Some days, I suddenly realize that the work I am doing is very different from the legal profession that I envisioned when I first entered the profession.
Laws change. State apparatus changes. Markets change. Technology changes. Customers also change.
It took a little longer to understand, knowing the law is a necessary condition but never a sufficient condition.
There are knowledge that take many years to accumulate but only after a new document have to be relearned. There are procedures that were once very familiar and suddenly become strange. There are tasks that a few years ago a young lawyer had to spend all day doing, today new tools can be handled in a few minutes.
In the midst of these changes, I sometimes wonder: what will be left of legal practitioners in Vietnam?
Knowing the law is never enough
When I first entered the profession, I used to think that a good lawyer is someone who knows a lot of laws. It took a little longer to understand, knowing the law is a necessary condition but never a sufficient condition.
Because clients rarely go to a lawyer just to ask what the law says.
They come when faced with an important decision. Should a business continue to invest or stop. A deal should be signed or abandoned. An employee should struggle or compromise. How much risk should an entrepreneur take. What structure should a foreign investor enter Vietnam? What should a Vietnamese business prepare if it wants to go out into the world?
Behind a legal question is often money, work, honor, sometimes the fruit of many years of building.
Therefore, a "lawful" answer is not necessarily a good advice.
The lawyer also has to understand what's really behind the question and what decisions the client is making.
Vietnamese laws are changing very quickly. Familiar fields are constantly being revised. New fields are emerging. Personal data, artificial intelligence, digital assets or cyber security are increasingly deeply ingrained in the lives of businesses and people. The state apparatus is reorganized, authority is redelineated, old procedures are replaced by new methods.
There were regulations that were still memorized yesterday, and today they have to be checked again. There are problems that I thought I understood, but when I encountered a specific case, I realized that there was still another layer behind.
And sometimes, the hardest thing is not to find new regulations.
It's calm enough to admit that what you once knew may no longer be true.
That is perhaps a special challenge of the legal profession.
The longer one does, the more experience one has. But experience can also become a trap if we begin to believe that what was once true will continue to be true.
When lawyers have to say "no"
The more I worked in the profession, the more I realized a very important moment in the life of a lawyer.
It's time to say "no."
Not everything customers want should be done.
Not every gap in the law should be exploited.
Not every immediate benefit is worth the risks behind it.
There are times when the lawyer has to tell the client that an attractive transaction should not go ahead. There are times when it is necessary to admit that there is no absolutely safe option. And there are times when it is necessary to deny a request, knowing that it could mean losing a client.
Those choices are not easy.
Lawyers also do business. Law firms also have to pay salaries, pay office rent, and survive in a competitive market. But perhaps the line between a legal service seller and a legal practitioner lies precisely at such times.
Managing Partner Nguyen Van Phuc presents a gift to a representative of The Law Society of Singapore at the office.
Beliefs
A lawyer's most important asset is probably not the number of clients, the size of the office, or the introductions on the resume.
That asset is trust.
The belief that when a person puts an important issue in front of them, the lawyer will not say what is easiest to hear, but what they really need to know.
Trust is accumulated very slowly, but sometimes it only takes one easy time to lose.
The legal profession, of course, is not always as beautiful as we usually talk about it.
There will be records that burn me out. Clients who leave. Cases that don't have a perfect solution. Times when I realize I'm wrong. And also those times when a professional wonders if his or her efforts are really making a difference.
But then I thought, maybe we shouldn't require a profession to give us a big answer all the time.
Most of a lawyer's life is made up of very small things.
Read one more text before giving an opinion.
Double-check a sentence before sending a customer.
Admit what you don't know and take the time to find out.
Refuse a way of doing things that we know is not right.
And try to make today's work a little better than yesterday.
Perhaps the profession is built on such ordinary things.
After all, in the midst of so many changes, I still think there are things that shouldn't change.
Lawyers still have to learn. They still have to think independently. They still have to be responsible for what they say and what they write. And they still have to be worthy of the trust that others put in them.
Maybe one day, many of today's lawyers' jobs will be done in completely different ways. The next generation can practice with tools that we can't yet imagine.
But I hope that, when a person is faced with a difficult decision and turns to a lawyer, they can still believe that on the other side of the table is someone who is knowledgeable enough to show the way, independent enough to say what needs to be said, and responsible enough to stand behind his advice. If that is maintained, the legal profession is still valuable.
Conclusion
The position of Vietnam's legal profession should probably be built from each better-made profile, each unknown thing learned and each lawyer setting himself a higher standard of practice. Each generation may only need to go one more way than the previous generation. But it is these roads, when added-up, that will determine how far the Vietnamese legal profession can go in this ever-changing world.
Lawyer Nguyen Van Phuc
HM&P Law Firm
