Patience and Perseverance are not Moot Points with Chen Siyuan - Episode 44

In Episode 44 of the Legal Genie Podcast, your host, Lara Quie, sits down with Chen Siyuan, Associate Professor and Associate Dean at SMU School of Law. Siyuan shares his intriguing journey from aspiring lawyer to Harvard graduate and Supreme Court professional, to enhancing SMU's Moots program as Director of Moots. This episode is a treasure trove of advice for young lawyers, emphasizing the importance of patience, effective time management, and adapting to AI advancements. Siyuan's story, blending tenacity, resilience, academic excellence, and foresight, offers invaluable insights into the evolving legal landscape and the art of mooting.

You can reach out to Chen Siyuan via:

His email: siyuanchen@smu.edu.sg

Or via LinkedIn: Chen Siyuan on LinkedIn

You may enjoy this documentary shot and edited by Chen Siyuan about SMU Mooters:

https://youtu.be/SGJDMM0JHTk?si=IvvXqwylY1Ch-DxQ

Lara Q Associates
A boutique business and executive coaching consultancy

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Transcript

Patience and Perseverance are not Moot Points with Chen Siyuan - Episode 44

Lara Quie: ​ 

Hello, dear listener and welcome to Episode 44 of the Legal Genie Podcast with me your host, Lara Quie. And today I am delighted to be with Chen Siyuan. 

Siyuan is the Associate Director at the SMU School of Law, as well as the Director of its Moots program. He graduated with first class honours from NUS in 2007 and obtained his LLM from Harvard in 2010.

Siyuan spent a couple of years as a Justice’s Law Clerk and Assistant Registrar before joining academia. His research and teaching interests are mainly in evidence and procedure, and his works have been cited by the Singapore Court of Appeal and High Court. The Indian Supreme Court and the UK Law Commission.

Despite having existed for only 12 years, SMU's MOOTS program has been ranked number one worldwide by NICA Team twice in the last seven years. Notable achievements include multiple championship final appearances in leading moots such as the Jessop and Viz, and more than 50 championship titles in a wide array of competitions ranging from Viz East and ICC to Price and Fletcher. Welcome to the show Siyuan. 

Chen Siyuan: Thank you very much for having me. 

Lara Quie: Well, I'm excited to have you here because I am very interested in mentoring young people. So it would be really good to start right at the beginning. So can you please tell me where you grew up and a little bit about your childhood?

Chen Siyuan: Well, I grew up in Singapore. I've always lived in Singapore, although I did spend a couple of years abroad for university. Well, growing up in Singapore in the 80s and 90s, it was really quite a different time. I think in terms of how affluent society was. Even things like crime rates I think all of these things have improved.

But that also means that society as a whole has maybe gotten a little more comfortable. And then things get a little comfortable, there are certain downsides to that. But just speaking for myself, I think growing up had its own challenges, like, many people growing up in any given country.

But I suppose our education system allows people to really have a shot at life. If you're willing to work hard and do well, right? Make good choices, live responsibly. Then things will turn out quite fine. 

Lara Quie: So, what about your inspiration for getting into law in the first place?

 Chen Siyuan: I always tell my students this it was not by choice. When I was in high school, I was seriously contemplating becoming a physical education teacher, a PE teacher, which is I think in Singapore society is not a number one choice for many people growing up looking to have a career.

And my parents were not exactly in approval of that choice. So they said, "why don't you try law?" Because I think my mom and my dad they were involved in businesses at various points in their lives and they thought that having legal knowledge can really protect you from being bullied.

So, being a good and obedient Asian child, I said, okay, sure. Right.? There goes my PE teacher dream. And then I applied to NUS law. I didn't get it the first time. I didn't get it the second time. I got it on the third try, which is only possible if you are a male in Singapore because of national service.

So you actually get to reapply a couple of times. So I didn't start out having a passion for law, even knowing what it was. I was really nudged quite strongly in that direction. 

Lara Quie: Wow, well thank you so much for sharing the fact that you didn't get to go to law school on your very first application because I think that's probably very reassuring to any young law student thinking of applying and perhaps not being successful the first time.

There you are an Associate Dean of the SMU Law and you can confess that you were not able to get in the first time. So I think that perseverance, resilience and determination is very much part of your story and I think that here in Singapore, however, fear of failure is really a big thing, and it must be very difficult for young people to go through that experience.

Can you tell us a bit more about your mindset? And although you said you really wanted to be a teacher, once you had set your mind on going into the law, you were able to persevere and keep reapplying. 

Chen Siyuan: Yeah, I think part of it also has to do with expectations. I think in Singapore for many young people growing up, I suspect they don't really get constant failure being shoved in their face, right?

