We’ve received the news that both the lawyers behind The Malaysian Lawyer have been nominated in the ‘Young Lawyer of the Year’ category for the upcoming ALB Malaysia Law Awards 2016 organised by Asian Legal Business.
Needless to say, both Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel are honoured and delighted to be nominated, which bears testament to the legal work they’ve done through the years, and their standing within the Malaysian legal community.
We had a great time this week, as Stephen Lai, the Managing Director of Hong Kong-based Conventus Law visited the Kuala Lumpur offices of each of the co-founders of The Malaysian Lawyer.
Insights from corporate lawyer Marcus van Geyzel on taking your legal career beyond the ordinary.
There is a vast number of lawyers in Malaysia (at last count, there are 16,104 of us), with an ever-increasing number of law graduates coming into the market every year.
I’m often asked for insights on how pupils and young lawyers can set themselves apart in this crowd. These 10 tips are a condensed version of what I usually share — if you want the extended version, buy me a coffee and we’ll talk.
First off, I should make clear that these tips obviously aren’t magic beans that will instantly convert a mediocre lawyer into a good one. There are so many career possibilities open to law graduates, so it’s impossible to have a fixed formula.
There isn’t even an agreed definition of what a ‘lawyer’ is. The basic categories used in Malaysia are ‘corporate lawyer’ and ‘litigation lawyer’ (as all lawyers here are ‘advocates and solicitors’) — but countless nuances exist within these broad, clumsy categorisations. What one lawyer does on a daily basis can be extremely different from what another lawyer does, so these tips will have to be adapted accordingly.
Why do some lawyers seem to excel — at work and in life — while others struggle to make sense of the profession? How come some seem to have boundless enthusiasm for their work even after a decade, while others are burnt out and disillusioned within five years?
I don’t pretend to have a magic formula to building an awesome legal career. But I guarantee that anyone who practises these 10 tips will have a better chance at staying ahead of the disillusioned and unmotivated crowd who see lawyering as ‘just a job’.
There has been a wave of retrenchments in Malaysia, which started last year and looks to continue through 2016. Malaysia’s Human Resources Minister says that his ministry expects retrenchments to continue into 2017.
According to the Malaysian Employers’ Federation (MEF), more than 20,000 employees were retrenched in 2015 (as at September 2015). Comparatively, the figure for the entire 2014 was 10,000 employees. The MEF predicts that it will only get worse in 2016.
Although the steepest increase in retrenchment numbers are in the oil and gas industry, the banking industry has also seen several retrenchment exercises or voluntary separation schemes being implemented. The legal industry has also been affected, with many medium and big law firms either downsizing or freezing hiring.
Let’s take a quick look at the law related to retrenchments. As an employer, when can I retrench employees? Am I free to choose which employees to let go? How much do I have to pay them as severance? As an employee, what are my rights? Can I challenge a retrenchment?
In this series, we have addressed the general employment law backdrop in Malaysia, legal issues when hiring employees, and how to ensure good employee management. This post will discuss the end of the employment life cycle — the termination of the employment contract, or dismissal.
Whether an employer is sacking someone on the spot, or terminating an employee’s employment contract by serving the contractually-agreed notice period, the employer must be able to show that the dismissal or termination was with just cause or excuse.
This post is the second in a three-part series on employment law. Flowing on from the introduction (What employers need to know about employment law in Malaysia) and the first part (Legal considerations when hiring employees in Malaysia), this post considers the issues involved in managing employees.
Over the course of an employment relationship, a plethora of situations can arise. Establishing clear human resource principles and guidelines will help minimise the ripple effect of any negative incident.
The management of employees is not an impersonal science, and legal threads will have to be weaved in with aspects which are personal to each employee and situation.
