May Tai
⚒️ What do you do?
I've recently retired from 23 stressful but exhilarating years in private practice at Herbert Smith Freehills including 13 years as a Partner, three years as China Managing Partner and three years as Asia Managing Partner. Now, I'm still a Consultant at the firm but this means I have time to take on other roles I've always wanted to do but didn't have time. My current roles are:
1. Sitting as an arbitrator, I'm currently sitting in a few HKIAC, SIAC and CIETAC cases.
2. Independent Director for ANZ Bank (China)
3. Helping other arbitration institutes and initiatives – e.g. the ICCA Programming Committee as Hong Kong is hosting this year, the ERA Pledge APAC subcommittee (as diversity in arbitration is a very important goal), the LCIA Board (I'm finishing my term there this year), the ICC Institute (where I'm co-chairing their annual conference this year) etc.
I also plan to use some of my time pursuing something creative and artistic.
What is your proudest achievement?
I'm lucky to have had many career highlights. If I am permitted two, one from the start of my career as to appear as advocate at the Peace Palace representing a Malaysian client (I'm Malaysian) in a BIT arbitration when I was two years PQE. It was an incredible experience and showed me at a young age that the sky is the limit in this profession (if you are prepared to work very very hard).
A second very recent highlight happened just a few days ago. Two lawyers who I worked closely with (one was my trainee and one worked with me on one of our longest running cases) were told that they would be promoted to partner. I received lovely messages from them even though it should have been me thanking them for hanging in there through thick and thin. There are many difficult moments in our profession but when amazing people get recognised, it all feels worth it.
If you had 25 hours in a day, what would you do with the extra hour?
Meditate – so important and necessary but people have so little time to do this.
If you weren't a lawyer, what would you be?
I would write screen plays for movies. There are many brilliant stories out there but only a narrow selection get turned into film. This is not to say I'm not a superhero movie fan (I really like the X-Men movies) but there is not enough variety out there.
Your favourite food haunt is...?
Like a lawyer, my first reaction to this question was "which jurisdiction are we talking about??" I could write a whole column for you on this but here are some suggestions:
- In Hong Kong, I love Kiu Heung Yun Nan Rice Noodles on Wellington Street. You can also see me at Yat Lok on Stanley Street for Roast Goose. If you want something fancy, try Grand Majestic. Sorry, its all close to the office to save time!
- In KL, Assam Laksa and Chow Kuey Teow are my favourite because they are the two dishes that cannot be reproduced well outside of Malaysia (if anyone disagrees, pls email me).
- When I'm in Singapore for hearings and want something healthy but delicious, I have Thunder Tea Rice in Lau Pa Sat.
Generally, I like spicy food. I was told by a CTM doctor once that its because my job is very stressful and I eat spicy food to counter the stress. I liked that explanation.