Monday, August 04, 2008 Pursuing her love for the law By Jenara Regis Newman
JENNIE Cabading (Aclan) grew up in a household where the construction business of her father, a civil engineer (in seventh place, when he took the board examination), was very much a part.
While she took up elementary and high school at the University of San Jose-Recoletos, her father made it clear to her that she should take up architecture or engineering in college.
But the growing girl was also into the world of books, both fiction and non-fiction. And it was through this that Jennie became fascinated by the practice of law.
She dreamt of becoming a lawyer, but being a dutiful daughter, she took up architecture at the Cebu Institute of Technology.
Midway through her schooling, she stopped and worked for a year as an airline stewardess with Air Philippines. As stewardees, she learned grace under pressure, interpersonal skills and personality development. Then she finished her course (but did not take the board examination) and, using it as her pre-law course, she took up law at the University of San Carlos (USC) in 2003.
In July the following year, she married Junie Aclan, an electrical engineer. She continued to study law, despite “being overwhelmed by being a mother (they have a three-year-old son, Brent) and housewife. It was hard but very rewarding.”
She took the bar in 2007, thinking to herself that she was able to answer the questions well. Topping it was not in her mind and she started to work with the Senining Belciña Atup & Associates law office before the bar result was released. As it turned out, she landed in third place in the bar exam.
What was her edge over the other examinees? She says, “Experience, because I grew up helping my father in the construction business and learned to deal with government agencies, with employees.
“The essence of the life of the law is experience. The law deals with people. If you don’t have much experience in dealing with people, you would have a difficult time understanding the essence of the law.”
She has had many job offers but she is staying with the Senining law office because she wants “to engage in trial practice, and Atty. Senining is obviously one of the best trial lawyers here.”
She also teaches, both in USC and in the University of the Visayas.
She credits USC for the rigid training she received, the study of cases where legal analysis is honed. She says “if your study of the law is based on the law itself, what is honed is memory, not your analytical skills. The best course skill of a lawyer is the ability to analyze.”
To students, she says, “Always be humble, whatever your achievements are because everything comes from the Lord.”
Through time management and hard work, Atty. Jennie Aclan has been able to balance her role as wife, mother, lawyer and teacher, always with reverence for the Lord, with time to spare to read (any book but especially those of her favorite author, Robert Greene) and to play the piano.