It's not easy for them either, But at least for me, I was never that great student. I worked pretty hard, But my grades were never, you know, like top 20, top 30 percent. I was somewhere in the middle. And because of that when they first rejected me, I thought, okay, that's normal, right? That sounds like my life.

I don't always get what I want, so maybe I'll try again. And indeed, by the time it was the third interview the interviewer actually said to me, "okay, we see that it's your third time here. And so we'll keep the interview short . We are hungry, we want to eat lunch, and we recognize your determination. And so we are happy to take you in." 

 For the students growing up these days, they also have many resources. So they can find out quite easily through their friends and on certain websites what the interview processes where the application processes are like for different law schools.

Chen Siyuan: Of course, they need to take it with a pinch of salt, right? Some of these resources may not always give the best advice, But I think they have to start somewhere to start to filter out, what might potentially be not so great information. But the point is that when I was rejected, this was a time in which, I can't just go to the Internet and say, okay, how do I do better for the next interview?

I don't think there was any such information available online. But these days they can always, try and figure their way out through many resources that are available for free. 

Lara Quie: Yeah, there is so much available nowadays. It is fantastic to see the resources online, as you say.

Anyway, back to you and your path. So you got into law school. Tell us about what happened next. 

Chen Siyuan: Well, just like many law students, even I think those in the past and those that are going through law school today I found law school to be quite a different experience and university, of course, to be a different experience, generally speaking mainly because It's a brand new subject, right? There isn't quite anything in, in high school and secondary school that resembles law. I mean, at best you could say maybe literature or economics whereby you have, you're looking at words and you're looking at concepts. But law it's a new kettle of fish, right?

For many people. And for me, I actually like that. Again, going back to what I said earlier, because I wasn't that great a student at math or chemistry or biology or whatnot. I found law to be quite refreshing and I actually took comfort in the fact that most of my classmates were equally or if not more confused than I was as to how the law worked.

And growing up, I didn't have any enrichment classes or tuition. So I was very used to the idea of working independently, But that also meant that my results are not so good in high school and secondary school. And in law school, it's the same, right? There's no one to offer you private tutoring. I think these days you can probably find one or two, But generally speaking, they're quite hard to come by.

And so you have to learn on your own. And I enjoyed that freedom. So where people were perhaps a little more paralyzed by the uncertainty and the sudden increase in independence, I loved it. And I took comfort in the fact that unlike, say, in math or science, whereby there are perhaps a more categorically correct or wrong answers.

In law, it's really about interpretation more than anything else, interpretation of words. So there's always some leeway to you know, not get it completely correct if there's even such a thing. So I really liked that. But I think many of my classmates and I think many law students today, they are not so used to that uncertainty.

Lara Quie: Definitely. The uncertainty is quite tricky, as you say, and being self-motivated and self-taught, able to find answers for yourself are very important skills. And so thinking about after law school, you did various internships. Tell us about your early journey. 

Chen Siyuan: One of the first internships I did was with a smaller firm because, well, partly because I didn't have any contacts.

You know, I didn't have relatives or friends who were working in big firms, But I did have a friend who had, who knew someone who worked in a smaller firm. And she was doing a pretty interesting case. This was about a young man who had died while he was serving national service because of some disease.

And allegedly when he tried to report sick. He was denied it and the disease basically killed him. But that aside, I think my earliest exposure to internships was really in the framework of a small law firm, which again, I suppose, reinforced my impression that in law, you really need to be independent because in a smaller setup sometimes it's just the lawyer and yourself, right?

So you have to learn from scratch many things. You are expected to know many things. So sometimes the lawyer will come to me and say, Hey what's the procedure for this or what's the timeline for this? And I soon realized that I needed to have these answers before she asked me those questions.

So it taught me to be proactive in looking out for what each case required. And subsequently I also did an internship in a bigger firm just for comparison. This was also a firm that was heavily involved in dispute resolution. And I could see that the way they worked was rather different.

The structure is very different. Every piece of work vetted by many more layers. Right. And of course, bigger firms tend to attract work that are slightly more complex and involve more money. And so there's also greater pressure in that sense. But I think what diffused the pressure was the fact that of course, as an intern, there's no real pressure, But just observing the lawyers in action, I think the fact that they work in a team helps, even though there are many more layers to clear, right?

Every piece of work is vetted more than once. And sometimes you feel that, why are we looking at this over and over again? But I think there's some comfort to be drawn in being really thorough and having a team of people who are, there's this good mixture of people who are experienced and people who are a bit younger and know where to look for certain things and so on.

So overall, I think the internship experience was quite important for me to figure out whether or not I wanted to practice as a lawyer because the conclusion I drew was probably not. And I can elaborate on that in a bit. 

Lara Quie: Yeah, so you did get an experience of private practice, But it sounds like you were interested in perhaps more the academic side.

