Justice Goh Yihan: Keynote address at POLARIS 2026

POLARIS 2026 Appreciation keynote

1. Good evening. It is a real pleasure to be back at SMU, a place I still think of as home, as we mark the end of the POLARIS 2026 mentoring year. To the organising committee, thank you for bringing this community together. To our mentors and partners, thank you for your time and your support. And to our students, thank you for coming into these relationships willing to learn.

2. An evening of appreciation invites us to look back. I hope it also gives us reason to look ahead. The formal programme may be ending, but the conversations it started need not end with it.

3. Some of you may know that I am something of an amateur stargazer. So, when I heard that this programme is called POLARIS, I was delighted. Tonight I would like to share four facts about the North Star. Each of them, I think, says something about mentorship.

First: Polaris is steady, not the brightest

4. The first fact may surprise you. Polaris is not the brightest star in the sky. It is not even close. Its value lies elsewhere. While the rest of the sky turns, Polaris seems to stay still. For centuries, travellers looked for it not because it dazzled, but because it was dependable. It told them where north was, so that they could find their own way.

5. I think that is what mentorship is for. When we think of mentors, we tend to think of advice: which practice area to go into, how to prepare for an interview, or what makes good legal writing. These are useful things. But the deepest value of a mentor is in helping someone build the judgment, and the confidence, to find their own way. That matters more as you go further in the law. The questions do not get easier. They become questions that technical skill alone cannot answer. What should I put first? When should I ask for help? What kind of lawyer, and what kind of person, do I want to be?

6. I learned this from my own mentor, Justice Andrew Phang. Some of you will know that he helped lay the foundations of this very law school when he joined SMU in 2000. I first came to know him in 2006, as a law clerk at the Supreme Court. Those of us who clerked for him remember his rather legendary phone calls. They would start with our research. After about ten minutes, he would turn to a life lesson, or ask how we were, or talk about anything but the law. At the end, he would come back to the legal question and thank us for our work, however rough it was. Our worry was that we were taking up too much of his time. But he always made time.

7. I am not suggesting that every mentoring conversation should last two hours. Some of our mentors may be relieved to hear that. The point is the quality of attention: being willing to listen long enough to find out what a younger person actually needs. A young clerk could learn some law from Justice Phang’s comments on their work. But the same clerk learned far more about how to treat people from the conversation itself.

8. Being steady does not mean always agreeing. Good mentors are candid. Encouragement is important, but it does not mean agreement. Sometimes the most helpful thing is to explain why an argument does not work. How we do this matters. We can be exacting in our work while being considerate towards others. A mentee should leave a hard conversation knowing both what needs to improve and that improvement is possible.

9. Mentees have a part to play too. Come prepared. Explain what you have tried, where you are unsure and what you think the options are. Feel free to disagree, respectfully. Your mentor’s experience deserves serious weight, but in the end you must use your own judgment. A North Star tells you where north is. It does not tell you where to go.

Second: from Singapore, Polaris is hard to see

10. The second fact is a local one. From Singapore, Polaris is very hard to see. Because we sit so close to the equator, it hangs barely more than one degree above the northern horizon. That is about the width of your little finger held at arm’s length. On most nights it is lost in the haze and the city lights. You have to know where to look, and you have to look on purpose. I personally have not seen it from Singapore and had to rely on something called drift alignment to polar-align my mount to take astrophotos. At least, before the era of smart telescopes. 

11. Mentors can be like that. They are not always obvious. Very often, the guidance we need is there, but we have to go and look for it. This is why programmes like POLARIS matter so much. Getting good guidance should not depend on already knowing the right people, or on being confident enough to approach them. POLARIS points students to where they should look. I hope it will make a special effort to welcome those who are less sure how to begin.

12. There is a happier side to being on the equator. From here, over the course of a year, we can see stars of both the northern and southern skies. We are not limited to one guiding star, and neither are you. Do not expect one person to meet every need. Learn from a senior practitioner. Learn from a colleague a few years ahead of you. Learn from the classmate beside you.

