Saturday 28 May 2022

Lets support the young lawyers

 While the Malaysian Bar was playing politics yesterday with this move

Bar to hold protest over ‘judicial intimidation’

its junior members were doing this

Young lawyers call for binding rule on minimum wages

excerpts:

Vince Tan, another member of the YLM, said that the financial abilities of smaller firms should not be an excuse to not pay pupils a fair minimum wage.

“The Bar needs to stop listening to some council of elders or cartel monopolising the legal profession,” he said as young lawyers make up a majority of the Bar.

He said smaller firms should not take in any pupils if the firms could not afford to pay them a minimum wage.

Yeah, they talked so much about justice and stuff but at the same time refused to even pay minimum wage to their pupils.

Let's not even talk about the bullying junior lawyers have to endure at the start of their career.

This has actually been going on all the way back through the decades, something like a tradition of the legal profession.

Very similar to all the nonsense we heard about the medical profession.

They bullied the juniors and many of the juniors later on became bullies themselves.

They even bullied and cheat their clients too.

Well, if a young lawyer is well connected and from a rich family (possibly with parents who are senior lawyers) then he/she would not feel much of such tough life, but if he/she is a nobody, then it's a different matter all together.

I don't know how much they pay a chambering student these days but it's definitely below the RM1,500 minimum wage.

All these bring me back memories, actually.

Back then after I got my LLB, they were paying a chambering student as low as RM300 per month.

As I wrote before, I didn't do my CLP despite passing my law exams with honours because I ran out of money.

Yup, I paid my way through law school with the help of my family and had no scholarship or student loan.

By the time I was supposed to prepare for my CLP, I really have no more money.

I actually borrowed some money from my uncle for my CLP tuition fees but decided to drop out when I realised that I can't even pay the exam fees without borrowing more.

After all, on top of having to pay for my studies, I still need to pay my rent and food.

The thought that even if I pass the very difficult CLP with one try, I will still have to go another year as a chambering student slave made me decide to postpone the whole thing.

Told myself to work first and get enough money so that I won't starve doing my CLP and chambering.

I did get a job, which I hated so much at first but later on learnt to love.

By the time I had saved enough money, I realised there's no need for me to continue with my once dream of becoming a lawyer.

After all, during my studies, I came to know that the legal profession was not what I used to think it was.

No need for me to go through more shit just to join it.

Well, I'm not trying to discourage others from becoming lawyers but I do hope they know the truth about what they are joining.

If they are still good with it, then I wish them all the best and hope they would be better lawyers than their seniors.

Anyway, I hope the young lawyers will get what they are fighting for, which are decent pay and better treatment from their seniors.

6 comments:

  1. Tulis dalam Bahasa Melayu lah, Annie. Ikut saranan Perdana Menteri Malaysia. Nanti ditempelak tak memartabatkan Bahasa Melayu pulak

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  2. Politi Scheiss30 May 2022 at 06:30

    Thanks for highlighting those two articles.

    The Council of the Malaysian Bar (a.k.a. Bar Council) has 42 council members as of 2022/2023 and speak on behalf of 20,556 law practitioners as of 2022 according to figures on the Malaysian Bar's website.

    It appears that the majority of Bar Council members are pro-Pakatan Harapan activists and especially Pakatan Harapan has been pushing for adoption of the minimum wage, yet as the young lawyers have protested, there are law firms, especially the small ones which are not paying legal pupils a minimum allowance of RM1.200, let alone the minimum wage of RM1,500.

    According to the General Statistics on the Malaysian Bar's website, in 2022, 5,817 law firms had between 1 and 5 lawyers, 745 between 6 and 30 lawyers and 33 had over 30 lawyers, so the vast majority of law firms are small firms.

    Whilst legally speaking pupils are not categorised as employees under the Employment Act, however it is a moral obligation for members of such a politically activist body campaigning for fairness, justice, etc. to be just and fair with remuneration of their pupils (trainees) during the nine months of their pupilage.

    Also, the number of women lawyers has outnumbered men lawyers since 2013, growing to 9,208 men and 11,348 women lawyers in 2022. I wonder whether women lawyers are paid the same as men lawyers.

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  3. Chambering students,
    young lawyers kena merisik betoi2 b4 joining any legal firm. Pastikn kerja ONLY wth established and reputable ones.

    BTW klo skrg dpt gaji sekadar minimum.. elok aje gi kerja cuci tandas dNegala olang. 10yrs dpt kumpul luit balik can buka any bisnes anytime wan.

    Yg dh tua2 nak engage lawyers pun kena betoi2 merisik mrk. Jgn sesekali tersilap lantik lawyer macam kes Arw Sosilawati dn rakan2 Arwah.. menyeramkan.

    Professor Nasi Lemak

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't worry prof, the nons law graduate, due to their higher proficiency in english & maybe mandarin, would be able to get better jobs in S'pore. Only yg melayu bahasa inggeris std darjah 3 je kena kerja cuci jamban hi tech kat s'pore.
      #inisemuasebabpolisitaksubumngok

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    2. Anon 16:30

      Haiya. Sg mana ade Sek mcam SJKC.. Lamai sana mana bole ciakap atau tulis bahasa Mandalin? English.. lu tatak pernah dgq how their Singlish sounds like? Dont worry.. Malays laku mana sja Negala mrk pogi kojo.

      My son's jiran (JB hse) is an Indon Chinese family.. bukan sekadar Mandalin, satu dialect Cina pun meleka tatak tau.. sama2 Cina JB sembang in BIndonesia/Malaysia.. sbb many Msian Cina tatak fasih ciakap Omputih pun.

      Anyway back to Arw Sosilawati. Lamai ahli2 politik kita latar belakang peguam. Mohon behave elok2 takmau byk berbelit kelentong, aksi cengey tergege esp dalam Dewan tau.. sbb bila rakyat tengok cara kamu berbahas satu2 dasar.. phobia sentiasa teringat2 peguam Arwah Sosilawati..

      Professor Nasi Lemak

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  4. My only take on malaysia lawyers is if ex pm does not trust or respect the capabilities our lawyers capabilities. It is best to shut down all the law firms. How you be a leader of not trusting your own peoples. HAVE PRIDE LAH.

    ReplyDelete