On team building, tenacity, and trophies.

This isn't my usual kind of post,¹ but it would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to my colleagues.

Back in February, when I got an email about the The Law Society of Singapore's annual pub quiz, I thought:

"I've never gone for one of these. But this looks fun, let's give it a shot. I hope that enough of my new colleagues will be game!"

So I sent out feelers within Covenant Chambers LLC, and in less than a week, we had a team: Convent Champs.²

I then kinda forgot about it, until receiving an email reminder about a week before.

"Oh, that! Well, no expectations, let's just go and hang out over a few beers."

Then we arrived at the pub on the actual day, and realised that folks were taking this seriously.³

I mean, I'm talking proper namelists and attendance-taking, pub quiz regulars, and a humongous trophy.

"Wow. Intense, huh? Well, let's just give it a good shot and try not to come in last!"

--

There were 8 rounds in total, with 10 questions in each round.

We did ok - in the 1st round.

By the 2nd or 3rd round, we were consistently in the bottom 3 after every round.

But that was because we still had an unutilised joker, which most of the other teams had used early.⁴

And as we crept closer to the last round, we had to decide whether to deploy our joker on an "ok" round, or keep it in reserve for a subsequent round (which we might end up doing badly on).

And the team decision was - let's go for broke.

After all, if we played it safe, and improved our placing from 6th to 4th (for example)...

...what would be the point of that?

So we took our chances, and saved the joker for the future.

--

So how did we do?

Well, at no point during the quiz did we lead the pack.

Except-

when it really mattered-

at the end of the final round.

How's that for an unexpected outcome?

--

3 observations.

1️⃣ Sometimes, you just gotta swing for the fences.

As litigators, we make strategic decisions on the points to take, and the lines of questioning to pursue.

When we have a strong case, it is unnecessary to take risks.

But the true mettle of a litigator comes when we have a difficult case:

Because that's when we have to take calculated risks.

Sometimes, instead of taking a conservative approach which is likely to lead to a loss, we should consider instead whether to take a more gung-ho approach that may well lead to a bigger loss...

...but also carries a small chance of success.

It probably won't work 9 out of 10 times.

But it's the 10th time that counts.

2️⃣ My colleagues (and in particular, Ronald JJ Wong,⁵ Hui Hua Goh,⁶ Sara Ng,⁷ and Tay Jing En⁸) are very smart and cool people.⁹

3️⃣ The trophy really is humongous. And the best part is, we get to keep it for a year.¹⁰

---

Many thanks once again, to the Social Welfare Committee, Vinodhan Gunasekaran, Sherman Ho, and everyone who worked tirelessly to make this happen.