Online Class Notes (Ally)

1. General information.

Hi everyone. I’m Luxiaoyun. Thank you for this

opportunity to the talk. I am legal councel for China based in shanghai site. I

have almost four years’ experience (ex-pee-ree-ence) 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 city, which is not a very big city near Shanghai. We go

back to our hometown occasionally to visit our relatives in Changzhou. And,

thanks to the high-speed train, It takes less than one hour from Shanghai to

Changzhou. That’s why I still have strong connection with my hometown and my

family. 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’ dream at

the time, I actually worked hard towards my goal (no r sound). 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”. Actually, 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 to apply for law school. You know, 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?

Actually, Many people have asked me the same

question upon hearing (hee-ring) about my education background. I guess because

(no r sound, becuz, not be-curse) Macau is famous (no r sound, fay-mis, not

famers) 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 (comperisens) between

the civil law system of Macau or mainland 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 that’s why I went to

the US, and I felt it would help me in my comprehension of the entire legal

system.

 

The main reason I chose (not choose) Fordham,

though, was of course, because of NY city. Fordham law school is located in

Manhattan. No one says no to Manhattan. And, You know, I didn’t get a driver’s

license at that time, but in New York city, I could subway around the city all

the time. I didn’t even need a car. Of course, let’s face it, even if I had a

car, I wouldn’t be able to afford a parking spot.

Looking back, studying abroad in New York City

was an important decision, but I’m glad I was brave enough at the time to go

there.

 

 

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 the 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? Sounds weird you know. 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 like triple

the amount of reading. It’s totally different from what I have learned in my

undergraduate studies. You know, in Mainland or 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 Fordham

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 I would like to share 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 (not fen, not fung)– weird, but fun- you know, to be a

teacher to my professor, and I can get paid. 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.

 

But the greatest and the most memorable part of my

studies there, I’m a bit embarrassed to say, was the food in NY city,

especially the pizza. I never knew pizza could be so good. In my opinion, NY

city has best 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？

Actually, my major in graduate school was banking and finance law… this field was very popular in that period – I know it’s still popular now

because it’s about money, but it was especially popular maybe 10 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 being a finance lawyer is a good

choice in china. However the truth is, after trying, I found that the job is not like

what I had imagined.  More often than not,

finance clients have already made their final decisions before they go to their

lawyers. It was like they didn’t really need my help, 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 [rɪˈpetətɪv] work, like I was merely[ˈmɪrli] 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 (fuFILLed). So, 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 our company.

Q: Is the work more important than the money?
A: Of course I want to make a nice living, but being a part of something meaningful is really important to me. As a banking and finance lawyer, all I did was about money… banking and private equity funds… how to help my clients earn more money. But it’s not what I like. The best part about the job was that I got to travel a lot in the whole country, I even had the experience to travel to my favourite city in China – Xi’an and visit a lot of historical sites there. But in the end, I still wanted to do something more meaningful.

 

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

Agilent is a great company, I love our company

culture. 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. 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 users. In this way, our work may turn

out to be very complex, because we have various different types of clients. All

of them have their own individual (no d sound) requirements that they want to be stipulated (small i)

in the contracts. So, you know I’m busy.  But/on the other hand, I am quite happy that I

can learn to handle different tasks. For example, I represented Agilent for the

employment arbitration as the company councel. In China, we have the labor

arbitration institution which resolves all labor-related disputes. That day in

court, the arbitrator, my opposing counsel and I, sat in one courtroom to

settle the matter. I tried my best to persuade the arbitrator that Agilent had

upheld all the regulations and rules and we absolutely did not breach the

employment contract. I knew she can feel my honesty. I settled the employment

disputes down and got a favorable judgement for our company. I was happily

surprised, because usually the arbitrator would be more sympathetic [ˌsɪmpəˈθetɪk

]to the employees. So 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.

Q: What’s different in Agilent?

A: Be a lawyer, I have lots of different clients. I did the same part of legal issue for different clients. I only have one client that’s our company. But in company, I was working for the same client but more general things. All the legal issues may happen in one company. So that’s different. I prefer to do more legal tasks so I won’t do limited legal things. There was really have fun and also can improve myself.

 A: Being a finance lawyer, even though I had a lot of clients, I did the same things for each client… writing a million legal opinions and due diligence reports…But now, working at Agilent, I only have one client, and that’s our company. However, my work now is a lot more complicated and interesting. I can get my hands on all the legal issues that happens. So that’s really fun for me, and I feel like I am finally improving myself.

 Q: Biggest challenge for you
A: Sometimes I was really busy, but it’s not quite a big things.
A: Sometimes I can get really busy, but I think I can handle it.

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.