GEORGE TOWN – Prominent lawyer Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, who was recently removed as chairman of the law firm he had founded 33 years ago, has now expressed a desire to start a new legal outfit.
Taking to Twitter today to say that he wants to start his own small practice, he however alleged that his name is being claimed by someone else.
Zaid had founded Zaid Ibrahim & Co, one of the biggest corporate law firms in the country, in 1987.
Earlier this month the company said in an internal memo that its partnership council had unanimously decided to revoke Zaid’s appointment as chairman, upon deliberation of “further information received”.
He was removed from the position barely four days after his tenure had begun on November 1.
“I want to start my own small practice; but they say my name belongs to them,” he said in the tweet today.
“I didn't think it's possible for lawyers to be so mean and pathetic,” he added.
On November 12, Zaid had cited on Twitter two possible decisions behind his removal as chairman.
He said that he had as chairman terminated a long-term outsourcing arrangement with a Singapore company for the management of the firm’s account and appointed an expert to see if outsourcing contracts were done at arm’s length. He did not elaborate further.
Zaid had served as minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of law and judicial reform, under former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, for six months in 2008 before he resigned. – The Vibes, November 17, 2020.
