A review by

Associate Professor Eleanor Wong

playwright, poet, and Vice Dean, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore

Dear El:

I’m really rather miffed at you. I gather that, sometime in the future, it will be possible for you to write me a letter as I sit crying on the floor of my hostel room uncertain whether life is worth carrying on. The crying? It’s about love. It’s always about love. And yes, maybe I would want your letter to reach me before this particular mess had gotten quite this messy. But I digress. Do I still do that?

The point is: you could have written me with advice. About law school. About what the American legal realists stand for (so that I might actually finish that Jurisprudence paper while wallowing in self-pity, instead of submitting it late and risking a fail). About whether I should audition for this international law moot that will take place in the US next year. About why a poem can break my heart to write but make no dent on anyone else (or about ditching the poetry and focusing on memorials for now, and a bit of playwriting later on).

Because I just read this great book containing letters by lawyers written to their younger selves. All kinds of lawyers. Of different ages, in different legal roles, across different contexts. To get to where they are, these lawyers have taken paths straightforward and windy, smooth and forbidding, beaten and off. For their younger selves, they have practical tips, encouraging anecdotes, uplifting insights and warm empathy. Some are serious, some more light-hearted, but all are sincere and open-hearted. 

None of the letters is addressed to me (because you obviously flaked out) but each one speaks to me. It’s a good thing we don’t need to depend on our own older selves, now that we have this book (and something called the internet where these letters were first shared freely). 

Of course, round about now, I imagine you’re smiling that satisfied, “Aren’t you glad you learnt that for yourself?” smile which so infuriates your students.  And you’re saying, “Isn’t it so much better to have the collective wisdom of a whole community of friends and mentors?” 

Yah, yah. I’m off the floor. Oliver Wendell Holmes, here I come. 

And yes, I know you’re probably saving yours for a real emergency rather than a maudlin moment. But they’re called Letters of the Law – plural – for a reason. We can always do with more. 

Eleanor (at 21)