So tell us about your journey into the adjunct faculty, because I saw from your LinkedIn profile that actually you went already as adjunct faculty very early in your career. So tell us about how that happened. 

Chen Siyuan: Yes, I think I figured out I wanted to be an academic sometime in around the first year of law school.

So that's pretty early, right? I think most people, especially in Singapore, they don't see academia as the first career option. They may consider it somewhere down the line. And what I always tell my students and people who ask me the same question is that I think that not enough people, especially in law, think about career choices based on their personality and temperament.

I mean, especially for Singaporeans, they are usually drawn to things like Oh, is this a good firm? Do they pay well? And of course for younger people, does it have good work life balance? But for me, I always thought about it in terms of personality. And while I am no psychologist or personality expert.

I do know myself pretty well. And what I figured out for myself was that I have rather extreme personality traits. So for example, it's a bit hard to convey this without sounding a little arrogant, But I have problems with people telling me what to do, right? I really dislike that. And I can only accept it if it's from someone that I really respect and a person with great authority.

But generally the idea of being told what to do was always a challenge for me. You know, so if you apply that to how a law firm works, then that's difficult, right? Because clients are going to tell you what to do. Bosses are going to tell you what to do. Associates are going to tell you what to do.

Judges are going to tell you what to do. I suspected; I suspect that I would not have liked it. So I ruled out practice on that basis alone, right? Because my aversion to being told what to do was just so extreme. At the same time, I was also quite happy working alone. So I'm the sort of person who would not feel embarrassed to have lunch alone in a food court, watch a movie alone, you know, or just go to a scenic spot and take photos and sit there by myself for four, five hours.

I don't have a problem with that. Whereas I've seen many people join academia and they find that the solitary existence is a bit too much for them. So they prefer, you know, the hustle and bustle of a law firm. And so, based on that very unscientific personality assessment, I figured out that, okay, I want to try academia.

Then the next question is, well, how do I do that? And when I looked at many of my professors in NUS, I looked at their CVs, I was rather taken aback because they were all high achievers, right? First class honours, went to this and that place, published in you know, the top journals, whether in the UK or in the US.

But I think because I was so used to the idea of working independently and not being phased by law school, for whatever reason, I managed to convince myself that, okay I think I probably can figure this out as well. Right? I look at how far away the faculty are, But I just thought, I think I can do it.

And so I started to take steps in that direction and being an adjunct faculty was a necessary step because the universities would generally prefer to see what you're like as a teacher before they make any hiring decisions about you on a longer term basis. So that's why I ended up teaching in both NUS uh, and SMU Law and.

That was also not because my CV was great or anything, but I had people who helped me. So when I was in the Supreme Court, Justice Andrew Pang was the one who really hooked me up to some of his former colleagues. And when I worked in NUS, I approached my former moot coach who then put me in touch.

So without these people my life could have turned out quite different.

Lara Quie: Yes, it sounds like you've got some good mentors who supported you and you were very well aware of your personality traits. So very interesting. What you said about not wishing to take any orders, knowing your personality, perhaps also maybe you have introvert tendencies as well? That means that you enjoy the solitude, can recharge and need that sense of self and have good concentration and self-motivation.

So as you say, academia is not for everybody. Many people do like the hustle and bustle of private practice or maybe going in- house. and working in a business. But since you were so self- motivated and interested in the letter of the law, it sounds like you knew from a very early stage what your career path would look like.

So what about your time at the Supreme Court of Singapore? You were a Justice Law Clark and an assistant registrar. Can you tell us a little bit about those two roles? 

Chen Siyuan: Sure. So I'll start with the JLC. I think there are equivalent schemes in many places in the world, Australia the US obviously to all my students, they've heard this before.

And since I have a larger platform today, I will say it again. If you're ever in a position to consider applying for the JLC, you absolutely should. It's really a once in a lifetime opportunity. And here I'm not being dramatic or exaggerating because they will only hire fresh graduates. So if you miss the window, you miss the window.

And what the job entails is that you work very closely with the High Court and Court of Appeal judges. And so in Singapore, the High Court and Court of Appeal, they form the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, and many of these judges, actually all the judges, they were either leading practitioners or leading government lawyers.

And that's a good mix. You have dispute resolution lawyers, you have corporate lawyers, and you have one or two academics as well. So I don't think anyone would seriously dispute the claim that our Supreme Court at least comprises some of the finest legal minds in the country. and maybe even in the region.

And so if you get a behind the scenes look at how judges think, right? So your job as a JLC is to, of course, prepare bench briefs, which are essentially summaries of what you think the best arguments are for the judges and you would also work together with the judge to figure out what the eventual judgment would be.

