Malaysians don’t go on IG to learn the law, but these lawyers have set out to change that

Author’s blurb: I’ve always been interested in the subject of law but never had the guts to pursue my studies in it, unlike Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. That being said, I’d still read up on legal materials online, albeit just for fun.

Today, there’s a group of Malaysian lawyers making legal information fun and easy to understand on Instagram, much like what Docere is doing with medical information.

The page is called Advogeeks, and it’s run by 3 legal practitioners in Malaysia named Hong Shi, Thilagam, and Alia. All three of them are managing and founding partners of a legal firm handling various sorts of cases from civil litigations to conveyancing matters.

Dictionary Time: Conveyancing is the process of transferring a property title from one individual to another. This usually occurs between a seller and buyer, both of whom have signed a sales contract for a piece of land or residential property.

PropertyGuru

Making law accessible to everyone

Created through the common interest of knowledge sharing, the objective of Advogeeks is to promote legal literacy and awareness amongst Malaysians. This is because legal knowledge here is far from satisfactory, yet the subject affects everyone in society. 

Thus, the lawyers are trying to bring legal information online in an entertaining way so people will lend their attention to it. On their Instagram, you’ll find bite-sized information about topics that range from the legality of polygamy in Malaysia, to what happens if you don’t carry your IC around.

The content is also posted in multiple languages and accommodates different communities, be it the B40, M40, and T20 groups, or those from different ages, races, genders, religions, etc. 

“We believe that everyone should know what their rights are especially when dealing with everyday issues from something as common as online shopping, to more serious matters like bankruptcy, civil marriages, and criminal offences,” shared Hong Shi with Vulcan Post.

Not getting lost in translation

What makes the law difficult to grasp for the Average Joe is the complex jargon used, requiring one to go the extra mile to research and understand it. Hong Shi stated that it’s actually also a challenge faced by the team at Advogeeks when creating their content. 

“The ultimate challenge is to be the trendsetter in one of the oldest professions in the world and you have some standards to follow,” said the team. “[The] content needs to be interesting and engaging to achieve our goal, but we must also be mindful of our presentation style so as to maintain the dignity of the profession.”

On top of working their full-time jobs, the lawyers also have to spend extra time reading up and researching laws to come up with consistent posts for their page. 

To avoid burnout, they’ve set up a rotational system where each of them must prepare their individual content for their assigned week. Once that’s been prepared, the multiracial team will simply translate it from English into Malay, Chinese, and Tamil.

Plenty of care is put into each translation to ensure that the actual meaning does not get lost in translation. 

Hong Shi added that tackling controversial issues means a higher level of complexity when presenting their information, such as their post about sexual harassment. “These are sensitive issues and when dealing with sensitive issues, we have to be careful to be respectful,” she explained.

For a society that’s literate in law

While posting information on social media makes it harder to search for specific keywords compared to if it were on a website, Advogeeks actually has a concrete agenda to their method.

Most of the time, those seeking legal information are in fact active learners interested in the law. Such groups would simply search it up on Google and be met with a sea of knowledge from the many websites out there to learn independently. 

This, however, isn’t the case for someone who’s just trying to learn about legal matters in a passive way. Advogeeks is trying to fill that gap, as most would already be scrolling through social media for leisure anyway.

“We want to take initiative to approach them, to present the legal information and knowledge right before them, to simplify material and to feed them the legal knowledge bit by bit, hoping that our followers will be more fluent in legal literacy day by day,” they explained.

As for whether they plan on monetising their content, they shared that it’s never been discussed yet. Setting their eyes on increasing their reach for now, they’re simply aiming to instil better legal literacy in Malaysians, and better yet, for their content to help people when the situation arises.

That being said, the team is open to collaborations with like-minded partners who have the same objective of educating the public on legal matters through effective advocacy. 

“Law is fun and we just want everyone to experience the fun. If a brand can help us to achieve our objective, we’ll surely work with them,” Hong Shi concluded.

Bottom line: Though their content isn’t designed in the most aesthetic way, each post holds valuable information that’s been simplified for anyone to learn from. At the end of the day, it’s that information that matters the most to increase Malaysains’ literacy in our rights.

• You can learn more about Advogeeks here.
• You can read other articles we’ve written about Malaysian startups here.

Featured Image Credit: (Left to right) Thilagam, Hong Shi, and Alia, lawyers behind Advogeeks