My Final Appearance at the Selangor Bar

I gave my final talk as a member of the Malaysian Bar at the Selangor Bar on 20th July 2012. The title of my talk was “Mediating Family and Relationship Disputes”. The attendance was relatively intimate about 30 people. In that talk, I spoke about the causes of breakdown in relationships, exploring different types of Mediation such as Divorce Mediation, Post Divorce Mediation, Unmarried Couples Mediation, etc. When I asked the participants to name some of the causes of breakdown in relationships, one of the participants shouted “Mother in law!” Wow! I must say I didn’t see that coming! Other participants gave the usual answers such as infidelity, misunderstanding, etc. Well, those are not causes. Those are actually consequences. The causes are basically lack of communication, trust and empathy. A skillful Mediator would explore those causes with the parties in order to generate options as to how and which direction the parties wish to take.

The talk lasted about 2 hours. At the end of the talk, the Selangor Bar Committee presented me with a souvenir made entirely of glass. The Committee was mindful that I will be moving to Australia soon and they were aware that any products made of wood may be prohibited from entering into Australia. In my previous talks at the Selangor Bar, I was presented with a wooden plaque. After being presented with that souvenir made of glass, I just stood there and smiled. There were some small laughter from the participants as they thought it was rather odd that I was staring at an object made of glass. I quickly realised that and informed them that the talk I gave a few moments ago was actually my last talk at the Selangor Bar. I thanked them for all the support they have been given me and was honoured to have been invited a number of times to the Selangor Bar. The participants were kind of sad that I will be leaving but I guess for every lawyer that leaves practice there will be a younger and better ones to replace him.

Thank you for all the good times, Selangor Bar! I will miss you all.