Profile

As counsel

My practice focuses on counsel work and contentious matters in the Malaysian courts.

I am principally instructed as counsel. I have had the fortune to argue cases at all levels of court - from the Federal Court to the Magistrates' Court.

I also act as second-chair to seniors, or as the primary/caretaking solicitor in litigation requiring legal teams of various sizes.

Practice

As advocate and solicitor, I have been instructed to prosecute, resist and advise suits on behalf of - and against - individuals, firms (commercial and professional), corporations, societies, state entities, and the Malaysian government (state and federal), in both personal and commercial matters.
My main area of practice is civil and commercial law.
The bulk of my work concerns complex litigation, often involving commercial fraud, company / shareholder disputes, breaches of trust, and/or inheritance disputes.
I do not practise criminal litigation or Syarie law, and I minimize my engagements in quasi-judicial tribunals.

I am familiar with various programming languages / toolsets, and regularly use them in my professional legal practice.

Main Languages

Python
Go
Nim
Javascript
SQL
C

Toolkits / Software

SQLite
PostgreSQL
Django
HTMX
Pandas
D3
Graphviz
/ DOT

Vim
Sublime Text
Jetbrains IDEs
Affinity Designer
Git
Docker
Ansible

I have written many kinds of software, whether CLI / command-line based, GUI-based (Tkinter/Qt) or web-based (both front-end and back-end, with Django and Flask). I believe in the Unix philosophy and best practices, and (try to) write well-engineered/test-driven tools.

Given time constraints, the tools I build these days tend to be litigation-oriented / domain-specific: e.g. litigation discovery / analysis techniques (which often ties in with natural language processing), process / workflow automation and document generation.

I enjoy low-level programming, and hope to get back to C someday (or maybe try Rust in the future). For now my entire development workflow is Python-focused (a language that I personally find beautiful and logically-designed).

Code

Heroes / Influences

Programmers: Richard Hipp, John Carmack, David Beazley, Guido van Rossum
Musicians: Guthrie Govan, Alex Hutchings, Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, Masato Nakamura, Noriyuki Asakura
Lawyers / writers: Lord Denning, Brandon Sanderson, Andrzej Sapkowski

Fluency

English, Malay, Japanese (written)

Interests

Languages, natural language processing, data visualization, music, law

Service to others

Malaysian/Kuala Lumpur bar committees, court committees, speaker at Bar talks/webinars and conferences, mentor to pupils

Activities

Wan Marican, Hamzah & Shaik - Practice