Law for startups in Malaysia — building on the best foundations

The Malaysian startup scene has noticeably increased in vibrancy in the past couple of years. Many of us have friends or relatives who are somehow involved in the startup scene — either as founders or investors.

An increasing number of people — young and not-so-young, and some lawyers too — are moving away from traditional career paths and joining the startup ecosystem.

Other than my involvement with startups and investors via my corporate law practice, I’ve recently been working together with the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (“MaGIC”).

My
My “Law For Startups” workshop at MA2015.

MaGIC is funded by the Malaysian government, and you can read their mandate here. They are an exciting and ambitious group of people, and they aim to make Malaysia the startup capital of Asia.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been part of a couple of MaGIC initiatives so far this year:

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Companies Bill: Reforming Malaysia’s Corporate Landscape

One of the significant areas I have been regularly speaking on is the upcoming Companies Bill. The Bill will revamp our aging Companies Act 1965 and bring long awaited reforms to our corporate landscape.

At the recent Malaysian Legal and Corporate Conference on 7 October 2015, I gave a short interview to The Edge TV.

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I was asked to give a very short summary on some of the changes we could expect in the law:

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DIY legal documents for conveyancing transactions — can we really do it without lawyers?

Earlier this year, I was invited to be one of the speakers at the launch of the Collective of Applied Law and Legal Realism (CALR) — the event title was “The End of Lawyers, The Future of Law”.

The launch was a great success, and the report was the front page headline of The Star the following day.

No really, the front page headline of The Star!
No really, the front page headline of The Star!

CALR is an initiative led by my friend Edmund Bon, and is one of the many initiatives which have been discussed (formally and informally) by myself and Edmund with different groups of people in relation to innovation in the legal industry.

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Thanks Office Parrots for featuring us!

We are delighted that the team at Office Parrots featured our spanking-new blog so soon after our launch.

They described this blog as “a joint, personal initiative by Marcus van Geyzel and Lee Shih to build a new cornerstone of online content for Malaysian lawyers”.

Quite interestingly, they asked their readers to think of this blog “as a lifestyle blog for the contemporary Malaysian lawyer”!

Read the full feature here.

Also read the rest of their blog and main website for lots of interesting information and insights.

10 Years in the Law: Reflections

Thought as my introductory post, I would share more on my journey as a  lawyer. A month ago marked my 10 years at the Malaysian Bar and I take this chance to  look back and explain why I still enjoy the law.

Why did I study law?

I made the decision to study law very late on. Many of my college mates had already made their university applications while I was still undecided. If I had followed my classmates, I would have likely pursued engineering or a science subject. Instead, with me not being able to decide, I drifted into applying for law. I thought it would offer me the most options after my law degree.

One tutorial's worth of reading at law school
One tutorial’s worth of reading at law school

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Introducing “The Malaysian Lawyer”

Hello, and welcome to The Malaysian Lawyer!

The Malaysian Lawyer is a collaborative blog by two Malaysian lawyers, Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel. This is a personal blog which is not affiliated with their respective law firms.

Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel.
Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel.

Lee Shih is a partner at Skrine and is a dispute resolution lawyer. Come connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Marcus is the co-founder of corporate law firm Peter Ling & van Geyzel, based in Kuala Lumpur. Find out more and connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

We will be publishing content on a wide range of issues (not just legal), so do keep coming back for more.