PETALING JAYA, July 11 — There is a fine line between infamy and fame.
All Malaysians have heard of the fraudster-fugitive-financier Low Taek Jho aka Jho Low, whose name is synonymous with the 1MDB financial scandal.
Jho Low, who was indicted in the United States on charges related to the fraud, is said to be hiding in Macau.
The infamy has drawn him brickbats and vitriol.
On the fame side of the coin and smelling like roses is Malaysian lawyer Sitpah Selvaratnam.
She led the team that successfully executed the arrest of Jho Low’s yacht Equanimity and its eventual sale for US$126 million in 2019.
Soon after, Sitpah penned her incredible journey in The Arrest of the Superyacht Equanimity: How Malaysia reclaimed what was hers.
Suddenly she was in the news.
People peppered Sitpah with questions about her role as a female lawyer, wife, mother and daughter and how she juggled everything.
She answers their queries in her second book – Resolved!: 8 Strategies to Be a Fiery Lawyer without Violating Your Integrity and Personality.
Despite the words ‘fiery lawyer’ in the title, this book is for anyone who is searching for ways to improve themselves, regardless of gender and years in the workforce, to do good for society and to be at peace with themselves.
I first met Sitpah Selvaratnam during her call to the Bar at the Kuala Lumpur High Court in the Sultan Abdul Samad building in 1990.
When I was reporting on the law and administration of justice 24–30 years ago, it was challenging to get women lawyers willing to be quoted unless it was about family law or women and children.
Although they were excellent litigators, female lawyers declined to comment on the record in fields traditionally seen as men’s domain, like banking, employment and criminal law.
Unlike many male barristers, their female counterparts were concerned about what their bosses or clients would think.
The last place I expected to find a female lawyer, who was not just doing the groundwork for reform and was vocal, was in shipping and maritime arbitration.
Sitpah was knowledgeable, brilliant, and not shy about pushing for legal reform in handling maritime disputes.
Even so, she only really came into the eye of the general public in 2018 when the then Attorney General Tan Sri Tommy Thomas appointed her to work on the government’s claim to Jho Low’s yacht, which was bought with funds allegedly siphoned from 1MDB.
I was drawn to the second half of her book’s title “Without violating your integrity and personality”.
We have all met lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, and journalists who quickly shed their integrity and personality like soiled clothes in the laundry basket in their haste to succeed.
Before long, both are sacrificed for the bottom line, fame and riches, and fitting in to get ahead in a materialistic world.
Sitpah regularly asks herself this question: “Why lawyers are often induced to take the path of least resistance, to embark upon practices that border on shady business and conduct unbecoming of the profession, and lose their professional independence and integrity in the process.”
But this is a question that applies to any profession.
Sitpah is of Sri Lankan descent, and I found myself chuckling at some of her honest observations of the life of minority races and their cultural quirks.
Not everyone goes overseas for tertiary study because they have the means; often, it is because one is not offered to study the same course at a local public university.
Her mother’s winning argument to her father was: “Don’t keep the house as dowry to marry her off; sell it! She’ll earn many more houses and live an enriched life.”
Another gem was the promise Sitpah’s father extracted from her when he left her at Cardiff University in Wales, Britain: “Promise me you won’t let men into your room, won’t get involved in politics and won’t drink alcohol.”
Cheekily, she says that she kept “some of them”.
Strategies to live by
In Resolved!, Sitpah lists eight strategies to live life as an adventure.
She advocates embracing challenges and having internal conversations with yourself to discover your purpose in this world.
She has found that you can have more without sacrificing your integrity.
Some self-help books offer pat answers or formulae of behaviour to reach specific goals.
Sitpah’s strategies are more believable because she tells you delightful stories of what she went through to arrive at a “space of peace within us”, for example, how she beat herself up for not trying to do enough, blamed others for their prejudices for seeing her only as Thomas’ junior.
Noting that most people are lost in others’ construct of themselves, she suggests that we do so because we are afraid of meeting the ‘real’ us.
Petite-sized, Sitpah shares that her parents thought she was physically weak and timid, and so were fearful when she went to Wales, Britain, to read law.
Believing she was weak and timid, she signed up for karate in Cardiff.
To her surprise, her instructor told her she had excellent recovery time and stamina.
However, now that she aligned with her instructor’s evaluation of her strength and ability, she struggled to keep up with that estimation.
Until she realised she was “neither weak nor extremely fit,” and she was “fine just the way I was”.
Along her journey, Sitpah discovered the power of joy.
She shares the amazing things, small and big, that happened for her and the causes she held dear in the world of international arbitration as a result of being in a state of joy.
I like her honesty.
She admits that some things she would have liked to achieve never manifested: “I would have liked to have been a national court judge, but I am not.”
She puts her non-appointment down to it “not being aligned to my true purpose”.
Can I just put it out there? Sitpah would be an excellent judge, doing her job honestly and with integrity.
Meanwhile, she has created a term that encapsulates her daily journey of purpose — SwithCOIN — Success with Courage and Integrity.
Life will throw you many challenges, and it gets hotter the closer you get to your true Universal Self.
Even when it seems like you are losing wealth, even fame, by taking on an unpopular cause or doing pro bono work, release your fears and shift to joy — more success and wealth will come.
The pro bono work she accepted when the attorney general asked her to arrest the super yacht Equanimity took up nine months of her life.
And for Sitpah, the energy and power of her joy did attract wealth and peace.
