Legal Practice Advice

The Seven Qualities of Indispensability

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For me, the one quality that gets anyone hired, liked, nurtured, feted and even championed is indispensability. You can make a persuasive case for your hire if you cultivate this quality. Whatever your profession, employment or job. To be indispensable is to be essential, necessary, and integral to something. Being indispensable is to be part of the nucleus. It is commonly associated with salutary qualities such as reliability, sensibility, competency, credibility, loyalty, motivation and initiative. …

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Will I Ever Argue A Case of Some Importance?

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I asked myself that question from time to time in the first few years of practice when I ran the gamut of debt and traffic claims and defences in the lower courts for the firm. I asked myself that question during those long, dull and lonely waits. If I weren’t waiting in the subordinate court registry, I’d be waiting in court waiting for my case to be called up. In the good old days, whatever …

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A short guide to applying for leave to appeal

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This is an approach to preparing an application for leave to appeal. An appeal is a request to a higher court to rehear and review the court below’s decision (‘the original decision’). An appeal can happen from the subordinate courts, comprised of the magistrates and sessions courts, to the High Court (Scenario 1) and subsequently from the High Court to the Court of Appeal (Scenario 2). It can also happen from the High Court to …

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Dressing for work

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At the firm atelier, the lawyers have a dynamic but relaxed dress code. What we have to wear depends on what we have scheduled for the day. If we have no court attendance or client meetings that day, we come in casual. Slacks, jeans, shirts, t-shirts, collared, with, without, dresses, baju kurung, whatever. It’s fine. Only shorts and risqué wear require prior approval. We allow for it because I like dressing casually for days in …

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A short guide to conducting an appeal

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This is a way to conduct an appeal. An appeal is a request to a higher court to rehear and review the court below’s decision (‘the original decision’). An appeal can happen from the subordinate courts, comprised of the magistrates and sessions courts, to the High Court (Scenario 1), or from the High Court to the Court of Appeal (Scenario 2). For civil matters, there is only one right of appeal. If a litigant wants …

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