When Charmaine Yap received the annual Outstanding Young Lawyer Award at the International Bar Association (IBA) Annual Conference, she viewed it less as a moment of achievement than a reflection of the causes and communities she has had the privilege to serve. Having spent much of her career across private practice, public interest work and policy advocacy, and as current Assistant General Counsel of NIKE, Inc., she has learnt that good intentions only get you so far. Change takes patience, persistence and a lot of people pulling in the same direction. Reflecting on her journey, she shares the experiences, choices and convictions that have shaped her approach to law and service.
Her first reaction to the award was discomfort. “I don’t feel I have an achievement to celebrate,” she admits. “Because the issues I am working on are not making meaningful progress yet.”
So she has chosen to treat it as a responsibility rather than a trophy. “What I’d rather celebrate are the lawyers who continue to use their service and skills to help the less fortunate and the more vulnerable communities to have greater access to justice,” she says. “If the award draws attention to that kind of lawyering, and to the people and causes we serve, then it means a great deal.”
It is an outlook shaped by words from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that have always inspired her: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” From the migrant workers whose stories she carried into Parliament to the businesses and charities she brought to the table on food donation law, Charmaine has rarely fought alone. That, more than any award, may be the truest measure of her work.
Different Approaches to the Same Problems
Charmaine sees legal practice, public interest work and policy advocacy as different tools for the same problems. Practice keeps her rigorous, public interest work keeps her close to the people affected, and policy work lets her work on addressing the system that created the problem in the first place.
While assisting migrant workers with unpaid salary claims, she kept running into the same obstacle of many workers having no record or inaccurate records of what they had, or had not, been paid. Later, as a Legislative Assistant to a Member of Parliament, she helped file parliamentary questions advocating electronic salary payments so that workers would have a paper trail to back up their claims.
Those years also made her dislike talking about policy in the abstract. Having met many who had gone months without pay while still trying to support and visit their families back home in Dhaka, she has seen first-hand how an unpaid salary can decide whether a family pays a hospital bill or keeps a child in school.
These experiences have also made her more conscious of whose voices are heard. While lawyers have an important role in advocacy, Charmaine believes they must be careful not to overshadow the people they represent. Meaningful advocacy, she says, starts with listening to workers themselves and keeping their experiences at the centre of the conversation.
Making Time for Meaningful Work
“Good intentions need good lawyering behind them,” Charmaine says, emphasising that pro bono clients and causes deserve the same professional standards as any other legal matter.
That conviction was put to the test when she took on Singapore’s Good Samaritan Food Donation legislation. Recognising that she could not balance the demands of full-time practice with the project, she negotiated a four-day work week during her time at Drew & Napier, making a conscious trade-off to devote time to the project.
She remains grateful to the firm for saying yes. Even so, it was no easy arrangement. “I spent two birthdays drafting legislation, and juggling the work was still extremely difficult,” she recalls.
That effort eventually led to the convening of the Good Samaritan Legislation Review Committee, which she led. Over four years, the committee undertook extensive consultations with hotels, supermarkets, bakeries, food charities and the public. For Charmaine, the extensive consultation process was essential. The legislation would only be effective if the people expected to implement and rely on it had confidence in its practical application.
This experience also taught her to be honest about her limits, and to take on only what she could do well.
“A sustainable career is one you design deliberately,” she reflects.
Finding Her Own Voice
Stepping away from corporate practice to study at Columbia University in the United States gave Charmaine the space to reflect on her work and consider new approaches to public interest law.
Beyond pro bono representation, her time at Columbia Law School broadened her understanding of how the law can shape outcomes. She saw how strategic litigation, legal scholarship and policy research could help advance meaningful change, in ways individual cases could not.
Her research focused on employment kickbacks involving migrant workers, examining why such payments are treated as employment offences when comparable conduct in other contexts could be regarded as corruption. She is currently working towards publishing her findings.
The experience also prompted her to reflect on how she wanted to contribute moving forward. “After nine years advocating through someone else’s voice in Parliament, I came back wanting to find my own,” she shares.
She learnt that influencing change is not always about speaking to or accessing the most senior decision-maker. More often, it is about understanding how decisions are made and engaging at the most appropriate points in the process.
Looking Ahead
Two issues remain very much unfinished business for her. One first is the treatment of employment kickbacks involving migrant workers. Under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act, such offences carry maximum penalties of a S$30,000 fine and two years’ imprisonment per charge. She has advocated for stronger penalties and enhanced investigative powers to strengthen deterrence.
Another priority is finding safer alternatives to transporting migrant workers on the back of lorries.
Neither will be solved quickly, and she knows it. But seeing progress on either, this time in her own voice, through research, advocacy and practice, would matter more to her than any award.
Learning from the Next Generation
Charmaine also draws encouragement from younger lawyers and their willingness to discuss and examine established practices.
Through the Law Society of Singapore’s Young Lawyers Committee, she has observed their openness in discussing workplace culture, mental health and what makes a meaningful career.
“Younger lawyers are much less willing to accept ‘that’s how it’s always been done’,” she observes. “They ask questions my generation was often too afraid to ask.”
Their willingness to engage thoughtfully gives her reason for optimism. “They remind me that the profession isn’t fixed, and that each cohort has the opportunity to shape it in its own way,” she says. Throughout her career, Charmaine finds motivation in the people around her: migrant workers who trust her with their stories, and the lawyers, volunteers and civil servants who remain committed to making a positive difference.
There are also moments that make the years of effort worthwhile, from the passage of the Good Samaritan Food Donation legislation to seeing a worker reunited with his family in Singapore.
“Lawyers are trained to imagine that institutions can be improved and power can be restrained,” she said in her acceptance of the IBA award. “As long as I can still imagine things being fairer tomorrow than they are today, I’ll keep going.”
Looking back, what stands out is not any single achievement, but a consistent commitment to using the law in ways that align with her values.
Asked to complete the sentence, “A legal career worth building is one that…”, her answer is immediate: “is aligned with your values, and that keeps you alive to the possibility of making things better.”
It is a philosophy that has guided her across private practice, public interest work and policy advocacy. For Charmaine, the measure of a legal career lies not in the recognition it receives, but in the purpose it serves and the contribution it makes.