A Resolutely Major Generalist
Sometime last year, a lawyer friend called me up. We’ve known each other for some time. After exchanging pleasantries, he told me he had a matter he needed help with. ‘I thought of bringing you in. But then I realized that I didn’t know your practice area. Sorry for not knowing despite knowing you for so many years.’ ‘Aiyah, no worries lah. My practice area… How about this? Why don’t you tell me what help you need, and I’ll tell you whether I can help you. If I can’t, I can recommend and refer.’ ‘Ha? So mysterious one! Tell lah!’ When I am pressed about my specialization, I respond by saying my specialization is in being a generalist. If I had to describe my law practice, it would be generalism in the most total sense. I’m a full-caps generalist. I am a five-star kind of general. I was in the park the other day when someone called out ‘General’; I thought he was calling me. I kid. I don’t specialize in any specific area of law. I’m not a specialist with a big ‘S’. While I am happy to spend time in an area of law, I have difficulty devoting an entire career to it. If I repeatedly confront the same specific fact patterns and laws without meaningful and enough variation, practice becomes routine, boring and tedious. With me, that ends with cynical despair. It is not that I don’t want to devote my career to an area of law. I can’t. I am not made for it. It is against my grain. I can’t get enough of the spice from the law’s variety. I see a constellation of legal areas for my curiosity to slake itself. I thrive on the contrast and colours that come from regular servings of a diversity of cases. I get excited when I am greeted by the fresh, dew-tinged vistas each time I enter a new area of law. I love the disorienting sense of discovery, the humbling awareness of how little I know and the pleasure of accumulating and integrating new learning. The freshness from discovery, re-discovery, learning and application keeps me curious and motivated. The complexity and effort that go into dealing with several areas of law at once keeps me challenged. My chase for such highs drives me out of my comfort zone into unfamiliar ones. That drive expanded my zone of competency and comfort. A broad and moderately deep experience across several practice areas suffices. I don’t, can’t and won’t know all of them. But the broader my experience and awareness, the more helpful I can be to a situation or someone. Being able to advise or represent holistically and comprehensively brings me deep personal satisfaction. I feel like a positive addition to society, even as I am advising someone on a charge of murder. I want to help the many instead of the few. Helping the many lies in attending to the usual areas of dispute, such as the law on contract, tort, corporate, crime, family, etc. It is a broad area. It is vast as it is varied. I am fascinated, invigorated and anti-fragile by that variety. Helping the few lies in dealing with matters which are niche or uncommon. I felt something was wrong with me for some time because I resisted specialising. These days, I no longer feel the need to apologise for not specialising. I accept that a general practice suits my character, abilities and inclination. There is nothing wrong with that. In terms of law, I can advise about and conduct, for example, tortious claims (negligence, defamation), contractual disputes (breach, specific performance, construction), corporate disputes (shareholder fights, winding ups), administrative law challenges (judicial reviews), constitutional law challenges, industrial claims (unjust dismissal, employment-related claims), criminal cases (trial and appellate levels), family claims for non-Muslims or Muslims (divorce, custody, maintenance, Syariah Court, High Court), probate and administration matters (applying for probate or letters of administration), estate claims and disputes (removal of executor, compelling administrators to distribute); prepare wills, trusts, power of attorneys, sale and purchase contracts, shareholder agreements or whatever required legal instrument; notarize documents and affirm affidavits and statutory declarations. Where legal practice is concerned, for example, I litigate in the Magistrates, Sessions Court, and High Court. I appear in the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court for appeals and applications. I conduct domestic and international arbitrations. I appear regularly in the Kuala Lumpur Syariah Courts in the lower courts, High Court and Court of Appeal. I conduct cases in the Industrial Court. I represent the complainant or lawyer before the Advocates & Solicitors Disciplinary Committee and Disciplinary Board. I have appeared as a proxy in shareholder meetings in peculiar places. I regularly give legal talks and training to pupils and young lawyers for the Bar Council or State Bar Committees and legal aid clinics. I set out what my colleagues and I can do to give a sense of what I mean by variety. We enjoy and thrive on that relentless contrast of practice. I do not claim to be outstanding at any of them. I do not claim to be the best. However, I consider myself and my colleagues sufficiently competent and experienced to represent, attend to, and advise others about their legal affairs and deliver a talk or three. We are trustworthy, competent, and dogged to conduct whatever matters to ensure our client’s interests are privileged, protected, and advanced. I am going to stop. I am sounding like a bloody ad. Despite my seeming breadth of practice, I still feel and know that what I know is merely a peasant’s backyard vegetable patch in this vast plain of law. The Everest of what I don’t know and perhaps will never know dominates the horizon of my knowledge. And I don’t know what lies behind that Everest either. I think being a generalist has many advantages. I will discuss a few for flavour. I preface that discussion by clarifying that I
