{"id":2631,"date":"2015-11-26T15:13:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T07:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/?p=2631"},"modified":"2021-04-05T09:50:21","modified_gmt":"2021-04-05T01:50:21","slug":"jasmine-khor-suan-khoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/jasmine-khor-suan-khoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Jasmine Khor Suan Khoon Attachment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jasmine<\/a>
Jasmine Khoo Suan Khoon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cShips at a distance have every man’s wish on board.\u201d
\n– Zora Neale Hurston, from\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTheir Eyes Were Watching God\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir Eyes Were Watching God\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ricocheted\u00a0 the sentiment that I had after embarking on the Certificate of Legal Practice\u00a0 (CLP) course.\u00a0\u00a0 The years of day dreaming of\u00a0 living a life as a lawyer is finally coming to an end as I am very much on the right track to achieving my dream. Because of that, questions of self identity started pouring in and I had to ponder on questions like\u00a0\u00a0 “Which area interests me?\u201d ; \u201cShould I chamber in a small firm, big firm or a medium firm?\u201d;\u00a0 and most importantly, \u201cWhat kind of lawyer do I want to be?\u201d<\/p>\n

My First Lesson<\/span><\/strong>
\nAs I embarked on this indelible journey of attachment in Alex Chang & Co, I found that\u00a0 undergoing an\u00a0 attachment with the right mentor allows me to not only have add value to my curriculum\u00a0 vitae but also added value to myself as a person. The first thing that was shared by Mr Chang to me was a line from the\u00a0 Sun Tzu’s Art of War, which explains that in any situation, three things\u00a0 determining the outcome are the\u201cheaven’s will, geographical structure, and human relationship\u201d and in our field, we can take advantage of these,\u00a0 through\u00a0 carefully crafted\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 words\u00a0 and techniques at the right time.\u00a0 This will\u00a0 of course take\u00a0 years of practice and lots of groundwork to be done\u00a0 to achieve this.<\/p>\n

Rule of Thumb<\/strong> <\/span>
\nBesides that, I was also taught a principle which is \u201cnever to assume\u201d anything at all in life because in our realm,\u00a0 lawyers are constantly arguing over\u00a0 the grey areas, thus, our capabilities are measured from the solutions that we provide to our clients.\u00a0\u00a0 Also, we have to be good \u201cforecasters\u201d\u00a0 of consequences\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 because we need to anticipate the arguments and\u00a0 outcomes that will be submitted by our opponent as well as the deliberation by the judges.<\/p>\n

The other rule which I have learnt:\u00a0 only speak when you are backed up by authorities.\u00a0 This practice of only speaking with authorities has trained me to be more precise in my\u00a0 speeches as well as opinion forming because for every question that is posted to me, Mr Chang would only accept arguments and reasoning that I can use to persuade a judge, if not, it would just be another telltale which would not be admitted in the honourable courts.<\/p>\n

Theories to Practice<\/strong><\/span>
\nFurthermore, I was given multiple case studies to work on, deliberate, derive my own\u00a0 opinion and then, present to Mr Chang at the end of every working day.\u00a0\u00a0 Besides, he also made sure that I joined in the discussion of their current cases where he showed me how an opening speech was to be properly made, right terminologies to be used, manner and etiquette when we are submitting before the judge. Also, I was lucky enough to witness a rare\u00a0\u00a0 ex parte Fortuna Injunction being applied in chambers.<\/p>\n

Reading the case studies and observing how Malaysian law is being applied\u00a0 in day to day submissions\u00a0 enriched\u00a0 my understanding of the CLP syllabus.\u00a0 My drafting skills were enhanced because now I can relate to these theories which are actually deployed\u00a0 in real life scenarios. Memorising Civil Procedure rules also became an automatic practice\u00a0 rather\u00a0 than\u00a0 a \u201cforce feeding\u201d\u00a0 session\u00a0 into my memory.\u00a0\u00a0 For the above reason, I\u00a0\u00a0 have\u00a0 a great sense of fulfilment.<\/p>\n

Sustaining My Block of Cheese<\/strong><\/span>
\nMr Chang\u00a0 will try his best to puncture holes on my block of cheese\u00a0 (argument) while I will have to try my best to sustain my block of cheese from falling apart on a daily basis for all the case studies because he told me that there will\u00a0 not be second chances in real life scenarios when I have to submit before the judges.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0 is\u00a0 definitely\u00a0 an invaluable experience because such exercise progresses my train of thought to look at situations on a wider spectrum and to actually enjoy researches because I cannot take for granted and apply my essentials (college textbooks) to all situations, because in real life, facts are always different\u00a0 and\u00a0 he\u00a0 made it a point for me to back up every single fact with an authority before I speak.\u00a0 This in fact made me pay more attention to minute details and to actually put on a curious hat to get a reasoning for even the simplest peculiarity.<\/p>\n

Self Realisation<\/strong><\/span>
\nIn cognisance to that, the most memorable experience that I derived during this attachment is the fact that I would wake up eager to get to work daily at six in the morning, crawling through the dreadful one and a half hour jam to Kuala Lumpur, and to my own surprise, look forward to start the day at work because I get to put my legal skills on check and\u00a0 ready to discover something new.<\/p>\n

This environment\u00a0 helped me to grow because in Alex Chang & Co, my colleagues are not just another co-worker but family members because they guide not only by actions but by heart. The experience has not only taught me the etiquettes and the court ethics as a lawyer but also allow me to envision the kind of lawyer that I want to be in the future, to be able to inspire another junior to feel proud of this profession like how Mr Chang would always share, “Look at your case like a game and not a job because you will dread to finish a job but you would use your heart to win the game\u201d.<\/p>\n

Notes of Appreciation<\/strong><\/span>
\nLast but not least, courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the gratefully and appreciating heart and thus, I would love to extend my gratitude to the invaluable guidance given by my mentor, Mr Chang and both his Legal Assistants, Ms Lim and Mr Soong who are both generous about their knowledge as well as personal experiences helping me to think out of the box. In addition to that, I am also grateful to Ms Wong, Ms Chow and Mrs Chang for taking care of and guiding me throughout this transit.”I never face Monday morning blues, because of fun colleagues like you.\u00a0 Thank you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cShips at a distance have every man’s wish on board.\u201d – Zora Neale Hurston, from\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTheir Eyes Were Watching God\u201d \u201cTheir Eyes Were Watching God\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ricocheted\u00a0 the sentiment that I had after embarking on the Certificate of Legal Practice\u00a0 (CLP) course.\u00a0\u00a0 The years of day dreaming of\u00a0 living a life as a lawyer is finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1804,"featured_media":2728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1804"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2631"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8743,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2631\/revisions\/8743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alexchanglaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}