It’s always wonderful to see a woman taking command of a room, watching as people sit up and pay attention when she taps the microphone or clears her throat. An image that comes to mind is of Viola Davis in the pilot episode of How To Get Away With Murder (2014–2020) or Kerry Washington in Scandal (2012–2018).
It’s no secret that professions on television often influence viewers at home, but I, for one, have found myself inspired sitting in front of my screen. Even more so when there is a woman at the helm.
As someone with a great admiration for the law profession, it was a joy for me to sit down and speak with Sikha Khanijou, a Senior Associate at Tilleke & Gibbins who completed her Legum Baccalaureus (LLB) and Legum Magister (LLM) from The University of Manchester and The London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE).
What drew you to law?
I was always passionate about history, and it was my favourite subject growing up. During my A-Levels, I studied a U.S. Supreme Court decision called Brown v. Board of Education (1954). I wrote my dissertation on the significance of the lawyer in the case, Thurgood Marshall, and the case’s greater impact on the civil rights movement, and my passion for history slowly pivoted towards law.
While law school was the plan, I didn’t have my career mapped out at 18. I only knew I wanted a career that would challenge me intellectually and give me room to grow.
Tell me about the realities of practicing law on a daily basis.
In real life, it is not enough to simply know and understand law. You also have to understand your client’s personality, the opposing party’s personality, the commercial context of the case, what outcome is most realistic, and honestly, most important of all, the client’s risk appetite.
Whether a case should be taken to trial or whether it is better to settle, it all depends on the client.
My degree was in corporate and commercial law, but my speciality was in labour law. I was a part of a lot of high-profile termination cases, i.e. removal of CEOs or managing directors, and mass redundancies.
It was my job to find a mutually acceptable solution to avoid my client’s opposing party from going to court. In Thailand, after someone has been fired, they have 10 years to file a claim in court saying they were unfairly terminated.
Clients, when they terminate someone, fear a sword hanging above them for many years to come. In one instance, I had a client whose employee waited nine years and 11 months before filing a wrongful termination claim!
What was the steepest learning curve for you from the early days of your career till date?
Definitely learning Thai law! I got a job at Tilleke & Gibbins with zero knowledge of Thai law and, somehow, they must have seen potential because they gave me a chance.
During my trainee probation of six months, I had to really prove myself deserving of the position regardless of my level of working knowledge of Thai law. The steepest learning curve was learning on the job while having to meet my billable hours and KPIs.
A lot of learning I did was behind the scenes and on my own time, and then I would walk into a meeting or a client call and have to project confidence like I knew what I was talking about.
Why come back to Thailand to practice law, especially since both your LLB and LLM were from the UK?
There was no conclusive plan of either/or. I was applying for law firm jobs in the UK as well, but when I returned to Thailand after finishing my degree, I found an article written by a partner at Tilleke & Gibbins in the Bangkok Post.
It was about competition and anti-trust law, a module I had studied at university, and I found the article very interesting.
So, I emailed the managing partner to say “Hi, you don’t know me but I loved your article... I have some thoughts! And if there are any openings, let me know. I would love to come in for an interview.”
[Laughs.] I thought I might as well shoot my shot. She responded to my email by essentially saying “I like your guts, come in!”
Everything happened quite fast after that. Within two weeks of reading that article, I was at my first day of work!
Big Law has a reputation for demanding hours and full schedules. How did you navigate that?
Honestly, there have been many nights I have dreamed about my billable hours and woken up in a panic. It was definitely stressful because your colleagues, while they are your peers, are also your competitors.
There are only so many promotions that happen in a year. There are only so many spots at the top, so lawyers have a tendency to hoard work.
Even if I felt overwhelmed, I didn’t want to delegate because the more work I had, the higher my billable hours, the higher my bonus, and the easier it was to get promoted.
I had to learn to distinguish between what I could do and what I should do. I learned that there were levels of urgency. Every email that came into my inbox was flagged as urgent and when everything is urgent, nothing is urgent.
You recently took some time away from your position at T&G due to some health concerns. How has navigating that journey been for you?
I had unexpected vision loss last year. The retina in my eye had spontaneously detached and I didn’t know for a while because it had detached in such a manner that I didn’t present any symptoms until a few weeks later.
There were a fair bit of consequences to my vision and the amount they could recover after all the surgeries as well. I think it really put everything into perspective because at that point, I couldn’t work.
I took four months of medical leave while I was recovering, and in the middle of my leave, I received my biggest promotion: Senior Associate.
Knowing there was this new role waiting for me, I rushed my recovery and went back to work sooner than I should have. It led me to feeling burned out and like my vision couldn’t keep up with the demands of what my role required.
It was very difficult to leave because I felt like I’d finally reached the point in my career I had been steadily working towards. They did everything to try and keep me, especially since I’m a homegrown talent.
In law firms, if you start off somewhere and grow with them, they really want to keep you because they feel like they invested in your training.
Has being a woman in an environment like Big Law shaped your experience?
Being a woman in a demanding professional environment has made me very conscious of how differently confidence and ambition can be perceived. Women can sometimes come across as bossy as opposed to being assertive.
As much as that annoyed me, I felt like I had to accept that’s the way things were. Working with other clients, my gender, and my age, would sometimes bring my capabilities into doubt.
At that point, there was nothing I could do other than prove myself and, if anything, it lit a fire under me.
Do you feel any responsibility towards the young women coming up in this profession?
Yes, because I remember what it felt like to be a small fish in a big pond. One of the most useful things we can do for young women is to make success feel attainable, but I also don’t want it to seem effortless, because it’s not.
There are a lot of learning curves behind the scenes, so I won’t hide the fact it took me years of hard work, long hours, and a lot of sacrifices to get where I am.
I’ve also had incidents with clients who were inappropriate, and it was a big learning curve for me. Unfortunately, a lot of women in professional fields have to deal with such instances.
I published several articles on harassment, and whenever there was an opportunity to participate in panel discussions, I would always bring up certain topics that I felt were often swept under the rug.
I wanted to put a voice to it so women knew it was okay to speak up and stand up for themselves if they felt something was inappropriate.
If you could go back in time and give your younger self any advice, what would it be?
I would advise myself to stop worrying about whether I was on track or not. I didn’t know where I was going, and I used to think I had to plan every last detail.
Then, I got a job in a very nontraditional way, and it was a lesson for me to keep putting myself out there, that things don’t always have to happen the way you thought they would.
I learned that there’s no right path. One should just go with the flow and listen to their intuition. What feels like the right journey usually is.