So you are not only just improving your hard technical skills, such as research analysis and drafting. You're also learning how judges think, which, I think is a very important part of legal education because for many people, legal education is bifurcated into two broad phases: one, of course, is in law school where sometimes the learning is a bit more conceptual and theoretical, and then the subsequent learning would be when you're in practice.

But in practice, whether you're a corporate lawyer or advocate or in- house lawyer, you're really looking at things from a more limited point of view in that you're either thinking about what is best for your client or what's best for the organization until you work as a JLC. I think it's very hard to figure out how judges think, right?

And that's important because you need to communicate with them in a very different way as compared to say clients or to your own organization or to your bosses. So, being a JLC, it's a fantastic privilege. And if it's available to any student, they should definitely go for it.

No regrets. Now as an assistant registrar that's where I suppose you become a bit like a mini judge, right? Yet you don't have the full powers of a judge, But you are still adjudicating mainly interlocutory applications. So things like your summary judgments discoveries or disclosures and whatnot.

So one thing that struck me about that stint was that suddenly you are given quite a fair bit of responsibility because some of the things we heard included bankruptcy applications. So people's livelihoods were literally in your hands, right? And you needed to decide on many of these things.

With very limited time, right? Because as an AR that it's not like a complex trial. You hear mainly interlocutories or simple matters. And because of that, the runways for preparation are far shorter. So you're expected to really absorb a lot of information and facts in a short amount of time. And then you need to make a decision.

Of course, they can appeal in some cases, but many of them may not. So your decision could very well decide the trajectory of the case. And so that forced me to really pick up things quickly. So just when I thought, okay, I've left law school, you know, the whole self-learning thing is kind of over. No, it continues in everything that you do in life.

But as an AR, there was that added pressure because, it's, like I said, you're dealing with people's lives in a very tangible way, right? You are directly responsible for it. If you are a lawyer, you are also responsible for people's lives. But, you know, even if you make bad submissions, sometimes the judge may rescue in some way, But as a judge or as a registrar you may not have that luxury. So we needed to be really very careful that we got it right. 

Lara Quie: Yes, as you say, a huge responsibility making those judgments and assisting judges to make the judgments. But those insights into how the judges think and their thought processes and how the judgments come about are very interesting.

And I often think, because I work with barristers at Twenty Essex, for barristers, quite often it's a great thing when they are not always acting purely as counsel, but often also as an arbitrator, because when they act as arbitrator, they suddenly have a completely different view of the case and what it's like to be that arbitrator in the case and what it's like to look at those counsel presenting to you.

So seeing both sides of the situation, I think is very revealing and interesting and insightful. So after your time in the Supreme Court, what happened next? 

Chen Siyuan: So somewhere along the way, as I was doing my adjunct teaching, I started to take steps to apply to both the law schools for a job on a longer term basis. Eventually, I ended up with SMU. And because I think this is true for both law schools that have tenured faculty you would need at least postgraduate qualification before you can be hired for the tenure track. And so that's what I did. I went on a scholarship to do my Masters in the US at Harvard. 

Happy thing was I did it with my then girlfriend and now wife, which was a bit of a sequel because we also went overseas together for a year when we were in NUS law, we did our exchange in Toronto. So this was a happy one year sequel to that. So it was great that we both got into the same university.

So we didn't have to worry about commuting and all that. And I guess there was always the question of where I should go for my post grad. So in Singapore, I think the popular choices tend to be either the US or the UK. So you're talking about Oxbridge or the London universities, or maybe Harvard or Columbia, Yale, Stanford.

I chose Harvard in the end; I think mainly because it's a brand that speaks for itself. And I assume that one would get a great legal education there as a result. There was always the stress and pressure of not being accepted, right? But I did apply for a couple of other places, so there was a backup plan.

And in Harvard what I saw was that it's a very different sort of legal education. It's, in fact, I would say it's not so much a legal education, but more like an education about life because pretty much every day there would be a bunch of student clubs and student societies that organize talks and they'll invite an amazing array of people.

It could be the CF of a massive MNC. It could be someone from Facebook, right? It could be someone from the Hollywood industry or even a celebrity. And you start to realize very quickly that many people in Harvard do not go to law school with the view of becoming a lawyer, right? In fact, many of them want to become politicians and whatnot and so the way they then approach class and the sort of CCAs they would do on the side was quite revealing to me. And I think it was also difficult to find anyone in Harvard, at least for the JDs, that wasn't really passionate about the law.

So when they will approach class with great enthusiasm not necessarily as well prepared as Singapore students, if I may say so, But they were always interested in what was going on in class and they were always happy to talk about the law. And I think that's perhaps a function of it being a JD program.

