Keynote Address by Mr Wong Yan Lung, GBM, SC (Guest of Honour)

July 16, 2025 Evelyn So

Professor Fu, Members of the Faculty, Graduates, Ladies and Gentlemen:

First, my warmest congratulations to you Graduates. You belong to a small percentage of young people in the world who have the chance to come this far. And your hard work in the past few years has paid off. Well done.
Your Dean, Professor Fu Hualing, invited me to speak on the same occasion three years ago in July 2022. I can only think of one reason why Professor Fu asked me again this year: Because he was not happy with what I did but is gracious enough to give me another chance to redeem myself.
So I cannot possibly recycle my old speech. I scratched my head and asked myself what it is that I can offer you today, which you cannot already find from ChatGPT or Deep Seek. Probably not much, except the delivery by a human voice.
I looked up big events which happened since July 2022.
- On 30 November 2022, of course, Open AI launched ChatGPT.
- On 5 May 2023, WHO ended the designation of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern.
- On 7 October 2023, Hamas attacked Israel, starting the Gaza war.
- On 4 November 2024, Mr. Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
- On 2 April 2025, Mr. Trump declared the so-called “Liberation Day” and weaponized sweeping trade tariffs against many countries including China.
Should you be worried about these events as you embark on your legal career? Perhaps not so much getting worried, but getting prepared.
- How to turn AI from a competitor to an assistant?
- How to stay steady should another pandemic break out again? How to get on top of social distancing, quarantine, work from home, and remote hearings?
- How to face the uncertainties, coming from the intensifying geopolitical risks affecting Hong Kong, and the rocking economy, locally and worldwide?
But it is the unprecedented events in the USA which I find more disturbing:
- When judges who ruled against the Government were labelled “activists”;
- When law firms who acted against the Government were served with executive orders with punitive measures; and
- When convicted criminals who were considered loyal received presidential pardons.
I feel quite strongly about these matters. First, because as the former justice minister I had been on the receiving end of legal challenges and adverse court rulings. Second, because my experience then was very different:
- Even when losing judicial review cases spelt far-reaching constitutional ramifications and grave administrative burdens, the HKSAR Government still showed full respect for our Courts.
- On numerous occasions I had to rigorously defend controversial Government policies or decisions in Legco or in public, explaining (almost as if I were in Court) why they were compliant with the law including the Basic Law; and
- I also remember defending controversial prosecution-related decisions, assuring the public that the Department of Justice could be trusted to strictly follow the law and the published prosecution guidelines.
Our collective brain is just wired that way: Politics must not interfere, or be seen to interfere, with the administration of justice. Once public trust and confidence in a strong and independent legal system is lost, it will be very difficult to recover.
Since I last spoke here in July 2022, two local movies about lawyers were released and became box office hits.
- The first was “A Guilty Conscience” (or “Poisoned Tongue Lawyer” “毒舌大狀”) in January 2023. I believe it is still the highest- grossing Chinese film in Hong Kong.
- The second was “The Prosecutor” “誤判” in December 2024. I was told the plot was based on a drug-trafficking case handled by HKU’s clinical legal education team.
Why did legal dramas have such a strong appeal? Because people do care about justice, fairness, due process, and ultimately the rule of law. Even ordinary people get indignant whenever there is miscarriage of justice.
In these movies, injustice was often put right by “heroes” using fictitious methods which you and I know might not be legally viable or permissible.
The challenge for all of us, lawyers and would-be lawyers, is how to help maintain a strong and independent legal system in Hong Kong – by using the right ways.
What is expected of us is to conduct ourselves competently to help achieve outcomes in the real world, which are just and fair, according to the law, without bending the rules.
In due course many of you will become solicitors, barristers, or in-house lawyers, in civil or in criminal practices. Some may join the Department of Justice.
It is a huge responsibility that people place into your hands important matters affecting their life, finance, family or even liberty.
But it is a tremendous privilege that by doing your job well, you may be able to make a difference for them.
It is a double privilege that in doing your job, you also get to exercise your intellectual faculties, get your job satisfaction, and get paid too, sometimes lucratively.
As legal professionals, the minimum expected of you is to master your skills, to get the law right and to properly apply it to the facts. These days, things can change overnight. We may not always have the luxury to allow the law to evolve over time. Continue to learn. Be prepared to always walk an extra mile to make sure you get it right.
A leading silk, my chamber-mate in Temple, was once asked by a student what he considered to be the hardest thing in legal practice. The silk replied: to advise your client what the correct legal position is, which the client finds unacceptable.
The correct or best legal advice may be very inconvenient to clients. They may question you, argue with you, or even fire you. Whether you can stand your ground will be of great importance to them and to you. How you react under such pressure will determine what kind of lawyer you will become.
The quality of lawyers affects the quality of legal services. Quality lawyers produce quality judges, and ultimately build a quality legal system. And a quality legal system is Hong Kong’s edge. It commands confidence.
