In the legal profession here, more than half of all lawyers are said to be women. Additionally, in April 2019, the country saw its first female Chief Justice in Tengku Maimun.

But once upon a time, being a lawyer and a woman was not regarded as being compatible. However, one woman defied societal expectations to become the first woman to practise law in the country.

BH Oon, also known as Lim Beng Hong, holds the title of being the first Malaysian woman to practise law in the country, though her list of achievements goes far beyond that as well.

Her story began in 1903 in Butterworth, Penang. Born into a wealthy merchant family, Lim was educated at the Government’s Girls’ School.

She was an academically gifted student and she would go on to have a three-year teaching stint in her former school.

However, education was not so much her end-goal as was law, and she travelled to the University College of London in England to study law with her brother, Lim Khye Seng.

She was the first ethnically Chinese woman to obtain a law degree from the institution.

In 1926, years of studying paid off as Lim and her brother were both called to the Bar on the same day, making them the first pair of siblings to ever do so.

There was more to her life than her career though, as the following year, she returned to Malaysia to marry Oon Guan Yong, adopting the name BH Oon afterwards.

It was the norm at the time for married women to become homemakers no matter how highly educated they were. Oon, however, had other plans. She chose to lead an active professional career, joining the firm of Lim and Lim, Advocates and Solicitors.

While she had been called to the Bar in England, she had yet to be called to the Bar here in British Malaya. More problematically, the laws at the time forbade women from being admitted to the Bar of the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States.

So, Oon took matters into her own hands, and worked towards having the law amended so she could be granted admission.

Just like in England, Oon was called to the Malayan Bar together with her brother on the same night; a happy coincidence, perhaps?

However, the amendment’s legality was questioned for some time, before the chief justice of the Kuala Lumpur Supreme Court finally approved it in 1935.

If Oon had been intending to practise law in peace, the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941 changed all that. She hurriedly left Penang, seeking refuge in Singapore; a move which would prove pointless as the island fortress fell to the Japanese as well.

However, she did not stay idle during those dark days, using her time and freedom of movement to secretly smuggle letters from European captives in Java to prisoners of war in Changi Prison.

Once the war ended, she entered politics, becoming one of only two women on the Federal Legislative Council, a precursor of sorts to today’s Parliament.

From her influential position, she played an integral role in helping to prepare Malaya for its future independence.

Additionally, she joined the Labour Party of Malaya as a councillor in her hometown of Butterworth; drafting the Women’s Charter which increased the role of women in the party.

Oon’s dedication to advancing the cause of women did not go unnoticed, and in 1953, she received the prestigious award of the Order of the British Empire.

Funnily enough, one of the most famous cases of the 1970s involved the Penang government launching a lawsuit against her regarding land ownership.

In the end though, she won the case, with the contested land confirmed to be hers. The government was ordered to compensate her.

In 1977, she would make history once again by being the first Malaysian to preside over the International Federation of Women Lawyers.

While Oon passed away in 1979, her legacy lives on through her family’s continued influence in the Malaysian legal scene.

Her son, Peter, was chairman of the Penang Bar Committee from 1976 to 1977 while her granddaughter, Petra, took up that same role from 2002 to 2004.

Ultimately, Oon was a pioneering figure who broke down barriers and paved the way for women in the Malaysian legal profession. Truly a remarkable woman in more ways than one.