Redefining Legal Success: Of Fortune and Fulfillment

Once more, we find ourselves at that time of the year.

The bar exam, a rite of passage both feared and fantasized, has placed over 9,000 law
graduates in a delicate limbo of anticipation and trepidation. With the outcome of the 2022 Bar
examinations solely creeping closer, aspirants across the nation are caught and enveloped by
that Schrödingerian feeling. Alas, the bar exam is both the dreaded and the dreamed.

I empathize completely with them completely. As someone who has faced this crucible not just
once but twice - first for the Philippine Bar in 2016, and more recently for the New York Bar - I
remember the nerve-wracking uncertainty, the sacrifices made, and the dreams woven all too
well. Yet, I also recognized then as I do now that passing the bar is merely the start of an even
greater odyssey. As these young legal minds embark on their professional lives, I hope to share
with them some insights that I, in my own journey, have picked-up along the way.

We hark back to the summer of 2012. The LAE results had just been released and I was heckled
by friends and family. They asked: What field of law do you plan to practice? To me, there was
one clear choice. With Peso symbols in my eyes, I answered: Banking.

In retrospect, this response was well-nigh comical. Anyone who can even claim to remotely
know me could tell you that this field is the farthest thing from my interest. Sure, I’ve had my
share of banking and anti-money laundering cases, but never would I claim that this is the field
in which I have found purpose. I mean, sure I may know how to swim. But that doesn’t mean I
go around telling people I’m a swimmer. Today, I’ve been introduced in fora here and abroad in
a number of ways; as public advocate, human rights lawyer, scholar, professor—among which
my envisioned-self circa-2012 would see a stranger.

So one may ask: What happened? How is it, that in a span of ten years, between points A and B
plotted in the timeline, the Banking Law-aspirant decided to become a public interest lawyer?

I can pinpoint the answer to a single summer. It was 2013 and the country underwent a
“calendar shift” moving the start of the academic year from June to August. This gifted us
students (and now, I realize, professors) a four-month break instead of the usual two.

I had landed two internship posts that summer: One with one of the Philippines’ largest law
firm in Makati, and another with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Phenom Pehn. During the first
half of the summer I was drafting memos on contract law and commercial transactions in the
country’s CBD, and in the latter I found myself in the unnamed and numbered streets of
Cambodia’s capital documenting crimes against humanity and genocide.

The first bit was all-too familiar to me—indeed, I had already watched my fair share of Suits at
the time. But the latter was something strange, something new, and nothing short of epiphanic.
Instead of staring down documents in a cubicle, I engaged with victims of unspeakable crimes
and their families left behind. It was there that I learned that that law was not just rigid
legalese, but a dynamic and flexible tool that responds to the challenges and opportunities of
our times. There I saw law as more than just a system of rules, but as a reflection of our values
and aspirations as a people.

I had no idea the law could work that way, and I came back to the Philippines a changed-man
with changed aspirations. The rest is, as they say, LinkedIn history. Today, I continue my public
advocacies with the Center for International Law—Philippines.

In the Philippines, as is elsewhere around the globe, the legal path is thought to be
straightforward. You do your time shackled in law school and then, after, earn much more than
just your freedom but your riches. But the legal profession could be and should be much more
than that singular pursuit. The practice of law isn’t only be about the loose change that fills our
pockets, but the change we bring into this world. It is an opportunity to make a profit, as well as
to make a difference. And believe me when I say, if you’re lucky and play your cards right, you
may find much more than just fortune in this life but fulfillment.

For those who may falter in their bar exam quest, take heart. Failure does not define your
worth, nor does it spell the end of your legal aspirations. Renowned jurists like Justice Benjamin
N. Cardozo and Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan stumbled on their first attempts.
These setbacks did not deter them, and neither should they deter you.

The legal practice will be what you make it. May you strive to make it better.