Hong Kong just experienced a 33% year-on-year rise in IPO listings in the first half of 2025. The analysts also said investors are increasingly looking to diversify out of the US due to hostile trade, geopolitical polices, and the sheer unpredictability from Washington.
Coming back to all of you who are gearing up at the starting line: I read an article in the New York Times on 15 May 2025 by David Brooks, with the title “We are the Most Rejected Generation”. Brooks quoted the example of summer internship applications with Goldman Sachs. It has 2,700 internship positions and receives roughly 315,000 applicants. In other words, about 312,300 applicants get rejected.
You all know how hypercompetitive it is to get internship or training contracts with big firms, or mini-pupillages or pupillages with top chambers. Filling in so many applications is already a chore; getting so many rejections back is utterly demoralizing.
At trainee induction sessions, experienced practitioners might be giving you the following advice: You must excel to survive; you must show you passionately “want” your job by willingly working late nights and all weekends; you have to treat your fellow-interns or trainees as your “competitors” and beat them; you are here to help the firm make money; and if you find the kitchen too hot, you know where the door is.
In chambers like Temple, it is no secret that pupils strive to outshine one another to better their chances of tenancy; and newly admitted barristers strive to impress and stand out, in order to become the chosen one to join mega cases as the second or third junior.
Yes, this is the reality. But this is not all. If this is all, the world out there awaiting your entry is terribly harsh and even toxic. Let me tell you: You still have a choice, even though making the right choice might not be easy.
Firstly, be honest with yourself. Is what you are pursuing really the area you like to do? Is it something you are good at? Or is it just the “go-to” thing because of financial return or reputation? The legal practice is so demanding that if you are in the wrong place, the routine is already torture.
But the legal profession still has considerable diversity. I remember a young energetic colleague in the International Law Division of the Department of Justice who had very impressive academic credentials. He told me he applied to join the DOJ because he had fallen in love with international law when he was an undergraduate.
Secondly, and more importantly, you still have the choice to walk your own path. You do not have to be completely “homogenous”.
Most lawyers charge by hours. Time is cash. To some, spending time on non-work, non-billable matters, is a luxury if not a waste. But precisely because time is such an expensive commodity, it is particularly refreshing to encounter lawyers who are generous with their time.
I have been a beneficiary of that generosity.
- I was a pupil of the former Chief Justice Mr. Andrew Li, who would use a red pen to meticulously correct my draft Request for Further and Better Particulars. A man with a big heart, Andrew is always keen to nurture legal talents and he is the founder of the Bar Scholarship.
- And the late Mr. Paul Dinan, a seasoned criminal barrister: Though not my pupil master, Paul spent over 2 hours going through the case papers of my first magistracy trial. Over glasses of wine, Paul patiently taught me how to cross-examine the witnesses, and shared with me many of his own courtroom stories.
- And also my “師兄”, a young barrister Mr. Jeffrey Lung, who sadly passed away of cancer in his early 30’s. Jeffrey unselfishly asked his solicitor-friends to give me instructions to try me out.
- In one of my earliest cases in the company court, my opponent was the formidable Mr. John Bleach SC. My case was hopeless and the judge gave me a hard time. After the hearing, John sent me a handwritten note. He said he would have taken the same points I did, and I should not feel too rotten because of the judge’s remarks. How kind and generous!
Time is indeed precious. But don’t be enslaved by workaholism or selfishness disguised as the norm of the profession.
We all need an area beyond the billable time, or a level above it, where we feel free to travel into, where the generosity of spirit is both liberating and enriching.
Just for your reference, in the first 10 years of my practice, I spent 7 of them working as a volunteer with an NGO helping the homeless, doing weekly visitations. These non-billable hours greatly enriched me as a person, and I survived as a barrister.
On generosity of spirit, I cannot help but go back to America, this time on a more positive note. In 2010, I had the chance to meet Professor Condoleezza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, when she came to Hong Kong to deliver the CUHK Distinguished Lecture.
We had a brief discussion about the relative strengths of Asia and the West, which was the theme of her lecture. Professor Rice said, while China was rising rapidly, the US still enjoyed the lead. Why? She said it was because the US had always been the magnet to welcome and attract top talents from all over the world, and because the US would spare no expense in investing in the already well-endowed Ivy League universities.
What a stark contrast from what we are seeing today under the banner of “Making America Great Again”.
In ancient Greek, there are two words for “Time”.
- One is “Chronos”, meaning the chronological or sequential time, like the flow of time marked by calendars. In due course you will have to do numerous chronologies of events in your work.
- The other word is “Kairos”. It means qualitative and opportune time, moments of quality, or times of significance.
As you move on to a new stage after graduation, I encourage you to keep a lookout for, and produce, the Kairos of your life. I give you my best wishes that you would be rewarded by lots of Kairos, and that you would also be rewarding others with lots of them. Thank you.