Law school is over for me. I have cleared all my modules required to graduate. Well technically I have yet to receive the results for my final two modules, mediation advocacy and the legal clerkship programme but I believe my grades before heading into the final semester should allow me to graduate with a second class honours (upper).

It really seemed very recent that I entered law school. Now I am about to graduate. My SUSS student account should be gone soon. My email would no longer be operational. Most crucially, I will not be able to get student discounts at many places like the Apple Store or Challenger. Ok that was a joke. But yes, I will miss the discounts.

So what next? I will be taking the Part B examinations in June 2025. The course starts in January 2025. Just about a month away. There was some clarity as to the process of application, course details and whether we could be employed while undergoing the course. Employment is allowed while studying for Part B. This means that I will be continuing my work at my current company till I do my training contract after the Part B examinations. The classes are almost entirely online save for a few of them. If I did not remember wrongly, the physical classes are mainly the ethics classes.

You know what is the difficult part about this transition into law? It is the handing over of my responsibilities in my company to my colleagues. When you are a bit older, and hopefully wiser, you tend to evaluate things more carefully. Time is always a scarce commodity even when we were young. However, being older, you are just more aware of this fact. When I first entered law school, I entered with the notion that I will spend 6 months taking the bar examination and another 6 months as a practice trainee. Things change and now I will spend a year as a practice trainee due to the new rules.

This is the reason why not everyone who graduates with a law degree will practice law. I believe there were about 70 odd students in my cohort. I am not certain of how many in my cohort will eventually become practising lawyers.

Whatever the case…

We are finally done with law school!

While I am going to miss studying, it is so refreshing to have that feeling of not entirely knowing what is going to happen next. I had that same feeling when I graduated from NUS approximately 20 years ago. Thank you SUSS for once again giving me that same exhilarating feeling.

 

Yours sincerely,

Daryl