Thinking Outside the Box: Opening Up New Imaginations for a Legal Career

"Why do you want to be a lawyer?" At first glance, this sentence seems like something a law student would repeatedly ponder and chew over before choosing to embark on the path of national examinations. Yet, Attorney Li Yi-Ting, who has been in practice for nearly five years, still asked the "junior fellow students" this simple question—one that has the most profound impact on their future career paths. Therefore, "Please raise your hand if you still don't know why you want to be a lawyer right now." became Attorney Li's "opening remark" in this "Thinking Outside the Box Lecture." "When you are a lawyer, what kind of things can you do?" Attorney Li added with another question.

We Can Make This Society Better

The legal profession system is actually composed of roles such as judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and legal affairs personnel. Attorney Li pointed out that because lawyers themselves possess a considerable degree of "freedom," compared to other professions, in addition to being able to give full play to their expertise in their work, they also have extra time to participate in social activities. "In Taiwan's past, many legal system reforms and even social political democratic movements were related to lawyers." Here, Attorney Li also specifically highlighted the importance of "lawyers connecting with society."

Job Hunting Battle

Attorney Li shared his own experience to tell everyone that if there is an ideal law firm, you should submit your resume as much as possible. As for himself, he called firms one by one to ask if there were any open internship vacancies: "Do you have any openings?" Some classmates even rushed up to a certain lecturer during lawyer training to ask if there were any openings, subsequently successfully securing an internship through this experience. Therefore, "Finding an internship requires being proactive and active."

Lawyers, What to Do When Stuck?

Novice lawyers do not know how to do anything at the very beginning—they do not know how to draft legal documents, nor how to make judgments. Here, they can "imitate" the template documents in the firm and the case records of predecessors, accumulating practical experience from them. The second challenge for novice lawyers is: what should be done when encountering a question they do not know during a consultation? The correctness of legal opinions often relates to the progression of the client's litigation strategy. Unless the case is very simple and only requires reviewing relevant regulations to ascertain the answer, when encountering questions in areas where one is not proficient, it is safer to directly admit this situation to the other party or try to respond by saying you will go back to research further and inform them by phone later. Most clients are also understanding.

Demonstrating a serious and proactive attitude—even if professional advice cannot be provided on the spot—will gradually reduce concerns after long-term cooperation and the establishment of a trust relationship with the client. "Although it is more tiring, what young lawyers rely on is physical stamina; having time and conscientiously providing consultation opinions."

Lawyer → Finance Industry → Lawyer

Attorney Ko Yi-Shan is the founding lawyer of IK Partners. Her legal career began when she obtained her lawyer qualification during graduate school. Afterward, she interned at Formosa Transnational, and upon obtaining her master's degree, she successively served as an associate lawyer in the Financial and Capital Markets Departments of Lee and Li, Attorneys-at-Law, and Baker & McKenzie. During her practice, she went to Harvard Law School to obtain a master's degree. She also transitioned into the financial industry, serving as Vice President of the Bank of New York Mellon Hong Kong Branch. Finally, she returned to Taiwan to found IK Partners and continue her work as a lawyer.

Attorney Ko primarily engages in non-litigious work. The main working areas of a non-litigious lawyer include real estate, securitization issuance cases, corporate mergers and acquisitions, capital market fundraising (public offering, listing of stocks, bonds, domestic and overseas depository receipts, and funds), and intellectual property cases. Working in a general law firm or serving as in-house counsel in a corporation both offer opportunities to encounter these types of cases.

Therefore, Attorney Ko also introduced the nature of in-house legal work. In-house legal work is divided into two areas: "Legal" and "Compliance." The former refers to handling internal and external contracts and legal issues, responding to government agencies and demanding responses, and ensuring that other internal units of the company comply with regulations. The latter refers to confirming that the company's actions comply with industry standards, conducting educational training for employees regarding legal awareness, and the like.

As for the entry barrier to becoming a non-litigious lawyer, in addition to having the ability to constantly update industry trends and technological new knowledge, possessing good English proficiency or other foreign language proficiency is also essential. Having served at the Bank of New York Mellon Hong Kong Branch, she noted that working in a foreign-invested company requires exceptionally good English. Because English is used throughout the work, and good English is not merely about understanding listening, speaking, reading, and writing, nor is proficiency in English translation alone sufficient. Within a corporation, in addition to correct wording, phrasing, and formatting in English business correspondence, one must also be able to complete the drafting and correct formatting of English contracts. Only then does one meet the basic threshold.

Listening to and watching CNN or BBC news more often—watching one to three stories a day—or reading the New York Times are all ways to improve English. There is no need to deliberately focus on any specific section of the news; just choose whatever news you want to watch. Watching American TV series allows you to cultivate English proficiency through listening and viewing, but the most important thing is persistence, allowing yourself to get used to an English-learning environment.

Attorney Ko also reminded those who wish to enter the ranks of non-litigious lawyers that, in addition to foreign language proficiency, they should also constantly cultivate and update current affairs information in various industries and interact with people from different fields, which allows you to learn more across different sectors.

Public Interest Engagement of Non-Litigious Lawyers

Attorney Ko shared in closing that whether engaging in non-litigious or litigious practice, one can participate in judicial reform work. Because as lawyers, they carry the mission of upholding human rights and supporting judicial reform, driving the country's rule of law further forward. There are many ways to throw oneself into judicial reform; aside from participating in the JRF's Legal Ethics Reading Group, she also continuously exchanges and shares with newcomer lawyers. Among these efforts, as a group that oversees and evaluates judicial organizations and advocates for judicial human rights, financial independence is of paramount importance for the JRF, and "fundraising" is a task she has deeply invested herself in at the JRF.

For full text sharing of each session, please visit the Aggressive Lawyer forum. Special thanks are extended to JRF volunteers Liao Chun-Hsiang, Li Chao-Chi, and Yang Che-Kang for their assistance in compiling and editing this text.