During the two-week internship, the most memorable event was, I, as an intern, was lucky enough to sit in a hearing at the court of final appeal of Hong Kong, which in my view, was a fruitful and precious experience as there are only around 40 cases handled by the court of final appeal every year. Although the case result was not in our client’s favour, sitting in the hearing and getting to witness a decision-making process of the most prestigious and supreme court in our jurisdiction itself is an, I would describe as, extraordinary experience.
Besides the aforesaid rare event which not many law interns would have had the chance to encounter, the two-week internship has taught me a lot about Hong Kong’s civil procedure, especially about litigations and dispute resolution, including the normal rundown of court proceedings, where the claimant/plaintiff will first send a statement of claim to the respondent/ defendant, then the defendant will reply with her own defense, where the plaintiff would later reply to the defense. Although these procedures seems normal and is fundamental to law practitioners or even law students in Hong Kong, they were not covered in my UK syllabus, and it was a really suitable and practical preparation for my PCLL if I intend to develop a legal career.
Moreover, during the internship, since our firm has to decide and employ one out of two senior counsels, I have had the chance to undergo legal research on one of them, which the task includes reviewing 10 of his most recent cases, writing a case summary for each of them, and to type out the abstracts into an excel sheet. This task might seem dull to the majorities, and might even describe it as donkeywork, my opinion to this task would be the exact opposite, as this task requires me to review 10 recent cases, it allows me to review 10 cases in at most 10 different areas of law, practical law, which is something that I, a law student craves in order to broaden my horizons.
Despite the interesting work content during this internship, the firm has a really relaxing environment and a great culture that could significantly enhance bonding between colleagues, including post-office hour happy hours on Friday, and group lunch basically every day. This working environment and culture can surely be stress relieving which I see as a crucial thing based on the job nature of legal practitioners. This was in conclusion the most memorable internship I have ever joined in both work content and firm culture.
Donald
Summer 2022
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