So a JD program necessarily means that you need a first degree. So these are people who really want to be there, considering that a legal education in the U. S. is not cheap either. So I think interacting with people of that profile, so people who are very driven, they are interested in the law, but not necessarily wanting to make a career in the law.

That was very eye opening for me, and I enjoyed interacting with them. So when students ask me these days, where should we go for my Master's? Generally, what I tell them is if you want a continuation of very grounded, solid, black letter legal education, you can consider your Oxbridge, right? But if you want to see a melting pot of cultures, I know it's a bit of an overused expression, but it's true.

Then you go to the U. S. because you can take courses such as Japanese law film, which is what I did. And your class would involve us the students, watching a bunch of films over popcorn and Coke, and then giving a review of the film. What has it got to do with law? I'm not sure, But it's an elective in Harvard law.

Lara Quie: Wow. Well, that does sound fun. And I think when you speak to Singaporean students here there is very much that concentration on the academic side and people generally are not as open to putting their hand up and speaking up. So the US system is incredibly vocal, isn't it? You always have to stand on your feet and answer the professor and you have to be ready and quick thinking and a very good orator. So I'm wondering whether your Harvard experience was what led you to get into mooting. 

Chen Siyuan: It did reinforce. It did reinforce it, but I think my inclination to start the Moot Court program somewhere probably can be traced back to when I was a student.

So I did the Jessup Moot in my final year, and I think many of your listeners are probably familiar with Jessup Moot but for those who are not, it is essentially the largest, oldest, and some say the most prestigious Moot Court competition. You have close to 700 teams from around the world that take part every year.

It's a moot on public international law. And I graduated from NUS. NUS has a tremendous record in the Jessup. At one point, they were the leaders having won it four times, but my team didn't, didn't Contribute to that, right? We were knocked out in the semifinal and I was rather disappointed and when I was a JLC and an assistant registrar I could really see the difference when there were lawyers who were trained in moot court versus those who were not. Now, of course, I'm not saying that you need moot court to be a good lawyer. That's not what I'm saying, But I think for people who are just starting out moot court is a fantastic way to really be grounded in the fundamentals because what moot court really teaches you is to identify the true issues in the dispute, be able to drill down and provide answers if that's where the judge wants you to go. But to also have the flexibility to engage in other parts of the dispute, if that's where the judge wants you to go.

And so, as I was being an AR in the Supreme Court, I thought, okay maybe what I can teach if I do get into one of the local law schools as a full-time member is to start a moot court program. So NUS already had a moot court program, very well established. So that was one of the reasons why I joined SMU instead, because it didn't have a moot court program.

And I thought it was also a great way to allow our students to compete on the world stage and to really lift up the name of SMU. Because I think to a large degree, at least in the past, before the QS rankings came about, moot court was one of the strongest features of NUS law, right?

A lot of people associated NUS law with the strength in their moot court. And if you look at many of Singapore's leading practitioners, whether it's the Law Minister, The Chief Justice, the Attorney General, Senior Counsel, they all did the Jessup Moot. 

So, I thought it was really important to, to start a proper program in SMU and here we are today, 12, 13 years on, still trying to continue because it's a huge commitment.

But I think what really keeps me going is the fact that I can see how students are changed for the better. And I still get many students, even if they're doing corporate work today, or if they've gone in-house and they will drop me messages to say that the training that we received continues to be relevant, right?

I think we are much more effective communicators. Had we not gone through that training, probably have been far less effective.

Lara Quie: Your moots program is just your baby and growing up now nearly a teenager, so, thinking about young people and their journey into law and the current situation with new programs in AI and in technology and what law looks like for the future. What skills do lawyers of today need for the law firm and life of the future?

Chen Siyuan: I think the conventional thinking, which I kind of align myself with as well, is that there are three main things to think about. The first of course, is to learn to code, but that's pretty extreme, right? Depending on where you're at in life now, that may not be viable and so that may be an option maybe for the younger people or for all people who are interested or have the temperament to do so. But even for those advocating for learning to code, I think they would provide a few caveats. Because learning the code doesn't necessarily mean that you would become a better lawyer in the AI age. It just means that you roughly know how these things work. Then the second stream of thought is that one shouldn't reject AI entirely, but to embrace it in some way.

And we see that not just in the law firms, but also in law school as well. What do we do with something like ChatGPT? You know, do we allow students to use it, but we perhaps set harder questions? Do we ban it entirely? And for law firms I've seen a few products in which I think, especially for the smaller law firms, it can really help them with research, Because research ultimately, especially for legal research, is about analysing a huge bunch of rules and cases. And with the right software, you can get pretty decent first layer results. So for example, if one were to ask what is the law on this doctrine in this jurisdiction, right?

