A Summer Co-op Term in Kuala Lumpur

This past summer Devon Black, a third year student at UVic Law, travelled across the globe for her Co-op term. Her placement was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia working for RamRais & Partners. The majority of Devon's work term focused on intellectual property law and involved crafting trade mark submissions, writing affidavits, and conducting legal research.

Devon shares one of the highlights of her experience while working in Kuala Lumpur, "I had the opportunity to visit the Federal Court in Putrajaya (Malaysia's administrative capital). Watching judges and lawyers switch seamlessly between English and Bahasa Malay during arguments was amazing, and having the opportunity to see a different court system in action was fantastic."

Devon offers the following advice to other law students considering an international work term, "Be flexible. It's impossible to plan for all of the situations that will be outside of your experience. The most important non-legal skill I learned was to go with the flow in unexpected circumstances - it helped me take advantages of unusual opportunities, and make the best when things didn't go as planned."

One of the sites Devon visited while in Malaysia was the Batu Caves, which are located in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. "They're the site of a major Hindu shrine and are used to celebrate the festival of Thaipusam. The caves are also the only home of the Malaysian trapdoor spider, and those particular caves are protected from tourists. One of the most distinctive features of the caves are the monkeys who live there - tourists tend to feed them, and as a result the monkeys can get fairly grabby. I nearly lost a water bottle to one of them!"

Every year the Law Co-op has a number of international placements available to students.

Photo: Visiting the Batu Caves