Patricia David is a lawyer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, who practised corporate and mergers and acquisitions law with the firm Shook Lin & Bok. She obtained a Bachelor of Laws Honours degree from the University of Singapore in 1976 and was admitted to the bar in Malaysia the same year. She later served as managing partner of the firm from 2015 to 2016.
Background
Patricia David's documented education and legal career were centred in Singapore and Malaysia. Her spoken languages are English, Bahasa Malaysia and Tamil.
The University of Singapore, where she studied law, was formed on 1 January 1962 after the division of the University of Malaya. Its law faculty had begun in 1956 as a Department of Law within the University of Malaya, admitting its first students in 1957 at the Bukit Timah campus. The faculty later became part of the National University of Singapore, formed in 1980 through a merger with Nanyang University.
Education
David received a Bachelor of Laws Honours degree from the University of Singapore in 1976, the year she was admitted to the bar in Malaysia. Her legal qualification therefore came from the Singapore institution, while her professional admission and career were based in Malaysia.
The University of Singapore was a young institution during her studies. It emerged from the University of Malaya's Singapore campus, and its law faculty carried forward a legal education tradition that had begun in the mid-1950s. The faculty was Singapore's principal law school for much of the following half-century.
Career
Patricia David worked as a partner of Shook Lin & Bok, a law firm founded in 1918 in Kuala Lumpur as Messrs Yong Shook Lin. The firm was renamed Messrs Shook Lin & Bok in 1938 after Tan Teow Bok joined as a partner, and it grew to be one of the largest firms in Malaya. Its Singapore office, opened in 1964, became an independent entity in 1975.
A firm legal update from 2012 named her among the key partners of the corporate and mergers and acquisitions department. In some of the firm's publications she also appears under the fuller name Patricia David Saini.
The firm announced her appointment as managing partner in 2015, and its historical timeline lists her in that role for 2015 to 2016. A later edition of the firm's published rankings noted her as retired.
Membership
Patricia David's admission to the bar in Malaysia in 1976 placed her within the Malaysian Bar. The Malaysian Bar regulates the legal profession in peninsular Malaysia and was created under the Legal Profession Act 1976, which came into force on 1 June 1977. Among its objectives under the Act are upholding the cause of justice without fear or favour and maintaining the standards of conduct and learning of the profession.
Her admission in 1976 therefore preceded the Act's commencement. The modern Bar Council had earlier been established under a 1947 ordinance, and the Malaysian Bar's governing council is elected annually.
Malaysian Bar
,
Malaysia
1976
References
Shook Lin & Bok, History & Milestones
The firm's historical timeline and list of past managing partners, which records Patricia David as managing partner for 2015 to 2016.
