Rejigging the Legal Submission
Preparing for arguments for court is now an exercise in labouriousness. Let’s take an application. The court will fix a schedule for the exchange of affidavits on the first case management date. Once that is completed the court will fix a schedule for the exchange of written submission. This is now taken as a matter of course. Now, no matter how simple and singular the contested issue might be, written submissions will be directed as …
Living Locum Legalis | Part Two
My role and Max’s were clearly defined by our abilities and limitations. My role was the visionary. I had the idea but not the coding ability. Max was tech. He coded, he developed and managed the backend, and conjured up whatever it was I imagined. He had the skills but lacked a viable idea. But Max was also my teacher and guide to tech start-up ventures. I was completely ignorant and learned immensely from him. …
Living Locum Legalis | Part One
This is the story of how for one moment I together with a friend created a smartphone application for Malaysian lawyers like no other in the world and how it came to an end. It all started with the legal practice of ‘mentioning on behalf’, popularly known as MOB; we pronounced each letter individually. MOB was the practice of a lawyer appointing another lawyer to stand in and attend a routine court appointment for them. …
Fee Undercutting
Recently the complaint of fee undercutting arose amidst the ongoing mutual recriminations between a section of the senior and junior members of the bar; a complaint that emanated from the senior lawyers are that junior members with newly set up their firms were responsible for the undercutting of fees. An understandable concern by the senior lawyers is when competition is fought mainly on price, quality inevitably takes a hit because it ceases to be a …