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

[ Law School Highlights ]
NUS Faculty of Law congratulates our alumni recognised at the
2nd NUS Entrepreneurship Awards 2007
to build our homes and take care of our families. It is only
right that we should contribute to their success by providing
them with education and empowerment during their time
here, so they can build their own dreams and futures.”
M
ichael Ewing Chow ’95, aidha’s vice president,
and UNIFEM Singapore’s honorary secretary
was recognized as the “Social Entrepreneur of
the Year” for his work spearheading the launch of both
aidha and UNIFEM’s Migrant Workers Program. The
award was presented at a gala ceremony hosted by NUS’
BINGO (Business Incubator for Global Business). BINGO is
an international society promoting entrepreneurship, business
networking, and business and cultural understanding. The
society also works actively to champion social responsibility
among entrepreneurs and to help the less privileged improve
their lives and their families’ lives through entrepreneurship.
In receiving the award, Michael noted that “Singapore has
been blessed by the number of foreign workers who come here
Assistant Professor Ewing-Chow specializes in corporate law
and world trade law. He worked in the corporate department
of Allen & Gledhill before joining the Faculty of Law at NUS.
He has a First Class Honors degree from the Faculty of Law,
National University of Singapore and a Masters from Harvard
Law School. He has been a consultant to the Ministry of Trade
and Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry
of Finance and the World Bank. He has been involved in
negotiations for Singapore’s free trade agreements and has
been involved in trade law training of government officials in
Asia and Latin America. He has also assisted the Company
Law Reform and Frameworks Committee which was tasked
with the recent major corporate law reform in Singapore.
He has written and published articles on various topics such
as corporate governance, trade law and investment law. He
also volunteers his time with various non-governmental
organizations’ such as aidha and the United Nations
Development Fund for Women, Singapore.
When asked to comment on Assistant Professor Ewing-
Chow’s award, Dr. Sarah Mavrinac, aidha’s president, noted
that “Michael has been a tremendous force in aidha’s growth
and development. We are enormously proud of Michael’s
award and congratulate him heartily for this well-deserved
recognition. We are honored to have his leadership at
aidha.”
Bryan Tan ’96, director of Keystone Law Corporation,
shared his thoughts on winning the “Best Entrepreneur
Award”. Bryan has led the firm to be ranked as a leading
Singapore firm in the fields of IT and Intellectual Property.
“I was pleasantly surprised to have received this award - I had
not prepared an acceptance speech, but I used my moot and
advocacy training to deliver an impromptu one! Lawyers are
called many things but entrepreneur is not one of the more
common ones. However, the practice of law is also a business,
as it seeks to deliver services to meet the needs of clients.
Understanding what the client wants, knowing the market
and delivering the service are all concepts from the business
world that law firms can easily identify with. But the law is
more than that - it is a calling - to provide legal representation
in upholding the rule of law as officers of the court.
I had previously only practised in large law firms and I
remember the time taken by many of the senior partners of
such firms in sharing with me, as a young lawyer, their vast
experience. I hope that I remember those lessons and have
applied them wisely.”
I am blessed to have a dedicated and like-minded team at
Keystone. We believe in building upon our strength in IT
and telecommunications law into other areas of law. We also
believe in giving back to the fraternity and have announced
our support for the establishment of book prizes for students
of the NUS IT Law courses.
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