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03-06-2013, 11:00 AM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
My heart skipped a beat when my hand grasped air instead of wood. Then I realised that the next rung on the wooden ladder I was climbing to board a ship had given way. I was only 24, one year into my work as a lawyer, and facing a real prospect of tragedy at sea.
I had come to arrest the ship which my client had a claim against, which meant making my way to the ship's bridge and sticking the court papers on its windscreen. To this day, I still believe that nothing short of divine intervention helped me to pull myself up and board the ship.
Before I became a tech journalist, I was a lawyer and then a law lecturer for seven years. My mother was extremely proud and my future looked bright. I had achieved many a parent's dream of having a doctor or lawyer for a child, despite spending more time playing video games than mastering the laws of contract and tort at the National University of Singapore.
My first four years as a litigator were unforgettable. Law had seemed glamorous on television and in the movies, but the reality was a far cry from what I had envisioned.
I was thrown into the deepest end right from the start. Halfway through my pupillage, the senior litigator in the one-boss, five-man law firm I was in quit. The boss decided, quite erroneously, that I was ready and made me take over all of my senior colleague's cases and files, more than 100 in all. I put up a brave front and somehow survived the next three months, and was eventually called to the Bar.
Over the next four years, I worked for three law firms and even struck out on my own for a year. I job-hopped, but the nature of my work was the same: I was a small-time litigator handling divorces, defending the accused, writing wills for dying men, helping car workshops with insurance claims and taking just about any case that came my way. My clients were mostly regular Joes, people you see on the bus and wouldn't give a second look.
I had hoped to join one of the big firms, but since I finished only above average in my law class, that didn't happen - the big guys took in mainly the best graduates and, it seemed, the pedigreed.
The rest of us ended up in smaller firms and had two choices - to do conveyancing (dealing with people buying or selling property) or litigation (everything else under the sun). Mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers, corporate litigation and other sexy legal stuff did not usually happen at the smaller firms.
There were no swanky offices for me, and I worked out of offices in the Chinatown area most of my lawyer life.
But I was not put off. As a rookie litigator, I found the excitement to be addictive. Juicy affidavits of divorce clients were better than a Jackie Collins novel. In one memorable case, my client had been prostituted by her husband who demanded to be in the room when the sex took place. Another client had separated from his wife on the advice of his pastor, only to catch her in bed with the clergyman.
One man who had sought advice about suing his son's school on a safety issue suddenly called, saying he had been arrested and needed to be bailed out. To my utter surprise, the gentle, soft-spoken dad turned out to be a serial carjacker with 40 previous offences.
In a small firm, rookies are often hired to help the partners with the legwork while senior guys close the rainmaking deals. They can spare some time to guide the rookie, but within months, you are expected to be an independent operator. This means meeting and gaining the confidence of new clients, obtaining documentary evidence and witnesses, appearing in court and arguing cases, and explaining to the client why it wasn't your fault the judge ruled against him.
If morals demand that you be truthful at all times, litigation work can prove challenging, especially when you have to choose between telling the judge the truth and protecting your client.
It is a tough life. So it was no surprise to me when recent news reports highlighted, yet again, the high attrition rate of lawyers. The job is stressful, the hours are long, and doing family and criminal law cases does not pay as well as the high-flying corporate work.
In my case, it wasn't the hard work, stress or challenging work that made me decide in the end to quit practising law. Nor was it that close shave at sea.
It was the heartache.
In every litigation case, there is a winner and a loser. The euphoria of winning is addictive, but the emotional disappointment of losing a case - especially one you believe you should have won - can be difficult to bear.
Regular Joes often put their lives on hold to embark on a case they feel they have no choice but to fight.
When one of my clients - a crane operator in his 50s - broke his leg in a road accident and eventually lost his claim at trial, his pain was unbearable. He said he was on his motorcycle when a car swerved into his lane, and when he skidded and fell, his leg got caught in the back wheel of the car. The driver claimed otherwise, that he was stationary and the rider came from out of the blue. Two passengers in the car vouched for him.
I believed my client's version, but the judge was not persuaded. My client had been out of work for months and poured his life savings into fighting the case. He not only had to pay my bill, but also fork out more for the insurance company's lawyers. It was a heart-rending case.
Over the course of those four years, the juicy affidavits lost their appeal for me, as I handled too many cases of women mistreated by husbands and needing help.
I was barely 30, and it proved too heavy a burden knowing that people's lives were in my hands all the time. I realised I was not prepared to harden myself for the long haul.
I have now been a tech journalist for more than 13 years, but have never regretted my four years as a lawyer. I learnt a lot about the law, life and myself in that time. I like to think legal practice taught me how to be a good human being. Most of all, I learnt it was not for me.
These days when young people tell me they want to be lawyers, I tell them to go for it, but be aware that the real thing is nothing quite like the movies.
[email protected]
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?153579-It-took-four-years-to-learn-I-m-no-lawyer&goto=newpost).
