SINGAPORE — Exhausted after pulling an all-nighter, lawyer Choo Zheng Xi decided to take a nap in his office. A knock on the door jolted him awake; it was his boss Peter Low standing outside.

Recounting the incident that took place during his first year as an associate, Mr Choo thought he was in for a scolding. Instead, Mr Low told the then 26-year-old: “Turn off the lights so you can nap properly.”

Speaking to TODAY on Wednesday (Sept 5), Mr Choo, who is now 32, said that incident and many others are why he looks up to the 67-year-old with close to four decades of experience as a mentor and role model.

Last week, the managing director of Peter Low and Choo LLC was singled out by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon as a role model that younger lawyers should emulate.

Speaking at the Mass Call, an event where lawyers are called to the Bar, CJ Menon had praised Mr Low’s keen sense of professional purpose, commitment to public service, and for embodying professional values and courtesy in carrying out his job.

These traits, CJ Menon said, are necessary for lawyers to have a sustainable and fulfilling career. In particular, he flagged the need for mentorship and for law firms to help young lawyers cope with stress as they struggle to handle the volume and pace of work.

If not for Mr Low’s guiding hand, Mr Choo said he would not have been able to rise so quickly from an associate in 2012 to being a named partner in five years. 

GIVING YOUNG LAWYERS A HAND

Not having had a mentor himself, Mr Low said in an interview with TODAY that he understood how important it is to give junior practitioners a helping hand.

The father of three daughters — two of whom are lawyers in his firm — had started out as a government lawyer in 1977, before going into private practice first with Drew and Napier, then Colin Ng & Partners. He started his own practice twice, with the first firm wound up in 2008, before establishing his current firm in 2011.

Though he looked up to seniors such as Mr David Marshall and Mr JB Jeyaretnam who taught him that “lawyers must represent their clients fearlessly”, Mr Low said that back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, young lawyers are typically left to cope on their own.

“The seniors will give you the case files and you handle them on your own,” he added. “But it was not just the legal industry that didn’t have the mentorship culture, it cuts across industries because they were in their nascent stages.”

So in 1993, after reading a book titled Managing The Professional Service Firm, he came up with a list of 26 traits needed to be a good leader — including being accessible and more often encouraging than critical to subordinates — and put them into practice.

Currently overseeing 14 lawyers, Mr Low, who was president of The Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) in 1993 and 1994, ensures that his doors are “always open” for his younger counterparts to seek personal or professional advice.

“I was in their shoes before, and I know how stressful it can be,” he said.

Having entered the profession as a full-fledged lawyer at Rodyk & Davidson in 2011, Mr Choo said that the first one to three years in a legal practice can be intimidating and pressurising for young lawyers.

“We’re short on deadlines with a lot at stake,” he said. Hence, it is important for young lawyers not to feel “trapped”, which arises when they feel there is no one they can share their concerns with or to seek advice from, said Mr Choo.

As such, mentorship gives them a “sense of belonging” as it will create an environment where the seniors are looking out for the juniors, he added.

Though mentorship, to a certain extent, can prevent young lawyers from burning out quickly, Mr Low said creating a work environment that does not micromanage and encourages them to pursue other interests outside of work will also go a long way.

“It’s not just about preventing burn out, but I also want them to contribute back to society, to be exposed to what’s happening on the ground. It makes them a complete lawyer,” he added.

Counting himself lucky to have found a mentor in Mr Low, after joining the latter’s firm back in 2012, Mr Choo said Mr Low is the type of person who trusted the people he worked with to do their best for the firm, and genuinely cared for their welfare.

He cared not only for his staff but also others, said Mr Choo, as he recounted an incident where he witnessed the veteran lawyer tick a client off for being rude to a security guard at their old office at the Bank of China building.

On that incident, Mr Low explained that as a law undergraduate, he had worked as a security guard and waiter to pay for his school fees, so he understood what it was like to be “invisible, to have people look through you, and not care about you”. Thus he told Mr Choo that day that he never wanted anyone else to feel that way.

A PUSH FOR MENTORSHIP

To help the culture of mentorship take root in the legal profession, the LawSoc has established a new mentorship scheme called the Relational Mentorship last October. Under it, senior lawyers — with more than 15 years’ experience — provide one-on-one mentoring to junior lawyers with less than five years of experience in areas such as handling ethical dilemmas, career counselling and guidance, and also give tips on stress management.

Responding to TODAY’s queries, a LawSoc spokesperson said that 34 senior lawyers have volunteered to become mentors under the scheme, adding that all 22 requests for mentors have been “successfully matched”.

“The numbers are growing and we would encourage junior lawyers to avail themselves of this,” added the spokesperson.

Latest figures from the LawSoc showed that there are currently 5,416 practising lawyers, of which 1,900 are junior practitioners. Apart from the scheme, there are other programmes to cater to the needs of junior lawyers such as the PracMentor Scheme which gives junior lawyers specialised mentorship on niche areas of law.

Giving advice to aspiring practising lawyers, Mr Choo said that they ought not to look at the size or the stature of a law firm, adding: “They should look for the right supervisor, and whether he or she can develop them to become a good lawyer and a person.”