This letter is published in collaboration with the SMU Yong Pung How School of Law’s Freshman Mentorship Programme.

Jo graduated from the Singapore Management University School of Law in 2012. Jo initially applied to study Business Management and Economics, but ended up reading a double degree in Law and Business Management (Finance) instead. Jo once told an interviewer that she will absolutely not go to law school, because law is a calling and it was not calling her. Thankfully she answered in time. She is currently a Partner in the Restructuring & Insolvency practice at a Big Four law firm.

This letter is addressed to her 19-year-old self in the middle of Semester One of law school.

Sis –

My memory of you is hazy now, though I recall these:

• You are out at drinks till 4 am and you have no clue what is going on in law school right now. You are still taking your entry into law school for granted, and you will realise only later that it does take effort to do well. This is just about when you have to sit down and pen a letter to the sponsors of your scholarship, explaining why your GPA is under the line and how you are going to do better next semester. That’s OK. As luck would have it, right after that semester you will find modules that you really enjoy and will thrive in – banking law, law of corporate finance and, of course, insolvency law.

• You will spend days and nights working on various projects with people. I say ‘working’, but you were really just sitting around singing melancholic songs and talking about your feelings. That will be followed later by a mad rush to actually do up the slides. That’s OK. That was part of your emotional education and – oddly enough – the constant rush prepares you for the time pressure in private practice.

• You will scramble to meet your internship requirements and somehow find yourself sitting at an office desk in Hong Kong, looking at a structure chart of various corporate entities that are about to commence insolvency proceedings. A kind senior associate will take time to explain what the plans are. This is the moment your heart is caught – you know that you want to do more, and more, and more of this.

In your twenties, things will come to a head as various aspects of life collide in a frenzy – boys (men? When do they become?), money, parties, work. You will ice your eyes so that you can turn up in the office respectably after crying all night from heartbreak. You will tap out of Friday night drinks prematurely at 11 pm and trudge back to the office to send a redline (in PDF please) because a client needs it. You will stumble, you will loop the voices in your head, and you will question your choices and your decision to double-down on those choices. You will experience, on a lighter note, and as testament to our shared humanity, the mild embarrassment of sending an e-mail without the attachment referred to therein.

But you will also experience the immense satisfaction of pushing a deal through, the warmth of genuine friendships forged amongst learned friends, and the gentle surprise that comes with the realisation that it was those dark, difficult and awkward moments that pushed you to grow. As the years go by, you will shed old skin over and over again as you grow into a new you. You will at once be you as you have always been, but also a new version of you.

I don’t have tips for doing it differently. That is simply the path you have to walk to get from you to me. I know you will hold on when things get dark, and I know you will give thanks when the darkness yields to light (as it always does). I am here, better than you can ever imagine, waiting with open arms.

With love,

Jo