Joint Managing Partner Thio Shen Yi, S.C. was featured on the latest episode of Advocates The Podcast, a programme spotlighting leading legal minds from bars around the world. In a wide-ranging and candid conversation, he traced his journey from a childhood shaped by sport and literature to the upper echelons of the Singapore Bar.

A former national junior tennis player, he credited his father, a top-class water polo player, with instilling a competitive mindset. He also spoke about the enduring value of literature in education, describing it as under-emphasised in Singapore and recalling how invoking Shakespeare in court could resonate in unexpected ways.

Reflecting on his formative years at St John’s College, Cambridge, he went on to discuss his pupillage under Davinder Singh, S.C. at Drew & Napier, where he learnt to trace every legal proposition back to its origins. His subsequent experience with V K Rajah and Sundaresh Menon at Rajah & Tann broadened his practice into areas such as insolvency and construction law. He added that his greatest influence was his mother, who taught him to break down complex problems into simple components.

The conversation also turned to the craft and ethics of advocacy. Drawing on the landmark De La Sala case, he emphasised that a witness’s evidence must remain their own, and cautioned against interviewing witnesses together to avoid “mental contamination.”

The full episode is available online.