MALAYSIANSKINI | In February 2018, Ng Jern-Fei was appointed a Queen’s Counsel, placing him among the elite top 10 percent of Britain’s 17,000 barristers. Already making waves as one of the youngest-ever to attain that status, the La Salle PJ old boy has since gone from strength to strength establishing himself in the field of international arbitration.

It’s not criminal law, and thus not headline-grabbing, but Ng, 42, is clearly setting benchmarks in his profession.

Earlier this month, he told Malaysiakini about the trials (literally) and tribulations he has been facing as he adapts his work to the post-Covid-19 world.

This is his story – in his own words:

I am the first on both sides of my extended family to attend university and I was fortunate enough to be offered a place at and also to have been granted scholarship and bursaries to attend Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, whereby I read law before going on to qualifying as a barrister.

I grew up in section five in PJ, just around the corner from University Malaya and I went to school in La Salle PJ. I went on to do my A-levels in the United Kingdom, I would say that I come from a background that is very typical for most ordinary Malaysians.

My maternal grandmother was a rural refugee from...