The Kuala Lumpur Bar Young Lawyers Committee (“KLYLC”) Retreat, 2-3 June, 2012 at Corus Hotel Port Dickson
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 them to be more actively involved in KLYLC future activities and to come up with fresh ideas that will benefit the young lawyers in general. Discussions were also held to gather the issues and difficulties faced by young lawyers in practice and to discuss ways and means to overcome such issues.
On Saturday, 2 June 2012, all the participants met at the KL Bar’s premises and car pooled to Port Dickson. It was an ice breaker itself as these new young lawyers were sharing a car ride with at least one senior member of the KLYLC for about an hour drive to Port Dickson.
We arrived at Corus Hotel, Port Dickson at about 10am and headed straight for the conference room provided by the hotel. We started off with light refreshment followed by an ice breaker/introductory session conducted by Yohendra. It was a wonderful spontaneous session for all participants to get to known each other. Sherrie then started the first session at about 11.30am on “Leadership”. Participants were asked to make a stand and give their views on issues such as the recent Malaysian Bar EGM, the proposal of an alternative Malaysian Bar and on whether they support the abolishment of the death penalty in Malaysia.
We checked into our rooms after lunch and returned at 2.30pm for the second session on “Confidence Building”. Led by Yohendra and Daniel, the participants were requested to jot down the issues that they have in practice, with the Bar as well as with the country. We then discussed ways to overcome some of the issues and the avenues currently available for them to resolve certain issues. We also acknowledged that some issues will take a longer time to resolve and thus may be difficult for us to give an immediate solution to the problem.
After tea break, we proceeded to our team building session at the beach for Captain Ball with Yeoh Tung Seng leading the group. Everyone was simply sporting and participated in the activity whether they play the game or not.
We had our last session for the day at about 8.30pm after dinner to listen to the young lawyers contributing to the future of the KLYLC. What a pleasure to find our young lawyers so vocal and creative and full of fresh ideas some of which were already incorporated into our programme for this year such as the advocacy courses, the international young lawyers conference and the paintball competition.
On Sunday morning we had our last session of the retreat with Richard Wee, the Chairperson of the National Young Lawyer Committee (“NYLC”). Richard explained the history of the National Young Lawyers Committee and how other State Bars’ Young Lawyers Committee came about. He also shared his experience as a young lawyer and encouraged the young lawyers to be involved with Bar’s work.
A short post-mortem session was held thereafter to get feedback from the participants on the said Retreat. There were suggestions to improve on the promotion of the Retreat and other KLYLC activities and to come up with more interesting modules for each session. Overall, the participants were happy with the discussions held and the level of participation by everyone who attended the Retreat.
The Retreat ended at 12noon. We checked out from the Corus Hotel and headed back to Kuala Lumpur. It was certainly a productive weekend. Click here to view the photos.
Prepared by Yeoh Tung Seng