Jennifer graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS), Faculty of Law in 2017. Passionate about law and technology, she co-founded LawTech.Asia, and sits on the founding steering committee of the Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association, and is a chapter organiser for Legal Hackers Singapore. Featured in Asia Law Portal’s Top 30 in the business of law to watch in 2019, Jennifer is presently an associate at a leading law firm.
Growing up designing websites and dabbling with HTML, she dreams of a world where law and technology can be married to facilitate access to justice. As the past president of the NUS Pro Bono Group, she has worked and continues to work with different demographics such as youths, migrant workers and sex workers. These needs came to the fore especially during the 2020 Covid situation, which stirred her to join a team spearheading the set-up of a homeless shelter, and another initiative called Welcome in My Backyard (“WIMBY”)—a project which seeks to transform perceptions towards migrant workers and build interactions between migrants and the local community.
She presently volunteers as a mentor with Architects of Life to work with youths at the Singapore Girls’ Home as well as Gracehaven, The Salvation Army.
This Letter is addressed to her 20-year-old self, who is mid-way through law school, at the crossroads of life, trying to decide what to pursue.
Dear Zhen,
It’s probably 5am when you’re reading this, wondering whether you can make it through another deadline. There’s a coding assignment due this weekend, the moot is in two weeks, and another research paper is due...and before that there’s a meeting and moot practice to get through today...
Yes, there will be moments where, like today, you entertain the thought of giving up. But then, God will also send you moments to remind you why this path is worth it all.
The Lord has truly directed your paths—far beyond anything you could have dreamed or expected. Truly, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”—1 Corinthians 2:9.
Calling
Remember the reasons why you entered law school, and the moments that made you realise that law is not just a job or a profession—it’s a calling.
You were volunteering with a soup kitchen for migrant workers in the heart of Little India, and in a church nestled in the lorongs of Geylang. That night, two Chinese construction workers came to the Chinese Caseworker Clinic at the church. The caseworker told them that if they wished to pursue certain claims, they needed a lawyer. Remember that was when your heart burned, and when you wanted to become that lawyer?
Don’t lose your ideals: keep that passion burning—it will be one of the things keeping you through the late nights. Don’t stop dreaming, don’t stop believing, and don’t ever lose sight of your calling. As a client will remind you, we must choose to live, and to not just exist. Keep making the choice to live each day. Don’t be swept along into society’s pursuit of “success”: where success is defined by how fast you attain numerous milestones in the rat race. As your favourite Korean drama says, too many people lose their value trying to be recognised by others, and too many people are too busy making a living that they don’t even know what life is about.
Remember that life is like music, where success is not about speed or milestones, but how beautifully it is played and received. Or else, as the song ‘Were it Not for Grace’ goes, we would be running on a pointless road to nowhere, forever rushing and running but losing the race.
Everyone’s life song is a unique composition and masterpiece in their own right. Sometimes, like a pianist playing the score for the first time, you never know what the next bar will bring, or what note will come next. It could be flat, sharp, or neutral. Rest assured that every note will fall in place, and sometimes it is only in retrospect that you will see the purpose and the reason for that season. May God use your life as an instrument of Grace.
You are not a professional musician but you will learn that in life there will be a symphony of highs and lows, with beauty even in the melancholy, and how every strand of sorrow has its place in the tapestry of grace. Keep choosing to see that beauty.
When tired, learn to rest, not give up. As the Chinese adage goes, “休息是为了走更长的路”: we rest so that we can walk the longer journey that lies ahead.
Confidante
Each day will present its own set of struggles and battles, but also its own moments of victory, rejoicing, hope and inspiration.
There will be one night in the office at 4am when you wondered whether what you were doing was really fulfilling the call to defend the fatherless, the needy, the widowed, and to relieve the oppressed. At that moment, you will open a telegram chat and see the two verses that helped you confirm your calling to do law (Isaiah 1:17 and James 1:27); and you will realise that the two files you were rushing that morning were indeed to relieve the oppressed, and to plead the case of the widow.
You will fall in love with law, and with the people you meet. You will meet girls in the Girls' Home who will tell you that their dream is to be a lawyer like you.
You will meet a bunch of friends whose hearts burn with the same passion for law and technology, and who will become co-founders to catalyse change in the Legal Tech community.
You will meet bosses who inspire you to be a better lawyer everyday: to be a lawyer who is not just good, but who also never loses their heart nor fights dirty, but acts respectably—even to opposing counsel.
You will meet clients who will teach you what it means to love, to be a good mother, and to be a good wife. You will hear stories that only reinforce why you wanted to do law—to solve problems.
You will learn the power of advocacy, the power of donning that affectionately named “penguin suit”—the power of being able to listen to your clients’ stories, and to help them tell those stories to the court. Stories that will help rewrite your client’s next life chapter.
Courage
There is never a good or easy or better time to change things. Change, when it happens, will be met with resistance, if not difficulty. Incremental change is still change, and that can mean a world of difference to someone else.
Your law school journey will show you what happens when a small group of committed people come together to make things happen. Migrant Worker’s Awareness Week seemed impossible at the start. But you persevered and met the strongest migrant workers, the most inspiring NGO founders and caseworkers, and the most passionate batchmates.
In the hardest of moments, God will give you friends and colleagues who will be with you even in the toughest of times. Cherish the last few moments you have in law school, and the friends you’ve made: remember the suppers and late nights in the pro bono room? Some of these people will turn out to be your friends for life.
Take heart in the knowledge that you know God has called you here to stay in law: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”—1 Thessalonians 5:24.
Things will not always be easy: there will be deadlines, there will be pain, there will be sorrow: but don’t let the trials define you. Instead, only let them refine you. Remember the seed—it is buried in dirt and darkness, but chooses to grow towards the light, and bears
fruit.
Keep choosing joy, gratefulness, and courage to grow towards the Light, Zhen.
In Christ,
your slightly older Self