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Contributed by the National Young Lawyers’ Committee

“Review the CLP exams”

David Dinesh Matthew is a young lawyer with an interesting background. He is a Barrister (Gray’s Inn) and holds a LLM (Corporate & Commerical Law) from London. From 2000-2002, he worked as a part-time journalist.

He shared some of his thoughts with us on recent events.

What made you come back to Malaysia to practise law?

The defining moment happened one cold September night in 2004. I trudged two kilometers uphill and rode the tube for 30 minutes to a restaurant in London I affectionately call the Golden Palace of Rudeness for some average chicken rice.

Standing there freezing in the queue, I realised something was gravely wrong. Chicken rice should be available just around the corner and it should be great chicken rice with loads of thick sauce. Further, one should be able to get drumstick without being shouted at.

So there I was, staring into the ground looking at a neon reflection of “Golden Palace of Rudeness” in a puddle feeling quite unhappy at the state of things. The time had come to go home.

Ok I lie.

Fact is nothing makes you feel more Malaysian than being in a foreign country. Despite being there for two years, I felt more Malaysian than when I arrived and while I loved London (and do not discount the possibility of going back), I resolved to go home and at least complete my pupillage.

On top of this, among items in the local news at this point (September 2004) was the Dewan Rakyat debating whether or not RTM female newscasters needed to be beautiful to get the job and that Michelle Yeoh had fallen into foreign (Jean Todt) hands. I was needed back home. No doubts.

And I missed my mother.

What are your views on the events leading up to and the proceedings at the recent EGM?

Before I give my views on this, I would like to quote a passage from Scott Turow’s book “One L”:

“I know more remarkable people who are lawyers, persons of diverse capacity and round wisdom, than in any other calling. I like lawyers and I relish being among them.

And yet the fact remains that there is a good deal of misbehavior in the profession… Suspicion runs deep through this supposed fraternity, and most lawyers, in candor, will admit to having being exposed, almost routinely, to conduct by other lawyers that crosses the lines of the acceptable, the ethical, and, more rarely, the lawful.

Indeed, this distrust of lawyers for one another is part of what I would call generally the legal malaise.”

In my opinion, this legal malaise spoken about by Scott Turow arose so clearly in this country last year when the Bar Council decided that there can be an AGM without a quorum and it continued this year when the Bar Council was not alive and alert to implications of the LPA amendments on members of the Bar occasioning the EGMs that took place. These events have lowered the standing of the Bar in the eyes of the public and that is truly unfortunate.

I hope that what happened to the Bar over the past two years never repeats itself. It is important that there should be humility as only then we can move forward again as a united Bar.

For a profession which exists to serve others, the last couple of years were spent mostly in self-service.

No doubt the profession needed to discuss vital matters relating to its own well-being but lines were crossed and too many hours used up reading and authoring web posts and preparing speeches when, as Scott Turow further says, “… the purest pleasure of the profession is reserved to those who bring justice to those who’ve long deserved it.”

I doubt that hindsight could ever evidence a reason to be proud of how the Bar spent its last two years.

At the EGM the young lawyers were accused of being used by certain factions of the Bar to further their agendas. As a young lawyer yourself, what do you make of such accusations?

The agenda of the Bar is simple. It is contained in its emblem which reads “Justice through law”. There can be no individual or factional agenda. However, factionalism appears to be the order of the day.

It is my hope that attempts at manipulating young lawyers remain where they are now – in the past. In any case, young lawyers have minds of their own and I have to believe that the majority used it.

Have the recent developments at the Bar made you re-think your decision to return to Malaysia and practise law?

The developments and/or the politics at the Bar are separate from the practice of law and the profession’s duty to serve society. No matter what the distractions are at the Bar, the work of a lawyer and in turn the pursuit of justice must and will continue.

The practice of law and the strive for justice will outlive the current generation of lawyers and its leaders. The true challenge will always remain the profession battling those elements in the establishment and in society at large that work against the upholding of justice.

The Bar will naturally unite in the face of any outside challenge to its agenda. This is most important and something I am confident will happen.

As far back as I can remember there has been debate over the Certificate of Legal Practice exam. What is your take on this? A case of sour grapes or a good case for review?

I qualified from Gray’s Inn and did not attempt the CLP.

However, I want to say this and I speak from a personal point of view. To those who found the CLP to be enjoyable and beneficial, I apologise from the outset.

I have seen first-hand the struggles many friends of mine have gone through in preparation for the CLP. Not one of them enjoyed the course. Not one of them looked forward to the exams. None of the courses on the CLP prepared them in the purely practical aspects of lawyering.

Too many of them failed. Too many of them have yet to pass. Too many of them spent wasted years tackling the CLP.

No one likes exams. Not everyone passes exams. But one would struggle to find an exam so loathed and with so low a pass rate as the CLP.

Something must be wrong.

I feel a review that nudges the CLP into a more practical exam involving certain subjects at the English Bar such as Advocacy Skills and Negotiation as well as Conference Skills might make the course a little more enjoyable.

Further and at the very least, the review should decide that the 80% or so who fail the exam every year have a right to know where they went wrong. The CLP is an exam that should exist to prepare one for legal practice and to inject into future lawyers the ideals of lawyering. It is not and cannot be used as a sieve.

That being said, and as one who did not sit for the CLP, I wish to say that I have the greatest respect for those who have passed the CLP and further that the persons fighting for the review should be lawyers who have sat for it and passed it for they are the ones that can rightly point the system in the right way.

What do you think about the recent speeches at the UMNO General Assembly re-affirming “Malays rights and supremacy”?

Every race is proud of itself and seeks always to remind the world of its greatness. This could be through speeches, architecture, invention or military might.

However, the selected UMNO speeches were unacceptable and bodes ill for race relations in this country. We cannot turn against each other. This would set us back decades when we should be uniting against any erosion of Malaysian rights and supremacy in a world where the weak are being swallowed up by the strong.

A country fighting against itself will spend years rebuilding. Just ask our neighbour Cambodia. They have a couple of fields named “Killing” which are there to remind everyone of the perils of citizen turning against citizen.

A little further away in Rwanda the same message echoes.

There is a lot of talk about non-Malays migrating to foreign countries now, what do you think of this and would you consider moving?

I know many who have left but I don’t believe all is lost so I’ll stick around for a bit. And I’d take a mean local fish curry over fish and chips anytime.

Also there are elements in this country that pleases me tremendously. I particularly like the lack of earthquakes and 24 hour eateries.

One final question, tell me, which football team do you support?

England’s finest – Liverpool Football Club.

Just a note to all supporters of Manchester United – if you want to view the Champions League trophy won by your team in 1999, please visit the Anfield trophy cabinet. Liverpool FC got to keep the cup when they won it for the fifth time in 2005.

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