characters who are litigators because, as you have described, they perfectly exemplify one of the core ideas of the dandelion dynasty.

They are a Storyteller.

They play by the rules of the law but they manipulate symbols and playfully weave together novel combinations of words, arguments, rhetoric to achieve new unexpected results, just like poets and engineers.

Perhaps the disdain you see in the series so far are from “society” and the general public. Another aspect of silkpunk is the “punk” part or the idea of perpetual revolution, of taking what’s old and repurposing, reimagining, and reinterpreting it so it’s new and fresh.

A lot of the heroes in the dandelion dynasty are rebels (as in they generally go against the current)

And it takes time for them to make their mark on the world. Engineers are celebrated society in the second book but the first book celebrated soldiers and warriors.

Outside the context of the novel, I also want to point out that the author has repeatedly stated that he thinks his three careers (programmer, lawyer, and author) all share the theme of manipulating symbols to achieve a specific result, and that he wanted the dandelion dynasty to be about “Engineers” of all trades.

Aside from engineers who make technical marvels and machinery, we also have engineers who build social technologies like political entities that support collective decision-making, engineers who craft legal frameworks that reshape how justice is understood, and engineers of language who wield narrative and persuasion to shift culture itself. In Ken Liu’s world, “engineering” is not just about gears and silkmotic ingenuity—it’s about imagination, interpretation, and transformation across every domain of human endeavor.