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Lai Siu Chiu (Chinese: 賴秀珠; pinyin: Lài Xiùzhū); born 1948), is a Singaporean lawyer and judge. She is the first woman to serve as a Judicial Commissioner in Singapore and to serve on the Supreme Court of Singapore as a judge.
Lai was born in Malacca.[1] She attended Malacca High School where she was discouraged from going into journalism by the headmaster and finally decided to go into law instead.[2] In 1972, Lai graduated from the University of Singapore and then went on to get her Master's degree in 1977 from the University of London.[3] Lai joined the bar in Singapore in 1973.[3] She began to practice law soon after graduating and was known for being one of a few women in law to take litigation cases at the time.[4] She says that she enjoyed doing litigation work and later it would help her as a judge.[5] Lai started practicing law at M/s Sim Teow Gok & Co.[1] She then worked for the firm Allen & Gledhill until she became a judge in 1991.[6] She made senior partner at the firm in 1980.[7][1]
Lai became the first woman to serve as a Judicial Commissioner on May 2, 1991.[8][6] On April 30, 1994, she was sworn in as the first female High Court Judge to the Supreme Court of Singapore.[4]
She retired from the Supreme Court on October 30, 2013.[8] In 2015, she returned to the Supreme Court when she was appointed to become a Senior Judge of the court.[9] She was the only woman to be appointed as a Senior Judge.[1]
In 2016, Lai was inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame.[1]
Lai became the first deputy chair of the Children's Charities Association in the 1980s and later became chair of the organization.[1] Between 2006 and 2013, she was the chair of the Membership and Social Committee of the Singapore Academy of Law.[1] Lai has also been very involved in the Yellow Ribbon Fund (YRF) for rehabilitation of ex-offenders.[1]
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