13. And to our students: you do not have to wait until you are senior to guide someone else. You may already be able to help a junior prepare for a first internship or simply listen when a classmate is having a hard time. Be honest about the limits of your experience. But do not assume that having less experience means having nothing to give.

Third: the light from Polaris left long ago

14. The third fact is my favourite. Polaris is several hundred light-years away. So, the light you would see tonight left the star before Sir Stamford Raffles ever set foot in Singapore in 1819. What reaches us now was sent a very long time ago.

15. Mentorship works the same way. A piece of advice may only make sense years later. An example of patience or kindness may be remembered long after the legal question itself is forgotten. My clerkship ended in 2007. Justice Phang’s guidance did not. It went with me into academia, and into every role I have held since. To our mentors: you may never fully see what a conversation meant to the person across the table. Please know that the light does arrive. Thank you for sending it.

16. So tonight need not be the end. For those who would like to stay in touch, my suggestion is simple: say so. Before you leave this evening, ask whether you might send an update now and then, or meet again. Agree on something that works for both of you. A small arrangement you can keep is worth more than a grand promise neither of you can keep. And when a piece of advice has helped you, tell your mentor. Few things mean more to a mentor than hearing that.

Fourth: the pole star changes

17. The last fact concerns the future. Polaris will not always be our North Star. The Earth’s axis wobbles very slowly, like a spinning top. Over thousands of years, the point in the sky that the North Pole aims at drifts. In about 12,000 years, the bright star Vega will take Polaris’s place. The sky changes, so the way we steer by it has to change too.

18. Our profession is going through such a change now. At this year’s Mass Call, the Chief Justice reminded us that for generations, junior lawyers have learned their craft by doing the basic but essential work of the profession. Much of that work, such as research, first drafts and document review, can now be done by AI. If the tools do more of the work, how will young lawyers gain the understanding they need to judge what those tools produce?

19. I think the answer lies in how we mentor. Imagine a junior lawyer bringing a polished draft to a supervisor. The supervisor could correct it and hand it back. Or the supervisor could ask: which point matters most, what supports it, and what is the strongest objection to it? The second conversation takes a few more minutes. But it is the one that teaches. If AI gives us back some time, let us spend some of it explaining our reasoning. And learning can run both ways here. A younger colleague may know a new tool far better than we do. A senior colleague may spot the assumption that the tool has missed. Each should be willing to explain, and to be persuaded.

20. There is a second challenge, which is time and culture. In the same speech, Chief Justice Menon noted that about a third of our newest lawyers said they were likely to leave the profession within three years. Among the reasons they gave was a lack of guidance or mentorship. Justice Sushil Nair put it simply at a symposium this July: “people join organisations but leave bosses”. Mentoring is therefore not a nice extra. It is part of how we keep good people in the legal profession. I hope firms and institutions will treat it as part of developing good lawyers, set aside time for it, and recognise those who do it well.

Conclusion

21. Let me return to where we began, and to appreciation. There is a Chinese saying, yin shui si yuan (饮水思源), which translates as “when you drink water, remember its source”. Tonight is that moment of remembering. To our mentors, partners and the School: thank you for being the source.

22. To our mentees: take the next step in the relationships you have begun. Ask a thoughtful question. Send an honest update. Thank someone for something specific they helped you understand. And when you can, offer the same care to someone else.

23. To Elysha and the incoming POLARIS 2027 leadership: I wish you well. You have the chance to start many more of these relationships, and to give the existing ones room to grow.

24. The guiding stars of each generation change. The mentors who guided me will not be the ones who guide you, and the mentors you become will look different again. What lasts is not any one star. What lasts is the habit of looking up, and of becoming someone others can look up to. My hope is that years from now, some of you will remember someone in this programme who took you seriously while you were still finding your way. And that this memory will lead you to make time for someone else. If it does, the light of POLARIS will have travelled far beyond this evening.

25. Thank you, and I wish you all a very enjoyable evening.