Scholarship / I chosed University of Melbourne and Monash University. AAS 2018 Supporting Statement [3]

Please provide comment on my essay No.1 below. Your support is much appreciated.

How did you choose your proposed course and institution?

the courses' ability to tailor a program based on my own interests

Economists believe that the key to the growth of Mongolian economy is diversification of the economy. Ease of doing business is the most important factor for the diversification to happen. As Mongolian economy expands, commercial issues have certainly become more complicated and international, that consequently making lawyers with global grasp of commercial law in great demand. Lawyers specialized in commercial law don't only act for individuals or businesses, but also are instrumental in the public sector, such as in representing the government on the negotiation of commercial terms of contracts.

The concept of commercial law is relatively new to Mongolia. As such, commercial law subjects taught in Mongolian universities are inadequate in reflecting up-to-date commercial issues emerging these days to the program as well as in preparing the students for today's commercial world.

At my current work, XXX in Mongolia, I've observed the lack of necessary legislation and unfamiliarity of internationally recognized aspects of commercial law in Mongolia. After facing several difficulties that further proved my observation, I have decided to further study commercial law in internationally recognized level. Now that I have already gained some experience advising clients from local perspective, I believe that I'm ready to study what commercial lawyers around the world should be aware of.

From the universities offering master's degree in commercial/business law, I chose University of Melbourne and Monash University due the courses' ability to tailor a program based on my own interests. Since I have many subjects that I have grown interest during my professional experience, I hope these courses will allow me to study the aspects of commercial law that I'm interested and are hard to further study in Mongolia.

Graduate / Essay for master of laws program in the US [3]

Please provide your comments to my Personal statement for admission to LLM program.

I have chosen LLM program

After my years of continuous efforts to improve my English, I was able to read English books by the time I attended law school. My first legal thriller book in English was the popular novel, The Firm, by John Grisham, that I read during my 2nd year of law school. As I did not know much about law firms, I was amazed to learn how lawyers of the firm worked around the clock and how they handled their work so admirably professional.

During my last year of law school, I chose to do my externship at a small law firm of my country, Mongolia, not only due to my curiosity and interest to law firms, but also hoping that I would be able to gather experience in various fields. This time, I saw how a Mongolian law firm actually worked as compared to the one that I had read in the book. It seemed to me that individual lawyers were working in cooperation with each other in order to make their law firm attractive for clients. My long-term professional goal has become "to establish my own successful law firm" after the 4 months of externship.

I decided to continue my study of law in the U.S. when I was writing my bachelor's thesis, the next semester of the externship. Since the topic of my thesis, "XXX", has not been studied sufficiently in Mongolia, I had to research resources from other countries. Most of the books, researches and cases I used were written by scholars from the U.S. I found that the topic that almost has not been studied in Mongolia, was studied and interpreted from many different perspectives in the U.S for many years.

Although I was longing to study in the U.S after my graduation of law school, I decided to start my professional career instead, in order to make use of the skills and knowledge I learnt during my 5 years of study. Then, I started working as an associate at a leading law firm in Mongolia, to get one step closer to my goal to start my own law firm.

While I've been working at the law firm, advising both local and international businesses, I've faced the necessity to further study business law in internationally recognized level. Simple example is that, I had to find a solution for the management of a JV with 2 shareholders with equal shareholding, while drafting a shareholders' agreement some time ago. Unfortunately, the issue was not regulated in Mongolian laws nor researched in Mongolian books or research articles, which made my research complicated. After consulting with one of the firm's partners, I later found out that the problem was internationally recognized as "deadlock" and several solutions are commonly used to resolve the issue. As a result of experiences like this, I wanted to further study business law topics I regularly handle, from global perspective.

As Mongolian economy expands, business issues have certainly become more complicated and more international, that consequently making lawyers with international grasp of business law in great demand. Unfortunately, the business law courses taught in Mongolian universities are inadequate in reflecting up-to-date business law issues emerging these days to the program as well as in preparing the students for today's business world. Now that I have already gained some experience advising clients from local perspective, I believe that I'm ready to study what business lawyers around the world should be aware of.

The reason I have chosen LLM program offered by XXX School of Law among others is the program's ability to tailor the curriculum based on my interests, which will give me a chance to study business law topics that I have grown interest during my professional experience. My plan for the course is to study business law aspects that are hard to further study in Mongolia.

My plan after completing the LLM program is to work as an in-house legal counsel of a Mongolian prominent business for several years. My experience in advising both local and international businesses as an external counsel and my international grasp of business law that I'm planning to obtain during my LLM study would surely be useful for me to effectively take care of a business's legal matters from the inside and give valuable directions for managing a business of a substantial size.

Based on my experience closely working with international law firms at my current work, I've observed insufficiency of Mongolian law firms as compared to international law firms, in terms of their management, professionalism etc. I believe it is not due to the skills of the lawyers, instead the fact that there is no long history of law firms in Mongolia. Considering the size and development of Mongolian legal industry, I think there is high prospect for a new law firm to grow in Mongolia, if there is a right approach and good lawyers. I'm more than confident that the knowledge, skills, network and business law practice that I'll gather through the LLM program will become the most valuable investment and asset to achieve my professional goal. I'm certain that I have the right skills and experiences to well represent the lawyers of my country in the LLM class of XXX School of Law.

