I just had a discussion with my
groupmates for the Legal Case Studies module. A little background story about
my group – My group is composed of me and two other GLB students. They are not
people whom I had known in the law faculty. I had to form groups with them
because the people whom I am friends with in law school were not in the same
group as me for the equity module and one of the rules stipulated for the
formation of groups for Legal Case Studies is that people within the group must
be from the same group for the module on equity.
In the end, I formed group with people
who are relatively less well-socialised in the law community. One is a man who is a GLB
student who had taken a one and a half year break from law school to engage in
some start-up. He is married, in his 30’s, has kids, has a degree in
engineering and a Masters in Business Administration, and is a member of one of
the opposition political party in Singapore. He
decided to come back to law school after venturing into business and not really
succeeding there.
My other group mate is an Indian
national woman, also married, without kids, had a business degree, probably in
her 30’s or late 20’s. She has an Indian national husband who works in
Singapore as a software app developer, the kind which designs all those funky
apps that you find on your Smart devices.
We were suppose to discuss on the
various possible business arrangements that our fictious client should take in
a hypothetical scenario. We were representing AMG, a giant corporation in the
healthcare industry that was interested in operating healthcare services and
facilities in a plot of land owned by a sisterhood. The sisterhood which had a
charity home for the aged, had run aground into problems after the trust
manager of their trust funds absconded with the money. AMG, wishing to seize
the opportunity, wants to strike a deal with the sister to acquire the piece of
land and set up its profit-making retirement home for the elderly rich.
Back to the discussion, I would say that
I was pretty much quiet when it came to contributing to the discussion. Most of
the contributions were done by by two groupmates. But I could see their business
minds at work when it came to thinking out ideas for the possible arrangements
for the business operation.
I don’t know why, but it seems like my
mind finds it hard to conceptualize information relating to the possible
network of business arrangements. At least, I do understand what is spoken
across in the discussion, but on my own, I don’t think I have the ability to
think out ideas on how the business relationship can operate amongst the
various parties.
So in this hypothetical scenario, you
have the Sisterhood, AMG, and the trustee who for the sisterhood. You have
issues that arises in the situation such as what sort of corporate entity would
best serve the interest of the client, and how obligations, profit-sharing, and
management would figure into the business relationship. There are questions arising
from the structuring of the deal, such as whether AMG has to negotiate with the
sisters for the land, or can they simply negotiate with the trustee who owns
the land for the sisters.
The male GLB student seems to have a knack in
conceiving all the possible designs for the business arrangements. He presented
everything from a private limited, to charitable trust arrangements. I think I
get the picture. I don’t know why my mind seems so paralyzed when dealing with
these information about business and corporate structure. I didn’t experience
such mental states when studying for my science and social science subjects in high
school and junior college. Perhaps, they may be something about the operation
of the real working world that my mind doesn’t seem to ready to comprehend, or
I may have lost a certain ability to process technical information after roughly
3 years of not studying.
Maybe law just isn’t for me.
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