Reprinted with kind permission by The Malet Street Gazette

I thank God for his strength and protection all these years while I labored to fulfill a cherished wish I have since I was young. The prayers and support of my wife, family, and friends have made this tremendous challenge more surmountable.

The journey I had embarked upon to becoming an attorney at law is nontraditional. It all started at an early age when I wanted to be a lawyer. Somehow being a lawyer impressed me and when I was in high school in Malaysia, I had seriously considered training as a lawyer through an article clerkship with a reputable local lawyer right after high school. However, the lawyer advised me otherwise, suggesting that I should pursue further studies in law.

After high school, I came to the United States for further studies with the hope of gaining admission in a U.S. law school. At the completion of my college degree, I sought admission to the finest law schools in the United States, but was not successful in gaining admission. Instead, I took a detour and pursued an MBA. However, my desire to study law did not diminish.

Upon graduation from the MBA, I ventured on a career in public sector auditing and investigations. While working full-time, I looked for opportunities to pursue a legal education. Upon extensive research and with much consideration given to my resource constraints, I determined that the best route to realize my wish was to enroll in the University of London external law degree program. In February 1994, I enrolled in the UOL’s program and was very eager and excited to start reading law, just like a kid going on his first ride on the new bicycle. Right away, I planned on taking my first law exams in a year, in June 1995.

When the study guides and related materials arrived from the UOL, I was thrilled to thumb through them to survey what I was up for. I recognized that I was in unknown territory studying under the British system, particularly, in a distance-learning mode. For all these years, I have become too accustomed to the traditional and American educational system. With the study guides, I went straight ahead to ordering my textbooks from various bookstores in England. Unfortunately, neither the Malet Street Gazette nor other online resources were in existence at the time. Thus, I could not benefit from the guidance, open discussions, and networking opportunities provided by a resource such as the Malet Street Gazette. Nevertheless, I had to devote a considerable amount of time and resources to research and secure the needed study materials to begin my studies. With faxes and correspondence to the bookstores in England, I managed to obtain the needed materials. As a working professional studying law, time was a precious commodity.

From the very beginning, I realized that reading law under the external program would be an entirely unique and uncommon experience. I began to evaluate the tutorial assistance that was available at the time. I knew I needed guidance for my first year. I was apprehensive in going at it alone—groping in the dark—not knowing what to focus on and how to prepare and write the law exams. After much research, I settled on Holborn College for their study materials, in addition to the texts I had purchased. Holborn’s study materials seemed to be tailored for UOL external students and their marking service would provide feedback and guidance in writing essay exams.

The texts finally arrived from the bookstore in England. Much to my surprise, they were all hundreds of pages thick. How could I read them all, let alone understand and retain what I have read? The answer arrived shortly, in the form of Holborn’s study materials whose texts were condensed for students preparing for the UOL law exams. I was very much pleased to see the condensed materials that raised my hope in preparing for the law exams. With the tools in hand, I delved into the first pages of law.

Time and energy became my challenges. Often, at the end of the day after a full day of work, there was usually not much time and energy left for any serious studying. As a result, comprehension and retention suffered. I recall falling asleep over the fine writings of Kendricks on contracts and in front of English constitutional law. There was a constant struggle within me to complete the readings and understand the law before attempting to practice on the exam questions. In the end, I was able to read through the Holborn texts twice. However, I sacrificed practicing on writing exam answers and did not fully utilize Holborn’s marking service. I only managed to work on several past exam questions to get a feel for the exams. Furthermore, reading every important case cited in the text, locating and reading the most current cases or current development in the law, or even reading a full case became impractical. Frequently, the casebooks became the last resort to understanding the cases, facts, and issues.

Under these circumstances, it was only natural to travel the path of least resistance, i.e., reading and reading and reading, including reading the exam questions and model answers. I put off practicing on past exam questions until the very last minute, always reminding myself that I needed to know more substantive law before working on the exam questions. This excuse clouded my better judgment of developing an effective approach for writing good exam answers. In the end, prior to the scheduled June exams, I had to take time off from work to concentrate on preparing for my first law exams. During this time, I focused on learning how to write exam answers. Looking back, working on past exam questions as one moves along in his/her study would better prepare him/her for the exams. There are no shortcuts to developing an effective approach for doing well in the exams.

Exam day came around and the exams were difficult. Each exam meant 3 hours of scrambled writing. With 45 minutes for each exam question, it required quick, in-depth and thorough analysis of the exam question, and writing fast, very fast. A lasting impression that I have of the exams is that after every exam my hand was cramped. There should be a balance between quantity and quality. With such a limited amount of time, one has to properly analyze the exam question and present the relevant analysis to do well in the exam. Unless one is well-prepared with a good retention of the facts and issues, at the moment when one reads the exam question, the relevant principle of law, the names of the specific cases, the ratios, the dicta, and the distinguishing facts would conveniently escape one’s memory. One would then have to stretch to recall whatever is left to fill the pages necessary for the answer.