If your data set is good and your LM is good, you could get a pretty decent answer. I've seen it in operation. It's not perfect yet, but one imagines those products can only get better. So I also don't think that we should reject such software entirely. I think we need to know how to use them. But then that leads us to the third stream, which is that I think lawyers would always have a place in society.

I do not know whether I would live to regret making this prediction, But I think that lawyers are needed for the simple reason that many people who run into problems and need legal solutions like to talk to other human beings. I think, of course, for certain types of disputes, if it's quite simple and they want expediency, I don't think they mind some sort of automated decision making process.

But for things that are a bit more personal, that involve a bit more money, they would very much prefer to talk to humans. And it's not just because the humans would necessarily give superior advice than a machine, which I don't think we are at that stage in any way.

I think humans can give better advice than machines for many things because machines are not yet trained to be that context sensitive. But I think the main reason is that there's just something about humans that require connection with other people. And this is coming from a person who likes to eat lunch alone and watch movies alone, right?

Even I recognize that people need to interact with other people and not least when they're trying to seek legal solutions. And so lawyers and law students, I suppose, would need to embrace that in some way and figure out how they can value add to what their clients need. Because if they are just replicating things that a machine can do quite easily then the client may be thinking, why am I paying you money?

So I think it's not just about providing that emotional connection. It's also about strategizing. It's also about dialogue. And so for the foreseeable future, I think that my takeaway really is we can work together at the machines, But we also need to continue to think about how we can remain relevant.

Lara Quie: Absolutely, totally agree. I think that it is the human empathy element that we can bring as lawyers and that communication, that connection, that understanding But also the strategy because I think that the technology is there and developing to enable us to access this case law and all of the things that actually will be more accurate based on technology than a human's memory.

However, it is the full combination of that strategy, that knowledge of the law, the critical analysis, understanding human nature, and the reasons for the dispute in the first place. Because given that it's humans who are in disagreement, the elements also are human. So the solutions are also human. And often it can actually be an apology or a sense of does this person show remorse is there fairness?

I think that sometimes the law and the results are not always exactly what the human on the other side is seeking. So understanding those elements and bringing that all together and having that strategy is definitely what the human lawyer brings to the table. And I think as long as humans are in dispute there will always be a need for another human as well.

Although on the technical side, I do agree that there will be more and more AI and use of these tools. But like anything, these are tools for humans to use. And there is going to be certainly a lot of automated judgments especially when it comes to online you know, sale of goods, et cetera. A lot of those things you can just automate.

I can see that perhaps conveyancing and various things could be quite easily automated. But disputes and things like that human beings will still be involved. 

Anyway, so, thinking about your journey and the mentors that you have interacted with, could you tell young people about the sources of these mentors? How have they come about? Where did you find them and how did you develop those relationships?

Chen Siyuan: So I think whatever I'm about to say may be of particular interest to people who are a bit more reserved, right? Because keeping in mind that I'm not a sort of person that likes to attend cocktail parties and mingle with the crowd. I'm not a sort of person that would you know, just approach strangers and chat them up.

That's not. That's not my strength at all. But having said that, I think it's precisely because I have such a limitation that there were occasions in which I just needed to just do it, you know? And think less, because it's almost like, trying to ask someone to be your friend, right?

Even though a network contact may not be of the same level as a friend, but the thought process is a bit similar. Is that what if you are rejected? What if the person thinks you're silly? Or what if the person can't help you? And introverted people would tend to overthink it and overanalyse it. It's important to think and to analyse, but sometimes decisions have to be made and you just have to break out of your comfort zone.

And that's, so that's the first point. The second point, I suppose, it really depends on the context in which you operate in. So for me in academia at different points of my career, I think there are different levels of networking required. At the starting point, it wasn't so much networking that was required, but more of an opportunity in that I needed to see how I could get a job, a part-time job in either of the law schools and to do that, I needed to approach somebody.

But you may either get no answer or very delayed response. So it's really about looking at surveying the scene and figuring, okay, who best to ask? And then you ask, right? But that's at the start. But as you go along, when you're looking at things like getting tenure getting promoted, that's when you need to expand your network.

But I would also say that with age generally most things become easier. At least, as long as they don't involve physical activity, things become easier. So that's the second point, right? Looking at the scene and trying to ask in a more pointed way rather than to just perhaps indiscriminately send a thousand messages to a thousand different people.

The third point is sometimes you just have to look out for opportunities. So for example, I have many former students, you know, who became JLCs or they are doing very well in practice. They're pretty smart, responsible, hardworking people and I tell them, why don't you come back to SMU to teach?

And they would say, well, yeah, maybe I'll see if I have time. So I think whenever one tries to qualify the statement. Let's see if I have time or if I'm interested if you do that enough, right, over time, you will just lose those opportunities. So you need to look out for opportunities and just take them even if you don't know what's in store for you, right?

