The Firm is contributing to legal education across Laos through its continued partnership with justice education organization BABSEACLE.

The relationship is aimed at providing training to law students and teachers. Our latest venture is an online Business Law and Ethics seminar series for students from five universities in Laos.

The seven 2-3-hour sessions were run monthly from November 2021 to May this year.

Singapore Partner Jonathan Olier, who leads the relationship for White & Case, explains: “We first teamed up with BABSEACLE (then called BABSEA) in 2010 when we collaborated on a project to provide counselling to victims of gender-based violence.

“We followed this up with university training on gender-based violence law and later began working on more projects.

“This helped us develop trust and relationships with the Laotian universities, the Laos Law Society and Laotian lawyers.”

To further support the legal community in Laos, the Firm also makes regular financial contributions to BABSEACLE’s continuous legal education (CLE) fund, has previously sponsored a legal fellow from a Laos university, and invited Laotian lawyers to visit our Singapore office.

Jonathan says: “Our latest initiative – the Business Law series – is aimed at developing students’ legal skills and gives them a different perspective on a range of business law issues, such as rule of law, conflict of interest and client skills.”

A total of 17 partners and associates from across Asia Pacific presented the sessions, providing expertise across broad practice areas.

Tokyo Associate Joey Chan, who coordinated the sessions, says: “Our initial plan was to run the initiative out of the Singapore office but as the amount of work required increased, we reached out to other APAC offices and added volunteer lawyers from Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Jakarta to our team.

“Planning for the sessions began six months in advance and involved developing the course framework and lesson plans in close collaboration with the BABSEACLE team.”

The sessions received very positive reviews from the students, BABSEACLE and the White & Case lawyers who presented.

Tokyo Associate Nat Rowe comments: “The series was extremely well planned and executed. The Laotian law students were highly engaged and the team at BABSEACLE made our job easier by providing valuable guidance on the content and delivery.

“Everyone at BABSEACLE was an absolute joy to work with. It was a privilege to be involved in such an important educational initiative and I’d recommend it to anyone should they get the opportunity to work with BABSEACLE in future.”

Melbourne Associate Sean Curran adds: “It was an extremely rewarding experience to work with colleagues from different practice areas to share relevant experiences, ideas and to deliver training sessions that were tailored to our audience (virtual sessions with simultaneous translation).”

“Ultimately though, the most rewarding aspect of the experience was undoubtedly the engagement and interest shown by the Laotian law students, which made the effort that we put into our sessions feel truly worthwhile.”

The BABSEACLE team gathered feedback from attendees after the series. The research revealed that the number of students who understood the subject increased, on one occasion from 13 per cent to more than 70 per cent before and after the session.

The teams are now collaborating to identify best practice and development ideas for future projects.

Jonathan says: “The initiative further strengthened our relationship with BABSEACLE and we are already looking to replicate the series for law students in other jurisdictions in Southeast Asia.

“In addition, we’re exploring the idea of further training in gender-based violence and including children’s rights in our trainings as well. We’ll also be recruiting volunteers from the APAC offices to deliver in-person training in Laos.

“From the Firm’s perspective, the relationship with BABSEACLE is important to our pro bono vision in supporting developing nations in the region and the rule of law. In Laos and Myanmar in particular, there is a lack of resources in the legal community so any contribution we can provide is extremely valuable.”