Entering a 200-Year Profession and Shaping What Comes Next
To the 2026 cohort:
Congratulations on your call to the Bar!
As Co-Chairpersons of the Young Lawyers Committee (YLC) of the Law Society of Singapore, we welcome you to the profession.
Your path from university, through training, to finally becoming lawyers has been longer and tougher than those who have come before you. As the first batch of the year-long training period, you have gone through so much uncertainty. We know it has been difficult in many ways, and you deserve to fully celebrate this milestone.
Entering a 200-year-old profession shaped by generations of lawyers before you can feel daunting. We wanted to leave you with three short reminders that will hopefully lighten that weight.
First, you are so much more than your job.
Your worth as a lawyer and even more importantly, as a person, is not defined by the number of hours you bill or the number of likes you get on your LinkedIn post. You are not defined by one bad draft, an overlooked typo, or the feedback a partner gives on a bad day.
Instead of measuring yourself and others by wins and losses, we hope you find more meaning in how you showed up as a friend, colleague, and mentor. You will meet so many along the way who will show you generosity, patience, and kindness in big and small ways. Accept their kindness with an open heart, and one day when you are able to, we hope you will pass on the kindness to another.
Second, you can define success in your own way.
You will receive advice from so many people on what you should or should not do, who you should or should not be. They may be well-meaning, sincere, and even come from people you trust. But their advice is based on their version of success, their lived experiences, and their own privileges and challenges. It may be true for them but that does not make it true for you.
We hope that you will find a version of success that is true to yourself and your own values. That can mean continuing to nurture hobbies outside of work, dedicating time to pro bono causes that you are passionate about, and making sure you have enough energy to be fully present for family and friends.
Finally, it is safe to reach out.
Both of us have each told ourselves so many times “no one else would have made such a mistake”, “how could anyone do such a thing”, “maybe I’m just not cut out for this”. There have been so many moments where the fear and anxiety have felt crippling and never-ending. Lawyering is an old profession, and that means whatever mistake you’ve made, someone else has done the same.
It can be easy to lose perspective in the moment. We hope you find your tribe both within and outside the profession to keep you grounded and remind you of what is important.
Community is much more than belonging to something — It is about doing something that makes that belonging matter. You do not just belong to the legal profession; You are the legal profession and what you do makes the legal profession. We look forward to building the legal profession with you.
Once again, congratulations on your call to the Bar and we hope to celebrate with you at the YLC’s mass call party!