If you know that objectively, certain things tend to have a certain good payoff. Then I'll say take them, right? Because maybe let's say someone who is thinking about just hanging around in practice for as long as they can and not thinking about academia yet until you actually try some teaching, how will you know whether teaching is for you?

You know, and it's not as though teaching opportunities are available in a given week, right? Sometimes you could go for a couple of years without anyone replying to you. So looking at opportunities and taking them, not fearing the unknown. I mean, these are hardly groundbreaking sentiments, But I think especially for people who are a little more introverted and tend to overanalyse things.

Most things in life have a good payoff. Most opportunities, I would say most opportunities that there's a good payoff and when you get around to doing it, you will just figure a way out. You know, you will figure a way, you will find a time, you'll find a resource, you will adapt. And if you do it a second time, you become better.

Because those opportunities could also lead to the enlargement of your network, right? As you do things, then you get to know people get to assess you, then people can recommend you. But if you are constantly just doing work in your own little corner, then you just have to be content with the fact that the only people assessing you are your immediate bosses.

But if you don't want to join a committee, you don't want to do something on the side, then you limit yourself that way. But if you're at peace with that, then so be it. 

Lara Quie: That's a very good point. I think that analysis paralysis is a very real thing for many lawyers. Lawyers are generally risk averse people and they do overthink things.

So it is very difficult and I think what you're saying is, just do it, get started, look for those opportunities. When one comes your way, grab it with both hands. You might not think you've got time, so make the time. If something is important to you, you will find the time and the resources. And these opportunities, when they come along, if it passes you by, it might not come again in future, as you were saying. So, people should think about creating opportunities as well. So putting yourself in the right locations, meeting people who are going to bring these opportunities and asking the right questions. If you are someone In private practice right now as a junior, but you're interested in mooting.

If you're interested in seeing what it might be like in different areas as well and becoming an adjunct lecturer at SMU. You know, this would be the time to reach out. Siyuan is on this podcast to tell you all about these opportunities so that you are able to reach out and think about things for the future.

Think about really long term. What can you do to improve your skills? Give yourself opportunities to have speaking engagements, to lecture, to meet new people? So, thinking about people in your past who have given you great advice, what great advice have you received as a junior lawyer?

Chen Siyuan: Well, it would be difficult to identify the top few. I think off the top of my head. It's not so much advice, but more of looking at how people worked. So when I was a JLC, there were a couple of judges for whom, you know, their work ethic was quite impressive. In that and this is, I suppose, maybe slightly different from the advice that we get in modern times to, you know, take a breather, relax, unwind, you know, me time and, you know, mental wellbeing and whatnot.

But I don't think this is necessarily in contradiction because, well, what I'm describing really is, I saw some judges who, basically never wasted time. Everything was always purposeful. So even for example, when they were waiting for the taxi to come, right? You would see them reading something. I didn't ask these judges directly, but from what I hear, is that to them there are many pockets of time that we can use effectively, which, if we don't use them, we would really just not be doing anything.

Right. So it's not as though you can't rest or you can't sleep, But when you're waiting for a cab, rather than scroll down your phone and look at Instagram and TikTok, why not think about other certain things that you can do very well in those 5 to 10 minutes, which in any other time of the day, you may not feel so inclined to do?

So we might, for example, be clearing just a couple more emails just so that you have a bit more time at home, things like that. So, so the ability to really use that, that mini pockets of time in between can actually have a longer payoff. And when I did a clerkship in the UK, this is what I observed of the barristers as well. Because in Singapore we no longer have that bifurcation of profession. Someone who's called to a Singapore bar is both an advocate and solicitor. But when I observed the barristers in their chambers, they were extremely focused on their work. Very few distractions, right? So they would allocate, for example, the first couple of hours to preparing for a morning hearing after that, a quick lunch.

So not like Singapore, where we like to have, you know, a hearty lunch and chit chat over coffee. So it's very focused, simple lunch. After that, they will prepare if they have an evening class to teach in one of the universities to prepare for that, or they might be writing a book chapter, or they might be involved in some mega arbitration that will take weeks and weeks, if not months to prepare for.

And for many of them at about 5 or 6 p. m, they will start winding down, right? They might go to the gym in between if they have time, But they'll start winding down and it's, it was very seldom the case that they will work extremely long hours. So they were very efficient with their time. Whereas I think in Singapore we love our food and coffee breaks a bit too much, you know, and it's not, there's no right or wrong. But there's a consequence to that, which is that it may mean that you go home a little later.

But if you keep things really streamlined, I think that the payoff is in greater time. And of course you can always make it, in a sense, a bit of a policy to say that past a certain time, you wouldn't entertain emails and whatnot. That's also another way to deal with time, But that's a separate conversation altogether.