The exams eventually came to a conclusion and I survived. Then, the wait for the results was unbearable during which there was not much that I could do since I never knew whether to move forward to prepare for the second year or focus on repeating the exams. It was slow torture. But the moment of reckoning finally arrived. Fortunately, I found that I passed and could move on.

Having passed the first year, I had the confidence to begin preparing and studying for the rest of my exams on my own, without subscribing to tutorial assistance or marking service. I got more comfortable with reading cases, summarizing them, and identifying the ratios. However, finding time to keep up with current cases and current development in the law was still difficult. The obstacles I encountered during the first year continue to exist. Nevertheless, I engaged in the same routine to prepare for the exams and successfully passed the exams.

Along came the third year, a year filled with changes and challenges. In the midst of preparing for my third year courses came the birth of my first child and the many responsibilities of caring for and nurturing the child. Finding the time and energy to study became more demanding. Despite passing the exams for the first two years, I yearned to experience law being taught within the confines of the four walls. The opportunity arose through the UOL law exam review course conducted by the University of Cambridge. I knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend law lectures in Cambridge for a week; live in Selwyn College and dine at Selwyn’s main dining hall; and commiserate with fellow external students from all over the world. I capped off my trip to Cambridge with a visit to the center of all UOL activities, the Senate House on Malet Street.

The trip to Cambridge set the stage for my third year’s exams. Again, I passed the exams and move on to the fourth and final year. For the final year, I wanted to try a different approach in preparing for the exams. I engaged the services of Semple Pigot Aquino, an online tutorial service, in preparing for one of my courses, Jurisprudence. Semple was one of the more innovative providers of tutorial services at the time, and I benefited much through the one-on-one tutorial as well as the e-mail discussions with my tutor. In June 1998, I sat for my last exams. In September 1998, when I received my results, I realized that I have crossed a milestone in a journey that I began four years ago. With much hard work and dedication, I have cleared a hurdle—a hurdle that many have found insurmountable. I felt liberated—liberated from the struggle to balance time and energy among the many demands and commitments of the past four years. I began to appreciate knowing that I have finally graduated from the UOL program.

However, despite completing the degree program, I know that I have not reached my destination. Prior to the final year of my studies, I have plans to qualify for the bar in California. In order to qualify to take the bar exam in California, I had to pursue one year of law studies at an American law school. When I learned that I had passed my final exams, I began applying to several law schools for admission to their LLM programs. Since my interest is in international business law, I applied to law schools with strong programs in that field and eventually decided on attending the law school at American University.

In July 1999, I quit my full-time job and moved to the Washington, D.C. area. Attending classes in an American law school was an entirely different and unique experience, especially for me, a graduate of an external law program. I fitted in well and learned a lot about American law and the American legal system. One of the most valuable classes I had was legal writing and research. As an external UOL student, I had not received any training in legal writing and research. The class properly prepared me in conducting legal research and writing legal documents, particularly legal memoranda. This training, as I later found out in law practice, was the foundation to practicing law. The law school at American University also offers a strong internship program for its LLM students. During my final semester at the school, I was able to gain hands-on experience through an internship at a small international trade law firm.

Upon graduating with an LLM, I began preparing for the California bar exam. I enrolled in the BarBri review course and realized that there was a lot of American substantive law that I have not learned either through my LLB or LLM courses. BarBri became my classroom for understanding the substantive law and the exam taking techniques required to pass the bar exam. However, BarBri, within its limited time-schedule, was geared toward students who had studied American substantive law and was basically a review course. I was obviously at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, I moved along and went ahead to prepare for the July bar exam. Unfortunately, I could not overcome these deficiencies.

My hopes then turned to the February exam. With more time, I was able to better prepare for the exam and finally passed the bar. Esquire, at last! By passing the bar, I have earned the rite of passage into an elite profession. As a member of the bar, the long and winding journey in which I set foot on many years ago is but a memory—a rich and refreshing memory, no doubt. However, the conclusion of this long and winding journey signals the beginning of a new expedition, i.e., securing employment as a lawyer.

Just prior to graduation from the LLM program, I was able to secure several interviews with major law firms in Washington, D.C. However, as soon as the firms showed interest in pursuing further employment discussions, we encountered a unique problem, i.e., my ability to be licensed to practice law in Washington, D.C. As I later discovered, in a hard way, as a graduate of a foreign law school, I was not qualified either to waive in to the D.C. bar like most U.S. law graduates who have passed the bar of another jurisdiction, or to take the D.C. bar exam itself since I did not possess the required one-year’s worth of law school credits in the D.C. bar exam subjects. Despite these roadblocks, I was eventually hired as an associate by the international trade law firm where I did my internship, and subsequently, I secured my current position working on enforcing U.S. trade laws in the International Trade Administration within the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Stephen Cho was awarded his LL.B.. from The University of London in 1998.  He also received an LL.M from American University in Washington, DC (2000), and was called to state bar of California in February 2001.  Mr. Cho is with the  International Trade Administration (ITA) in Washington, D.C.