Online Class Notes (Ally)

Vocabulary

off my game: 状态好
ie. … puts me off my game
ie. … keeps on my game.

1. General
information.

Hi Bernard, Hi everyone. I’m Lu xiaoyun.
Thank you for this opportunity to the talk. I am legal councel for China based
in shanghai site. I have almost four years’ experience at Agilent and before
that I was working in a law firm. I live in shanghai with my husband, but both
of us were born in Changzhou which is a not very big city near Shanghai. We go
back to our hometown occasionally to visit our relatives in Changzhou
city. And, thanks to the high-speed train, It takes less than one hour from
Shanghai to Changzhou. () So I’m happy about my work and where I am in my
life right now.

2. Any
reason why you decided to become a lawyer?

Actually, When I was
a teenager, My dream was to become a surgeon. Because I thought surgeons are
extremely cool. You know- They can save people’s lives like a hero. Even though
this was only a kids’ childhood dream at the time, I actually worked hard
towards my goal. I studied very hard on math and science subjects. But in my
high school year, I was addicted to all the TV dramas. And, I watched
a TV drama that changed my mind. I don’t know if you have heard of it – It’s
called “Ally McBeal”. It’s the first American drama I ever watched, and I just
thought Ally, who was a lawyer on the show, was so amazing and so intelligent. At
that time, I thought she’s exactly the kind of person I wanted to become. –
Anyway, so I had a new dream at that point, and I chose apply for law school.

It’s different in
China and in the U.S. In the States, you can only choose law school after you
get your bachelor’s degree, and pass your LSATs. But in China, for undergraduate
studies, I can already choose law school as my major, so I did that right away.
I was very sure about this decision and I have never regretted it.

3. Why
Macau?

Many people have
asked me the same question upon hearing about my education background. I guess
because Macau is famous as the Asian gambling city. A lot of casinos. Actually,
I chose to study there for three main reasons. Firstly, it’s about money. I was offered a very
attractive scholarship, so by taking the offer, I could support myself and
lighten the burden on my family. And, the second reason is that after some
research, I found that there were a group of amazing and famous professors from
mainland China and Taiwan at the law school at that time, so I wanted to study
under them. And the third reason, to be honest, is probably the most true – I
was just a curious girl who wanted to see more of the world. Macau sounded like
an interesting, modern city, you know. so, anyway that’s why I took the
opportunity.

4. What
made you decide to pursue a Masters at Fordham?

I decided to further
my studies in the US mainly because I wanted to learn more about the common law
system. When I was an undergraduate law school student, I have heard a lot from
my professors about the common law system. They would always make comparisons
between the civil law system of Macau or mainland China and the common law
system in the States. After studying the civil law system in Macau, I became
more curious about their differences, and the way the common law system works. So,
I went to the U.S. to find out more about the common law system, and I felt it
would help me in my comprehension of the entire legal system.

The main reason I
chose Fordham, though, was of course, because of NY city. Fordham law school is
located in Manhattan.

Who can say no to
Manhattan?

I didn’t get a
driver’s license at that time, so I subway-ed around the city all the time.

5. What
was it like for you in the US?

Yes, I had a very hard time at first.

Well, everything was new to me. You know, there is a huge culture
difference between the states and China. I think it’s little things that will drive you crazy at first – for example, we Chinese people drink usually hot water, especially during the winter. But in the U.S., I couldn’t even find a hot water tap in the school. People around me were like – hot water? why on earth?

But the biggest difficulty was of course, the language problem. To be
honest, I was kind of embarrassed and nervous to speak and ask questions, because I
was afraid I would say something wrong and maybe offend whoever was listening.

And, in law school, as you know of course, there
was a huge reading workload. There were so many long and difficult textbooks and too many case articles we were required to read
for class. Even just in one judgement, there is not only the majority opinion,
but also the concurring opinion and the dissenting opinion. So it was triple the amount of reading. It’s totally
different from what I have learned in my undergraduate studies. You know, in Mainland and Macau, only one
opinion on the judgement is required. So, It was a quite big challenge for me at first.

But, I was very
lucky, I got a lot of help from Fordham. As an international student, I had
a personal tutor who was selected by school to help me adapt to law school life in the U.S. He helped me not only with my studies, but he was also extremely welcoming and helpful to me in my daily life. 
And, I found that the professors at Forham were very kind and very patient to answer my questions
even if my questions were not really smart.
So I’m very grateful to my classmates and my professors.

Any interesting
things to tell us?

An interesting thing
was that I was hired by Fordham to teach Chinese to a law professor at the school. One day, I
received an email out of nowhere from the student office, and it was an invitation for a Chinese tutor interview. I thought it would definitely be fun – weird, but fun- to be a teacher to my professor, and I can get
paid for the teaching. So I took the interview. Though, at that time, I never had any teaching experience before, I was very lucky and successfully
got the job. Then I began to teach Chinese every Wednesday afternoon. My
student was a professor who taught Tort Law, but I’ve never had his class
before. The reason why he was learning Chinese was because he was doing a legal research
in Chinese Tort law. You know he was over 80 years old, and the Chinese legal vocabulary
are so much more difficult than daily expression words, but he never give up. He had a million things to do everyday, but he still made a serious effort to learn such a difficult new language. I
think I learned much more from him than he learned from me. Not only
the professional knowledge… I was so motivated and encouraged by him. He inspired me to keep
learning, never give up and that it’s never too late to do anything.

The greatest and the most memorable part
of my studies there, was the food in NY, especially the pizza. I never knew
pizza could be so good. NY city has Delicious food all over the world except
Chinese food. Chinese food there is altered not authentic.

6. You
started off as a banking and finance lawyer- what made you interested in Agilent？

I decided to be a banking and finance lawyer
because it was very popular in that period – I know it’s still popular now because it’s about money, but it was especially popular maybe 5 years ago. China’s economy grew very
fast these years, and there are a lot of opportunities in the banking and finance area. So it
seemed like to be a finance lawyer is a good choice. However the truth is, after trying,
I found that it’s not like what I had imagined.  So more often than not, finance clients have already made their final decisions before they go to their lawyers. It was like they only need
the due diligence report or the legal opinion as a due procedure. So I felt very insignificant, doing a lot of technical, repetitive work, like I was merely a playing piece in the grand money game. I wanted to feel
like I’m contributing to something bigger, and make my work more meaningful. So, I
can feel more fulfilled. When I received the call from Agilent, and I have been interested
in life science since I was little, I didn’t really hesitate and took the opportunity right away. Yeah. I was so happy to join the company.

7. How
do you feel about working in Agilent now?

Agilent is a great
company, I love our company culture. Our company culture, as you know, is One Agilent. So everyone, no matter where we are in the world, has an opportunity to be on the same team. I feel I can work very closely to my fellow coworkers all over the world.

But to be honest, sometimes,
I do feel very busy because we do have crazy workloads here. In china, we don’t
use channel partners that much. We do business and we sign the contract
directly with the end user. In this way, our work may turn out to be very complex, because we
have various different types of clients. All of them has their own individual
requirements that they want to be stipulated in the contracts. So I’m busy. all the time.

And, I am happy that I
can learn to handle different tasks. For example, I represented Agilent for the employment arbitration
as the company councel. I settled it and got a favorable judgement for our
company. I was really excited about the results and I gave myself a pat on the back.

Another project I was very excited about was the financial leasing
program. I helped the program go through in China with what
I have learned in school as well as my past experience in the law firm.

So, I am happy
about my work in Agilent and I will continue to try my best.

8. Anything
else that you would like to share with the legal team.

Thank you for the
opportunity. I hope we can continue to be a great team. Thank you.