Other pieces of advice, which I thought were useful were. Okay, this one I think is particularly important for lawyers. It's a very simple piece of advice, but it's very tempting to neglect it. And that is to be patient. And this came from one of my colleagues, who still is, a very well established professor.

And I don't want to embarrass him, so I won't name him. But, you know, if you ask anyone who this person is, everyone in law would know. And what he said was that even though from the outside looking in, you look at him, you think, okay, this person must have been super talented, must have been super smart maybe even super-efficient.

You look at his CV, it's great. But he, and I don't think he was demonstrating false humility. He genuinely meant this when he said, I didn't get here overnight. It took me. The first 10 years were actually a little slow for me, you know, and that really resonated with me, especially as a young academic, because as a young academic the main thing that you are mindful of if you're on tenure track is that you may not get tenure, right?

And in Singapore, there are only that many law schools you can go to. So, so there's a very real prospect that you could be out of a job for a very long time if you don't get tenure. But he told me that you need to be patient, right? You can expect rejection when you submit certain articles to certain journals. You can expect certain ideas to not materialize into proper publications.

You can expect basically many setbacks. And when I thought about that, I felt really much more assured because even if this great person, he struggled a little bit, you know, but surely the rest of us would face similar problems. And if one is not patient, one may be tempted to make life changing decisions.

So for example, if you look at attrition rates in the legal industry, and I would, of course, be very hesitant to say too much about it because I never really practiced in Singapore, but as an academic, as a person who speaks to many of my former students, I think this is true. The first two to three years of practice in Singapore, and I suspect in many other countries as well, is not that fun.

It's not that pleasant. One may even say you may not learn as much as you hope to because of the nature of the work that is given to you. But if one too hastily draws the conclusion that, okay, this is not for me, I don't like it, or this is not worth the sacrifice. Then you're basically doing a bit of a soft reboot to your line and say, okay, you're going to try something else, which is fine.

And in some cases, completely justified. But if the reason has more to do with, you're not getting to where you want to fast enough, then, I would preach a bit of caution and a bit more patience because some of the greatest things and greatest achievements in life are great precisely because they took a pretty long time, right?

If it can be done so easily over one or two years, maybe the achievement is not that great. That's and so too with, especially when I run a moot program in SMU, there's so much pressure to do well because they look at some of the seniors and they say, Oh, okay. If you do this, you've got to win the moot.

If not, you will let people down. I can understand that pressure, but what the students often don't realize is that our most successful mooters were mooters who failed in many moots before that. And they kept going because they realized that you take part in which not really to win. It's fun to win, but that's not a real purpose.

 You take part in which so that you become a better lawyer to be. And if you have the right mindset, then you will keep going on. And you would be able to, I think, look at setbacks a different way. You cannot avoid setbacks, but you can look at setbacks a different way.

And I think in the longer term, one would be better off just being patient. Where the line is to be drawn. Is it five years? Is it 10 years? It depends on the facts of each case, as any lawyer would say. But it's still important to have that overarching principle because if you don't have any guiding principle your principle in life is to just do until I cannot do any more or do until I don't like it. I think that's probably missing out on what life has to offer. 

Lara Quie: Very, very valuable words of advice. I love those and I think the patience one particularly resonates because this is a very fast paced world that we're living in people's attention spans are limited to five seconds, everything is scrolling.

Everything is immediate. Everything is on demand. But you can't actually treat your life like that because all of these things do take a very long time, as you say, and you have to play the long game. So being very short-sighted, always thinking about the present, Oh, I don't like it now. You have to go through tough times.

A lot of it is being in the trenches, learning those skills, honing those skills. And you mentioned the mooting, you know, the best mooters are the ones who have been in there many times before, learnt from the challenges, learnt what they did wrong last time, how they could improve this time, and they're always growing.

So it's focusing on that growth, on that learning, on the progress, and being in it for the sheer joy of being involved and in that learning, as you say. So, I think that's a really valuable lesson. So where can people reach you if they'd like to contact you after this podcast? 

Chen Siyuan: I read all my emails and my email address is publicly available on the SMU Law website.

And I would even say I answer all emails unless it's clearly spam or solicitation. So, so yeah, I'm happy to have a chat. What I always promise my students is that as long as you send me a message, I will make time to answer it. And of course, there are some expectations the, you know, my students would know, right?

So, if you ask me overly open-ended question, I may take a longer time to reply and things like that. But for people who don't know me and just want to ask me about things about law school, about mooting, Email would do. LinkedIn is also possible, but sometimes I don't read the messages on LinkedIn. Yes. 

Lara Quie: Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time today, Chen Siyuan. And thank you for being on the podcast. 

Chen Siyuan: Thanks very much, Lara.