Wei Li is a director at DC Law LLC. He graduated from Singapore Management University’s Juris Doctor Programme in 2012. He also holds a Bachelor of Social Science (Hons) from the National University of Singapore with majors in both Psychology and Communications & New Media. Besides practising law, he also teaches as an adjunct faculty at the Singapore Management University’s School of Law.
This letter is addressed to his 18-year-old self to reassure him that he made the right choice by reading for law as a postgraduate degree, after having satiated his curiosity about other fields of study.
Hello Wei Li (from 16 years back),
It’s funny how people always say that hindsight is never perfect. I’m going to be quite the contrarian by suggesting that hindsight is an amazing thing. With the benefit of hindsight, I’m standing here, 16 years later, watching an 18-year-old you (fresh out of junior college) agonise over your choice of major in university.
On the one hand, there’s Law – which you’re drawn to because you’re one who would never turn down a good, feisty debate. Of course, the prospect of calling yourself a swashbuckling lawyer seemed pretty fancy back then, and you were certain your parents would have been proud of you for making it to Law school.
On the other hand, you’ve also always been intrigued by the human psyche. What makes us tick, why people behave in certain ways. I recall, fondly, the hours spent tucked behind shelf 100 at the community library poring over textbooks on social, personality, and forensic psychology.
With your passion for writing and the English language (nobody really likes the grammar nazi in you, by the way), you declared psychology as a major and a second major in communications and new media at NUS.
Yet, and from time to time, you’d lapse into thinking about the lawyer you wanted to be, and how you could’ve made a pretty good one too.
Well, you did become a lawyer! It took a little more time, and I haven’t yet been described as swashbuckling. But after graduating and working for some years, you were accepted into SMU’s JD programme. And your career, since then, would take on an entirely different trajectory.
Law school was not easy; a bit of a blur in some ways. But you survived, and you’re now in the cutthroat world of legal practice. Some would tell you you’ve come full circle, and that you should’ve chosen to read law in the first place. However, with the benefit of hindsight, I wholeheartedly disagree.
In fact, I’d like to thank you for taking the path you took.
I can’t yet read minds, but, because of your psychology background, I’ve become a much more astute, empathetic, and sensitive lawyer. I appreciate the frailty of the human condition, and that people sometimes do the things they do, not out of volition and free will, but because of deviations in their psychological makeup. I’m able to make fairly accurate predictions on how a witness will react and respond on the stand, which then influences the style and demeanour I adopt during cross-examination.
Your choices back then did me good too. As journalist-in-training, I learnt to write in a style and manner that a ten-year-old would understand. I was taught to probe unrelentingly, to organise my thoughts coherently, to be succinct, and to get straight to the point. As the lawyer I now am, I draft in crisp, concise sentences. I am mindful of my reader, and make a conscious effort to veer away from legal jargon as much as I can. Being able to communicate effectively, economically, and at the appropriate level has won me many happy and satisfied clients.
All in all, I’m feeling privileged to be able to go about my lawyering with the benefit of the skills and knowledge picked up from my undergraduate studies. I’m paying it forward by passing on what I’ve learnt to undergraduates pursuing their law degrees at SMU. I’ve been teaching as an adjunct faculty for six years now. Some semesters, I run an elective in law and psychology, where I encourage students to develop an appreciation of how mental health, memory, and cognitive processes affect the legal system. In other semesters, I teach first-year law students writing and drafting skills, during which I’m constantly stressing the importance of clear, lucid, and persuasive language
So, kudos, really – for not having chosen to read law. I’d never have wanted you to do it any other way, because your choices have turned me into a better listener, a teacher, and a mentor above being a lawyer.
With all best wishes,
A much-older you.
For more details about the SMU J.D. programme, please click here.