Scholarship / Owning a law company with a group of skillful associates - my future career [3]

AAS Supporting statement: How will the proposed study contribute to your career?

global network of lawyers in my own law firm

Thanks in advance for your contribution.
My plan after completing the master of laws program in the Australia is to work as an in-house legal counsel of a Mongolian prominent business for few years, in order to gain a deep understanding of how businesses operate. The mastery of theoretical knowledge and the practice of commercial law that I'm planning to obtain during my master's study would surely be useful for me to effectively take care of a business's legal matters from the inside and give valuable directions for managing a business of a substantial size.

My long-term career goal is to establish my own successful law firm in Mongolia. In Mongolia, due to the reason that the development of commercial law practice is insufficient as compared to those of developed countries, government agencies and international institutions often engage international law firms as a main counsel on big projects, in addition to local law firms.

I believe that Mongolian law firms are capable of working in consistent with international standards if the lawyers are equipped with knowledge and skills of recent developments in the relevant field of law, in addition to expertise of local law. With my experience at a local law firm and a prominent business, combined with my advanced and integrated understanding of commercial law I would gather through my master's studies in Australia, I'm confident that I will be able to grow a law firm, that would assist clients in legally dealing with their commercial issues.

In addition to the knowledge and skills of commercial law the course can provide me, I'm confident that the global network of lawyers will become the most valuable investment and asset when establishing and expanding my law firm.

Scholarship / AAS Supporting statement No.3 about doing something meaningful for the society [4]

3.How have you contributed to solving a challenge and to implementing change or reform? (Be specific and include: what aspect/s of your leadership knowledge, skills and practice you consider to be well established and effective; which people or organisations you worked with to solve the problem; and what creative methods were used.)*:

implementing an idea challenge

At my current job, I introduced the idea of celebrating environmental days, because I wanted to persuade my colleagues to do something meaningful for the society. The idea was not supported well at first since the lawyers were too busy with their "actual" work. So my first challenge was to persuade my co-workers of the importance and outcome of the activity. I had to plan and think even more after I was joined by some supporters, as they started to raise too many ideas. Since it was nearly impossible for all the people to fully agree on an idea, I started making final decisions on my own, taking the full responsibility to myself. Until now, we have organized number of activities towards the goal of raising awareness of our environment, including distributing materials related to saving water on the World Water Day and cleaning litter of a mountain on the Earth day. I think my responsibility and organizational skills have been the most valuable qualities that brought the idea to life.

After I started working at the firm, I've observed that associates of our law firm barely share their experiences gathered from their assignments, which resulted the associates not having information about the projects that other associates may have gained valuable experience. Based on my own observation and discussion with colleagues, I initiated the idea of weekly experience sharing session of associates, where associates could give some insight into their new experiences to others. Although the idea was supported, it was hard to be implemented in reality due to the heavy workload. Despite some failures, I managed to make the session, a regular routine of the firm. I'm sure that our colleagues, learned from each other's experiences, would have much more knowledge than our peers at competing firms, in the legal industry where knowledge is a crucial asset.

I can't say I have born with the qualities of a leader. However, I believe that I have acquired important leadership skills, such as organizational, taking responsibility, decision making and being innovative, thanks to my favorable experiences and challenges. I have no doubt that with these skills and habits I have acquired and are still developing, I'm able to do contribute to the society, regardless of my job or position.

Scholarship / AAS Supporting statement No.4. Practical examples of how you intend to use the knowledge [4]

4. Please:-

a) give up to three practical examples of how you intend to use the knowledge, skills and connections you will gain from your scholarship. Possible tasks can be personal and/or professional;

and
b) list any possible constraints you think may prevent you from achieving these tasks.*

three ideas for using my education in the practice

Firstly, I will use the knowledge and skills for better assisting clients on their commercial law issues. When I advise clients at my current work, I often encounter commercial law issues that are not regulated under Mongolian law. In many of these cases, after spending a great deal of time on research, I find such issues had already been researched and discussed globally and common approaches had been used to deal with them. With the knowledge and skills of commercial law that I will gain from my studies, I will be able to assist international and Mongolian clients in overcoming their challenges, in a way how such challenges are resolved globally.

Secondly, I will share my knowledge to Mongolian law students. Within 5 years after I complete my master's studies, I'm planning to teach commercial law subject at the university I graduated, as a part time lecturer. Due to the development of commercial law, research and teaching in this field is not satisfactory in Mongolia. As I have observed, the development of commercial law practice is relatively high as compared to scholarship in this field, since most commercial lawyers prefer practice over teaching or research. As I'm confident that I will obtain advanced knowledge and skills of commercial law, I would like to share it to Mongolian law students.

Last, but not least, I will use the connections in making more clients for my future law firm. The Australian Awards Alumni network, which would be comprised of Mongolian future leaders and influencers should surely be useful for me to find clients for my firm. International clients are also important for prominent law firms. In this sense, lawyers around the world whom I'll be able to meet during my master's studies are also expected to play a significant role in expanding my law firm globally.

Indeed, I don't see serious constraints that may prevent me from achieving the above tasks, except for minor ones that I'm sure that I'll manage to handle.