My heart skipped a beat when my hand grasped air instead of wood. Then I realised that the next rung on the wooden ladder I was climbing to board a ship had given way. I was only 24, one year into my work as a lawyer, and facing a real prospect of tragedy at sea.
I had come to arrest the ship which my client had a claim against, which meant making my way to the ship's bridge and sticking the court papers on its windscreen. To this day, I still believe that nothing short of divine intervention helped me to pull myself up and board the ship.
Before I became a tech journalist, I was a lawyer and then a law lecturer for seven years. My mother was extremely proud and my future looked bright. I had achieved many a parent's dream of having a doctor or lawyer for a child, despite spending more time playing video games than mastering the laws of contract and tort at the National University of Singapore.
My first four years as a litigator were unforgettable. Law had seemed glamorous on television and in the movies, but the reality was a far cry from what I had envisioned.
I was thrown into the deepest end right from the start. Halfway through my pupillage, the senior litigator in the one-boss, five-man law firm I was in quit. The boss decided, quite erroneously, that I was ready and made me take over all of my senior colleague's cases and files, more than 100 in all. I put up a brave front and somehow survived the next three months, and was eventually called to the Bar.
Over the next four years, I worked for three law firms and even struck out on my own for a year. I job-hopped, but the nature of my work was the same: I was a small-time litigator handling divorces, defending the accused, writing wills for dying men, helping car workshops with insurance claims and taking just about any case that came my way. My clients were mostly regular Joes, people you see on the bus and wouldn't give a second look.
I had hoped to join one of the big firms, but since I finished only above average in my law class, that didn't happen - the big guys took in mainly the best graduates and, it seemed, the pedigreed.
The rest of us ended up in smaller firms and had two choices - to do conveyancing (dealing with people buying or selling property) or litigation (everything else under the sun). Mergers and acquisitions, hostile takeovers, corporate litigation and other sexy legal stuff did not usually happen at the smaller firms.
There were no swanky offices for me, and I worked out of offices in the Chinatown area most of my lawyer life.
But I was not put off. As a rookie litigator, I found the excitement to be addictive. Juicy affidavits of divorce clients were better than a Jackie Collins novel. In one memorable case, my client had been prostituted by her husband who demanded to be in the room when the sex took place. Another client had separated from his wife on the advice of his pastor, only to catch her in bed with the clergyman.
One man who had sought advice about suing his son's school on a safety issue suddenly called, saying he had been arrested and needed to be bailed out. To my utter surprise, the gentle, soft-spoken dad turned out to be a serial carjacker with 40 previous offences.
In a small firm, rookies are often hired to help the partners with the legwork while senior guys close the rainmaking deals. They can spare some time to guide the rookie, but within months, you are expected to be an independent operator. This means meeting and gaining the confidence of new clients, obtaining documentary evidence and witnesses, appearing in court and arguing cases, and explaining to the client why it wasn't your fault the judge ruled against him.
If morals demand that you be truthful at all times, litigation work can prove challenging, especially when you have to choose between telling the judge the truth and protecting your client.
It is a tough life. So it was no surprise to me when recent news reports highlighted, yet again, the high attrition rate of lawyers. The job is stressful, the hours are long, and doing family and criminal law cases does not pay as well as the high-flying corporate work.
In my case, it wasn't the hard work, stress or challenging work that made me decide in the end to quit practising law. Nor was it that close shave at sea.
It was the heartache.
In every litigation case, there is a winner and a loser. The euphoria of winning is addictive, but the emotional disappointment of losing a case - especially one you believe you should have won - can be difficult to bear.
Regular Joes often put their lives on hold to embark on a case they feel they have no choice but to fight.
When one of my clients - a crane operator in his 50s - broke his leg in a road accident and eventually lost his claim at trial, his pain was unbearable. He said he was on his motorcycle when a car swerved into his lane, and when he skidded and fell, his leg got caught in the back wheel of the car. The driver claimed otherwise, that he was stationary and the rider came from out of the blue. Two passengers in the car vouched for him.
I believed my client's version, but the judge was not persuaded. My client had been out of work for months and poured his life savings into fighting the case. He not only had to pay my bill, but also fork out more for the insurance company's lawyers. It was a heart-rending case.
Over the course of those four years, the juicy affidavits lost their appeal for me, as I handled too many cases of women mistreated by husbands and needing help.
I was barely 30, and it proved too heavy a burden knowing that people's lives were in my hands all the time. I realised I was not prepared to harden myself for the long haul.
I have now been a tech journalist for more than 13 years, but have never regretted my four years as a lawyer. I learnt a lot about the law, life and myself in that time. I like to think legal practice taught me how to be a good human being. Most of all, I learnt it was not for me.
These days when young people tell me they want to be lawyers, I tell them to go for it, but be aware that the real thing is nothing quite like the movies.
[email protected]
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?153579-It-took-four-years-to-learn-I-m-no-lawyer&goto=newpost).