Vinca Yau
The past year has been an exciting one for Vinca. Backpacking solo across East Asia, Southeast Asia and Easten Europe after completing her LLM in the UK, she discovered the joys of trying all things new and unknown. Highlights include meeting fellow travellers of all walks of life, living with locals who opted for a life markedly different from that offered in HK and basking in the architecture of both the old and new. Truth be told, a year long backpacking trip was never in the planning until further plans for doctoral studies were aborted. A gap year occurred by chance.
As cliché as it may sound, she began to discover herself whilst on the road. Solo travelling brought forth a deluge of questions: ‘What sort of life do I want to lead? What sort of person do I want to be? Who would I like to be with? How should I respond to the random twists and turns during the trip (and life in general)?’ The list runs on, and many of the people, sights and sounds and encounters during the trip, gave her ideas as to what those answers might be.
During her time in CUHK, Vinca took part in a number of international mooting competitions, including the Jessup Moot on two occasions at Washington D.C. She is grateful for the opportunities the moots presented her with both in postgraduate studies and career. More importantly, she became involved in a China based NGO, the Chinese Initiative in International Law (CIIL) as its Hong Kong representative and helped to organise several international law mooting events for PRC law students. This included the first CIIL-CUHK Vis International Commercial Arbitration Pre-Moot in 2014. She is very grateful to the Faculty for being receptive to both students and graduates’ initiatives.
If she can offer one advice to current LLB students: “Defer your studies for a year, go on an exchange programme or if your means allow, go backpacking. I was admittedly confused as to whether I wanted to be a lawyer, and if so, which stream or academia. My personality was one that did not handle ambiguity well, and preferred clear cut answers. However, life does not work like that which I learnt whilst travelling. Speaking from personal experience, you do have to extract yourself from the hustle and bustle of cosmopolitan HK and the constant pressure of securing a ‘good’ career to explore deeper questions. Do not be afraid to graduate a year or two later, you stand nothing to lose but everything to gain. Legal knowledge and intellectual aptitude are important but your personal growth and life values are equally if not more important to your well-being. Surely, you would like to know what ‘happiness’ and ‘meaning’ mean to you?”
Born in HK and raised in Singapore, Vinca graduated in 2013 from the LLB Programme with a First Class Honours. During which she spent a year at Peking University on a Qin Jia Yuan Mainland Exchange Scholarship. After which she completed the PCLL Programme before leaving for Cambridge University to undertake a LLM in public international law on a Cambridge Trust Scholarship. After which she was awarded the Pegasus Scholarship by Inner Temple which allowed her to undertake a 3-month placement in London Chambers. She took the opportunity to watch as many West End musicals and Southbank productions as she could! She is now a Trainee Solicitor at Herbert Smith Freehills.
Mark McLawhorn 
After receiving his Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 2009, and clerking for the Honorable Bruce Williams of the South Carolina Court of Appeals, Mark enrolled in the LLM in Chinese Business Law Programme at CUHK. He was awarded the 2011 Master of Laws Scholarship Scheme Prize Award and graduated with Dean’s List Honours.
After receiving his LLM, Mark served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Carl E. Stewart, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is one of thirteen intermediate appellate courts that sit below the United States Supreme Court. Mark worked in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina, which is a prosecutorial component of the United States Government. He currently works as an Assistant Federal Public Defender at the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the District of South Carolina where he represents clients in federal court proceedings and appeals on a variety of federal criminal offenses.
Mark was called to the South Carolina Bar in 2009 and the New York Bar in 2015. He is admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Asked about his time at CUHK, Mark describes his experience as a “positive life changing experience” and says that he enjoyed interacting with students around the world and learning about China’s legal regime and culture in a world class city and studying at a preeminent institution. Mark has made “lifelong friends” with many of his classmates.
When asked about his advice to prospective students of the LLM in Chinese Business Law Programme he stated, “The LLM in Chinese Business Law Programme provides a comprehensive perspective of China and its legal system especially considering China’s strategic impact and influence in the geopolitical and economic sphere. A firm understanding of Chinese Business Law will enhance one’s role as a citizen of the world and provide an enhanced legal skill set, which is important in the age of globalization. I would recommend this first-rate programme to anyone who has a strong interest in learning about China’s legal regime. In just ten years, the Faculty of Law has become a world-renowned legal institution and Hong Kong’s best research law faculty. I am proud to be an alumnus of CUHK.”
Angela Calista Lau
In the book Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat “would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
After living in the UK for six years, Angela decided to return to Hong Kong to pursue her legal studies at CUHK, completing her LLB in 2015 and PCLL in 2016. Much to everyone’s surprise, Angela entered the aviation industry and joined Airport Authority Hong Kong as a management trainee with a view to working at one of the world’s best airports.
Angela’s first year rotation is in the Airfield Department where the scope of her work covers extensive contract management as well as airfield operations management. Having a strong legal background and drafting proficiency enables Angela to positively contribute in handling the department’s contracts and licences. The importance of contract management is highlighted by the fact that out of the 70,000 airport staff, only 1,800 are from the Authority which makes the rest its contractors and licensees. Angela remarks that the essence of contract management is that the contract user is the only one who fully understands what he wants and thus being able to articulate the user requirements per se significantly streamlines the contract management process.
In operations management, Angela undergoes various trainings to learn about the fundamentals of airfield operations which she sees as essential to effective planning and management. The exposure and experiences, such as aircraft marshalling, runway inspections and typhoon operations are indeed extraordinary and fascinating.
Angela wishes to express her heartfelt gratitude to all her professors, teachers and peers who supported her throughout the five years of law school at CUHK. Even though Angela has embarked on a career that is completely different from the legal profession, the skills that she had acquired from her legal training gives her a solid start in her new job. Angela wishes CUHK’s Faculty of Law the very best and would like to leave future graduates with a quote from Alice in Wonderland.
The cat smugly tells Alice, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”