A practising Lawyer (1985 - 2000)

{Messrs. Shamsuddin & Co, Advocates & Solicitors 1985-2008 (23 years of establishment)}

I quit the government service in 1985 and thereafter went into legal practice. I started with Messrs. Gill & Tang as a chambering student and when called to the Bar on the 21st of September 1985 was made a junior partner.

In June of 1986 I decided to practice on my own under Messrs. Shamsuddin & Co which exists till today. My practice basically focused on handling criminal and civil litigation.

Shamsuddin & Co started off at Bangunan Angkasaraya Jalan Ampang Kuala Lumpur on the 22nd Floor. That was in 1985 and KLCC was not even there yet. It was a race course instead. The rental at Angkasaraya was still cheap. I started off with one table, one telephone line and 4 chairs with no renovations at all to the office space of about 700 square feet. I had RM1, 500.00 in my pocket when I started Messrs. Shamsuddin & Co, Advocates & Solicitors. I had one PA, Zalika, who followed me from Gill & Tang. God really took pity on me. The second day of operation, Shamsuddin & Co received a payment of a sum of RM16, 500.00 from a client. With that money, I paid for new furniture and made a renovation to the office and I had a room for myself. I paid for some law journals and bought typewriters, papers, envelopes and file covers. Slowly thereafter, I had an office boy cum dispatch and filing clerk. It was really tough being a one man show. Somehow or rather I managed to pay for my staff salary and all other payments. Since I merely do criminal & civil litigation, all legal fees are paid in cash. I guess I did quite well and most of the cases that I handled gave positive results to my clients.

The year 1985 was the beginning of the recession period and many people got into trouble with the banks. They got sued by banks and financial institutions and the only cheap lawyers in town are people like me. Some of them just wanted me to postpone their case in Court so as to buy time to pay the banks. Somehow I managed to get the postponement and they pay me in cash each time I go to Court.

I was in Bangunan Angkasaraya for about 4 years. In 1990, a fellow lawyer, Phang Ah Hee was sent to jail under the Official Secrets Act. He asked me to take over all his practices while he is in jail and I moved over to his premises at Jalan Ipoh in front of Tan Chong Motors. It's a shop lot on the 1st Floor. His practice was basically criminal litigation too. I had to continue all his murder, drug trafficking, kidnap and firearms cases. It kept me busy for awhile and I was all the time in Court. I had a very capable staff by the name of Hashim Bin Che Ni who did all works. He was the Office Boy, Filing Clerk, Litigation Clerk, Conveyancy Clerk and my confidante. He is with Shamsuddin & Co till now.

In the early of 1992, I formed Messrs. Shamsuddin, Kuhan & Ghandi i.e by merging Shamsuddin & Co with Kuhan & Ghandi. I moved to Hong Leong Building at Jalan Loke Yew. We also had a branch in Raub. I just could not manage to be in the company of others. I am always my own boss. We split and I revived Messrs. Shamsuddin & Co. I moved office to Pertama Complex on the 7th Floor. Hashim, Rueben and Sharon followed me as staff. Thereafter Hassan Jantan who was my caddie at Kelab Darul Ehsan joined me as my errant cum Office Boy/Dispatch rider and Caddie whenever I played golf.

Shamsuddin & Co at Pertama Complex was really something. I was at the 7th Floor and basically I saw how Sulaiman Court was demolished and in its place, they built The Sogo Shopping Complex. Rahayu, my niece, who graduated in law from England, joined me as my Legal Assistant. When she left for TV3, Zainab Saad and Fatimah Clio joined as Legal Assistants. They are good lawyers and they admitted having learnt a lot from me in the arts of advocacy. They said I had a reputation of a "fighter" in Court. I had a few chambering students too.

It was in 1986 that I started playing golf seriously. I joined Kelab Darul Ehsan, a 9 hole golf course in Ampang. KDE was among the elite club then and most of its members are prominent figures. Dato' Ariff Ibrahim who started Promet Bhd was close to me. Dato' Mustapha Juman, the Director General of Felcra, Zamri Yahya the MD of MIEL and few others became my friends and golf kakis. It's in KDE too that I came to know Liyackat Ali, MK Azmey, Dato Rahim, Fahmi Ibrahim, Kadir Endut, Azmi Ariffin, Idris Sheikh Ahmad, Nasser Abu Kassim and Dato' Sri JJ and many more good friends. They are friends and at the same time they recommended cases and legal briefs to Shamsuddin & Co. Dato' Wan Abu Bakar, the MP for Jerantut at that time was the Deputy Minister of Finance and he was close to me.

I appeared in the TDC-MAS advertisement in 1991

I got into the Volvo Masters too.

It was during this time too that I appeared in international courts. I appeared in the Thailand Courts to represent Woo Hing Brothers (the Rolex watch case)

and in the Strands in London representing Dato' Ariff Ibrahim in respect of his property in London. In fact, it was during this period when the economy was bad that I travelled the world. I went to Japan handling company matters for Ulbon Bhd of Johore and to London for the Dato' Ariff cases. I even commuted weekly to Singapore having meetings with the Japanese and the Singaporean.

To be continued...