The Kuala Lumpur Bar Blog

    The second competition of 2012 saw the KLBar-Barians combining forces with the Skrine Dragons to field a 12-crew all-men’s and all-women’s boat at the KBSM Watersports Carnival 2012. Racing in a competition plagued with chaotic organisation and immense delays, the women made it through their heat fairly easily despite falling behind PDRM by 2 boat length but trumped the Pink Challengers for a spot in the finals. Despite side activities such as a rowing machine competition and other watersport events happening on the lake, an undetermined race schedule forced the men to forego their event due to insufficient number of paddlers. Sunday saw more delays for the women finals. Windy conditions and waves created by the wakeboarders did not help improve race conditions. All teams struggled to even align their boats at the starting pontoon. The winds proved to be too strong as it blew us off course barely 100metres into the race and despite our steerer’s valiant effort

The KLBar-barians spent the weekend of 16-17 June 2012 in Melaka. We started off with a friendly against some local teams at Ayer Keroh lake on Saturday morning while Sunday was spent racing at the Melaka International Dragon Boat Festival 2012 at the Melaka river. Click here to read the full report.

The KL Bar Corporate and Conveyancing Practice Committee (CCPC) had paid a courtesy call to the Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya on 08.06.2012, wherein the CCPC was warmly welcomed by the Deputy Director of the PTG and 2 other officers. CCPC was informed that PTG Putrajaya covered mostly the institutional lands and government quarters. Annually the PTG only received/recorded about 2,000 to 3,000 transactions within their jurisdiction. Issues discussed during the meeting: Fraud Case PTG Putrajaya informed us that they had strike off a submission by an unknown lawyer. They had referred the lawyer’s name to the Bar Council and were informed that no such lawyer registered under the Bar. Uncollected Document PTG Putrajaya informed also CCPC that many law firms had not collected their documents which had been registered. Some uncollected documents dated as far back as 2005. CCPC promised to help out by sending an eblast of the list of firms that had failed

This talk is the first in the calendar of activities organised by the Practitioners’ Affairs Committee (PAC) on the non-legal aspects of practice, held on the 7th of June, 2012 at 5.00pm at the KL Bar Auditorium. Mr. Ong Eu Jin, a corporate partner of the firm of Messrs Lee Hishamuddin Allen & Gledhill, shared his insights from the dual perspectives of client and lawyer. The talk was moderated by the PAC Chairperson, Goh Siu Lin. This event attracted 50 participants (including a member from the Pahang Bar), the majority of whom were in their first few years of practice. Based on the evaluation forms submitted, the PAC is pleased to report that the talk was very well-received,  with many requesting for similar talks to be organised in the future specifically in the areas of work-life balance, soft-skills and juggling practice with family life. Finally, the PAC would like to record our thanks and appreciation to Mr. Ong Eu Jin, a PAC committee member for coming forw

03 May 2012 SACC Movie Night The KL Bar Social, Arts and Culture Committee ("SACC") organised a private movie screening of Marvel’s The Avengers on 03 May 2012 at the Golden Screen Cinemas, Pavilion KL. The event drew a large crowd of lawyers who came with family and friends to enjoy a night of action and entertainment. The SACC is pleased to have sold all tickets to this movie screening and would like to thank everyone for their support. 07 May 2012 Pupils Introduction Session Organised by the KL Bar Pupils Welfare Committee (PWC), the introduction session for May was held on 07 May 2012. The session, attended by 90 pupils, was led by Jason Kong. Pupils were briefed on the structure of the Malaysian Bar and the KL Bar, the election to both the Bar Council and the KL Bar Committee and highlights of the Malaysian Bar. The introduction session included a session for pupils to raise issues and problems faced by them during their period of pupillage and the Chairman a

The KL Bar Social, Arts & Culture Committee (SACC) and the Young Lawyers Committee (YLC) jointly organised the first social get-together for the term 2012/2013 on Friday, 8 June 2012 at 21, Bangsar Shopping Centre (BSC). The event was scheduled for 8pm and the venue was quickly packed with lawyers coming straight from work, hoping to let their hair down at the end of a typically busy working week. Loud chatters and laughter followed and filled the air and created an extremely lively atmosphere. It was very encouraging to see quite a few senior lawyers gracing the event, as well as many young lawyers and pupils-in-chambers in attendance. For many of the younger crowd, it was their first time attending an event of the KL Bar. This social event definitely achieved its aim of providing an opportunity for lawyers to meet and mingle in an informal setting. Many had expressed interest in getting involved in future SACC and YLC events. Prepared by Melissa Sasidaran

It was a refreshing change that the Kuala Lumpur Bar Young Lawyers Committee (“KLYLC”) decided to invite new young faces for the KLYLC Retreat this year. We had 4 senior young lawyers and 18 new young lawyers participating in our retreat held on 2-3 June 2012. The 4 senior young lawyers , namely, the KLYLC Chair, Khaizan Sharizad (Sherrie), KLYLC Co-Deputies Daniel Albert, Yeoh Tung Seng and Yohendra Nadarajan were mainly facilitators and assisted with the retreat. Melissa Dass, the Executive Officer from the KL Bar Secretariat helped us search for venues for the retreat as many were not available because the dates coincided with the school holidays. Eventually we managed to secure a good deal with Corus Hotel in Port Dickson.  The KLYLC Retreat programme organising committee decided to open this retreat to new members who had just joined the profession only so as to engage and encourage these budding lawyers to participate in future KLYLC events. This will also motivate

Backing up is easy to do If there are three things you can be sure of in life, they are Death, Taxes and Computer Failures. Sure, a lawyer and an accountant would help in the former two but you do not need to be an IT 'pro' to address computer failures. It could be as simple as using a USB flash drive or an external hard-drive to backup all your work documents securely on a daily or at the very least weekly basis. Then, it's a simple case of reformatting or buying a new computer and putting all the files back in. Another method is to save it on a cloud based provider (saved on a far, far away server online but can be accessed wherever and on any device as long as you have your username and password) like Dropbox , Box or Google Drive. One concern here would be the very advantage of this method is its downfall; what happens if your mobile device/tablet goes missing which would give access to those very files. Some action would need to be taken to 'detach' su