Office politics. Hierarchy. The kind of environment where merit is almost synonymous to favouritism (plus billing), and here, throw in the pretty good looks.

Must be my lack of experience in office politics in such environment. Well I was either the pet or indifferent and had no reason to be more involved apart from getting on with what I was paid to do.

Down under, it is about fair go. Of course there is the unspoken nepotism, networking and private school alumni doing business with their own kind. But at the very least, it is not blatantly displayed. Then in the tiny so-called autonomous territory wedged between China and the sea, the biggest banks hired the Chinese princelings without publicity or criticism until they got blasted recently. This, even among law firms, is nothing new either.

The trouble with law, the legal system and legal education is that they present themselves as the ideal, all about justice, procedural and substantive fairness and the rule of law. But the reality is that it is about business, money, recourses and contacts. So many more people work in commercial law than the idealistic poorly paid areas of law. So why then are criminal law and constitutional law compulsory among six areas? Even in courtrooms, judges show a degree of deference to certain barristers they are meant to rule over. And of course, there is promotion within the judiciary.

The moral of this rant would be: don't tell your kids or younger siblings or in fact anyone to be a lawyer; don't let your new boss become your old boss' boss, and don't let those who want to get everybody's skin to come even half a metre to you. And treat extensive discussion on rectifying defect in title as a sign that this is a very wrong place to be.