Vol 7 No. 1 January - June 2008 - Faculty of Law - National ...

Festschrift
Book Launch
Launch of Faculty’s first Festschrift - Lives in the Law, a collection of essays in honour of
Peter Ellinger, Koh Kheng Lian ’61 and Tan Sook Yee.
Guest of Honour: Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong. 30 October 2007.
Too often retired academics are allowed to go gently
into that good night with only their dusty writings to
remind us of their significant contributions. However, on
Tuesday, 30 October 2007, the NUS Faculty of Law launched
its first Festschrift (German for a “celebration publication”)
in the form of a book entitled Lives in the Law honouring
the contributions of three of our longest serving professors,
Emeritus Professor Koh Kheng Lian, Professor Tan Sook Yee
and Emeritus Professor Peter Ellinger.
Over one hundred legal luminaries who gathered at the Wine
Company @ Evans to honour scholarship of these three
scholars highlighted how much of an effect they have had
on the legal fraternity in Singapore and in fact on all who
have been fortunate enough to have been taught by them or
simply been in contact with them. Members of the Cabinet,
the Judiciary, the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the
Bar including a sizeable contingent of colleagues, erstwhile
colleagues and former students all gathered in an evening of
nostalgia, humour and of course good spirits (including the
alcoholic kind).
by signing three posters of the book as mementos for the
honourees while wistfully suggesting that such events should
also be done for retiring judges.
Indeed, the sheer quality of the written contributions in the
book was an eloquent tribute to the three lives so honoured.
Engaging biographies of all three academics lead off each of
the three parts of the book which thereafter contain insightful
articles on Banking Law arising from Peter’s work, Criminal
and Enviromental Law in honour of Kheng Lian and Property
Law and Equity, Sook Yee’s field of research.
Credit must be given to the three editors, Dora Neo, Michael
Hor ’84 and Tang Hang Wu ’95 for producing a book which
manages to inform the reader both about the past while also
commenting on the future. The reader is reminded of that
old aphorism that we see today only because we have been
carried on the shoulders of giants. Lives in the Law may be
purchased from the Singapore Academy of Law’s Academy
Publishing (contact Ms. Pauline Wong, Tel: 63320056 or
email pauline_wong@sal.org.sg).
Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong ’61, who wrote the foreword
to the book, was the guest of honour and graced the occasion
Contributed by Michael Ewing Chow ’95
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