One Sneak Peek Into Leadership After Law

What drove a lawyer to leave corporate success for advocacy?

Corinna Lim shows how daring to pivot can lead to a career that truly matters.

Decades ago, she began her journey as a lawyer.

After practising for 10 years, she realised that law did not feed her soul. 

And so she started volunteering at the Association of Women For Action and Research (AWARE), a women’s rights and gender equality NGO, to provide free legal advice to women in abusive or unhappy marriages. 

In 1995, Corinna worked with then-Nominated Member of Parliament Kalwaljit Soin to draft the Family Violence Bill, to provide more legal protections for survivors of domestic abuse. Even though the Government did not pass the bill, they began enhancing family violence protection under the Women’s Charter. Corinna’s legacy in her work with AWARE resulted in her being awarded the US Fullbright scholarship. She did her Masters in Public Administration at Columbia University and majored in social entrepreneurship.

At Columbia, she took courses that exposed her to the business world. She particularly enjoyed her courses on entrepreneurship which introduced her to the dot-com space and inspired her to start her own dot com in Singapore, with 4 other lawyers. Bizibody Technology. 

The team managed to raise money from VCs and individual investors. 

All this while, Corinna continued to be a member and volunteer at AWARE.

In 2009, a religious extremist group took over the board of AWARE in an event known as the AWARE Saga. This was a life defining event for Corinna and led her to leave her day job (she had gone back to legal practice) to become the first Executive Director of AWARE.

Under Corinna’s leadership, AWARE transitioned from being a volunteer-led to a professional-led organisation. At the time of joining, Corinna was employee Number Six. Today, AWARE has nearly 35 staff members.

At AWARE, Corinna initiated the creation of the first Sexual Assault Care Centre in Singapore and set up a for-profit subsidiary, Catalyse Consulting, that is a leading provider of anti-harassment consultancy and training in Asia. 

Here are some pointers from our conversation today! 

1. What led Corinna to enter law

“I was a science student before university, but I didn’t want to be a doctor. I loved biochemistry and wanted to study it initially, but my parents were against it because they thought that there would not be a future in biochemistry. In those times, the biochemistry and petrochemical industries were not as well-developed.

They made a bargain with me for me to join my sister in law school — if I still liked biochemistry, they would allow me to pursue it after my law degree. Although now that I think back, it’s actually like a trick, as most people would not want to continue studying after having studied so much. 

Eventually though, I learnt to enjoy the subject, and by the fourth year I became a rather good law student, which allowed me to get a very good first job in the legal industry.

Law is a good subject to study if you are not sure of what you want to do and can get into it. It is a degree that equips you with some very useful skills in life - understanding and navigating the law, thinking about what makes a good society, good analytical, communication, and persuasion skills.” 

2. Entering entrepreneurship

“When I was studying in the US, many people had dot-com dreams. Overnight, it seemed like people could have access to a global market that was not possible before. Investors were looking for out of the box ideas, they wanted the start ups to think and dream big, and were willing to fund the most ambitious ideas and marketing plans.

We were a team of 5 lawyers, trying to build a tech startup together without any background in the field. But we managed to raise close to a million dollars, which in Year 2000, was a lot of money.  The VC who invested in us said they were not fully convinced about our business idea but they believed in our team. They said that even if our business does not work out, our team will likely succeed eventually as we had the smarts and perseverance. 

And the dot-com market crashed in 2002. We reviewed our position and decided that it would be difficult to continue in the changed landscape. Eventually the three women on the team stayed while the two guys left. 

Under the smaller management team, Bizibody pivoted to become a tech company serving the legal industry. The legal industry back then was very traditional and didn’t use much technology at all.  As lawyers who understood tech from our dot com experience, we started to source for and build  tech for the legal industry in Singapore.

My twin sister, Serena Lim, still runs the company to this day - an incredible testimony to her resilience. It’s been over 20 years since we started Bizibody together with others. I stepped down as CEO in 2005 due to the high pressure. However, Serena was determined not to let our existing clients down. She took over the reins while I returned to law practice. 

Building a business from scratch is probably the most difficult thing that I’ve ever undertaken. My legal practice background offered little relevant preparation, the dot com market was new to most people, and it was extremely fast paced and demanding. Investors expected big returns, adding to the pressure. It was a huge responsibility to be responsible for the livelihoods of a team, especially when there is no income coming in while we were building the site and business. 

Despite the hardships, it was incredible — starting from nothing, pushing myself to achieve things I’ve never done before, facing failure, and ultimately knowing when to call it quits, before it was too late.”

3. Experience as a female in corporate

“As a young lawyer, I did not personally experience discrimination. But I did have an awful experience of overt sexual harassment.

The perpetrator was a client and a good friend of my boss. He invited me for a business lunch on a cruise boat that departed from Collyer Quay. There were many other professionals on the boat. During lunch, he kept making sexual innuendos, even as I tried to steer the conversation away.  I felt deeply upset with myself for not being able to respond because I froze in the moment. I had never encountered anything like this before, and no one had ever told me that this could happen or what I should do if it did.

I did notice in my law firm that there were many more senior male partners than female partners, and that many of the senior female partners were single or did not have children. 

I also observed that there was a perception that male lawyers were better litigators, and that few women chose litigation as their area of specialisation. I did not think much about this until I joined AWARE and read the research about gender discrimination, unconscious bias, and how most workplaces were not friendly to mothers. The gender pay gap is very much related to this issue of mommy-ism. 

A lesson I learnt was that generally speaking, women, especially mothers, face more barriers in the workplace than men. While things are getting better with the greater availability of flexible work and paternity leave, gender stereotypes that give rise to unconscious bias are very persistent.

My workplace harassment experience helped me understand the challenges that harassment victims face and led me to become an  advocate for greater protection against workplace harassment. AWARE has been the leading champion on this issue and succeeded in pushing for the Protection from Harassment Act and the Workplace Fairness Act.

4. Career advice for youths

“I have had three fulfilling careers - law, tech entrepreneurship. Each of which have been very rewarding in different ways. Law was rewarding financially and intellectually but did not feed my soul. Tech entrepreneurship was creative, exhilarating at points but also led to my burning out. Both these careers set me up for success in my third and favourite part of my worklife - professional activism and NGO management. I could run a team, advocate for better rights for women and fairer laws, create new programmes, fundraise, and tell a good story that resonated with my audience.

Things have changed a lot since your parents’ time. We live longer and are expected to work longer too, which is not a bad thing, so long as you can pace yourself at each stage. 

Be prepared to pace yourself and to continue working in some shape or form when you are in your 70s or even 80s.This will become the norm and means that you can enjoy more than one career in your life. 

Work life provides lots of opportunities for personal development. You will thrive if you have a growth mindset i.e. embrace challenge, learn from failure, focus on learning over outcomes.”

Connect with Corinna here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/corinna-lim/

Follow our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

And that is all for today’s One Sneak Peek Into.

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.