Fahri Azzat

A Pupil’s Remuneration

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Mathew Thomas Philip, a senior lawyer, recently made an interesting suggestion about pupils’ remuneration. His proposal was to replace pupil allowances with a pupil loan with comfortable repayment terms. That loan is meant to pay the Master (the pupil’s supervising lawyer) for the education and coaching of the pupil. Mathew reasons that since the pupilage period is an extension of the pupil’s legal education after university and since the pupil’s paid for their undergraduate and …

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Campaigning for Bar Council Elections

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When I started practice at the Bar in 1999, the Bar Council elections were not the contentious, fractious, politicized and aggressive election we have now. My sense of it then was it was gentlemanly; lawyers offered themselves for election and relied on the strength of their reputation and nominators’ reputations to get elected. There were no overt campaigns and certainly no manifestos about what one would do if one got elected.  You were elected because …

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Mass Calls to the Bar

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My experience of calls to the Bar is one borne from moving calls mostly at the Kuala Lumpur (KL) and, occasionally, at the Shah Alam High Courts. Rarely have I been called to move a call out of the Klang Valley. I used to look on in horror at the mass calls to the Bar practiced by the Singaporean Bar. I used to think our Malaysian practice of calling each newly minted member of the …

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Discussing Litigation Prospects of Success in Percentages

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“What are our chances of success?” Every litigation lawyer’s client That is a question a client will inevitably ask his or her lawyer about a case in court. It is understandable. Their personal fortunes are tied to the case. They are anxious and stressed about whether they will succeed or lose. Nobody goes to court wanting to lose unless it is part of a larger strategy. Usually that assurance is expected to be expressed as …

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