19/08/2026

“A good client makes the firm better”

19/08/2026
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Inside ZMM’s 25th Anniversary Dinner

That line, from Datuk Megat Munir’s speech on Friday, 31 July 2026, set the tone for an evening that was as much about gratitude as it was about celebration.

Anjum KLCC filled with the people who have shaped Zain Megat & Murad’s story — clients, friends, current partners and lawyers, pupils, and no small number of familiar faces from years past. The night began with the whole team gathered for a group photo, the Petronas Twin Towers lit up behind them. Guests kept arriving well before the evening officially began, and by the time it wound down close to 11pm, it was clear this wasn’t just a dinner. It was a reunion. Of the 500 invited, the room held alumni who cut their teeth on their first case management sessions at ZMM years ago, clients who’ve stayed the full 25-year journey, and current ZMMtizens sharing a table with the very people who trained them.

A Speech Long on Heart

Datuk Megat opened with a promise to keep things brief — one his staff and lawyers had apparently insisted on, after what he described as a firm “case management” of his draft. He mostly kept that promise, pausing only to note that 25 years in legal practice isn’t measured in years so much as in bundles, submissions, impossible deadlines, and the occasional client who insists a case is “very simple.”

The heart of it traced ZMM back to 2001: three course mates, no big office, no branding consultant, just an agreement to trust each other. In many firms, he said, lawyers spend their energy trying to outmatch one another instead of building alongside them — and everyone loses in that arrangement. His firm would be different: a place where young lawyers could speak up, pupils could make mistakes and grow from them, and staff were family rather than names on a payroll. It’s where ZMM’s now-famous line comes from — when someone asks to take conduct of a matter, the answer has always been by all means, please do.

One of the evening’s most personal moments came when he paid tribute to his father and his brother-in-law, ZMM’s first two employees, both present in the room that night — names rarely heard outside the firm’s earliest years, but written into its foundation all the same. He also made space for the two founding partners whose original partnership set everything in motion, and for Datin Linda, his wife, whose presence has meant as much to the firm’s clients as it has to its culture.

He closed with thanks to partners, lawyers, staff, clients, and families — the last of whom, he joked, have spent 25 years sharing him with clients who remember something urgent at 11:30pm. Just like Cinderella, he said, except the deadline is always just before midnight.

In Their Own Words: The Clients

The most convincing testimonial a law firm can get isn’t written by its marketing team — it’s said, unscripted, by the people paying the bills. Over the course of the evening, a run of clients spanning ZMM’s actual client base — in-house counsel, contractors, a GLC, a startup, a listed conglomerate — stepped up to a microphone and said, in their own words, what 25 years of working with ZMM has actually looked like.

Alan Hsu, GM Contract at TRC Synergy Berhad, has worked with partner Andrew for six years, and gave the evening’s most quietly precise answer. Asked what mattered most, the answer wasn’t about outcomes — it was about how decisions get made: “He won’t just tell me what to do. Sometimes he’ll play devil’s advocate — ‘are you sure you want this?’ — and I’ll say, aren’t you supposed to be on my side? But he has this uncanny ability to walk you through the thinking so you arrive at the decision yourself, rather than just being told. As a client, that’s invaluable.”

Jasper Khoo of TRC Capital Berhad, who has engaged ZMM since 2018 on construction and corporate matters, put it in more practical terms: “They’re very good at simplifying legal matters and coming up with creative, commercially minded solutions. There’s a balance — legally, here’s the limit; commercially, here’s what we can achieve. They always give you choices,” rather than, as he put it, just a list of what can’t be done.

Jason Ding, CEO of MHub, has grown alongside ZMM from startup to a platform now handling USD 3.3 billion in transactions: “They were open to partner with us and grow with us from a small stage to where we are now. I think we’ve grown together — and I think they’re happy we’re succeeding with them by our side.”

For Shafiqah Balqis, Legal Manager at Pelaburan Hartanah Berhad, the draw was simpler still. Asked if Datuk Megat was a typical lawyer, she didn’t hesitate: “No. Special.”

And Mitzvah Mohamed Tajudin, Senior General Manager at GS Paperboard & Packaging Sdn Bhd, summed up what kept him coming back — not the paperwork, but the relationship: “It’s gone beyond the formal client relationship to something more like a friend.”

Different industries, different-sized matters, one consistent thread: nobody used the word “vendor.” They used words like partner, friend, and — more than once — special.

The People Who Built It

Away from the podium, the founders and the firm’s longest-serving staff were pulled aside for a few words of their own — and between them, they said as much about ZMM’s 25 years as the speech did.

Tuan Haji Zain, a founding partner since day one, reduced the firm’s entire original philosophy to one line: “Our term was, yes, whatever — accept, very easy.” It’s not hard to hear the earliest version of “by all means, please do” in that.

Tuan Haji Murad, the firm’s other co-founder, reflected on 25 years without a serious falling-out: “We have fallen and tripped with one another. There was never an occasion that we disagreed on certain things.”

Asked, together, what the anniversary meant to them, Datuk Megat and Datin Linda each gave one word. “Success,” said Datin Linda. “Pride,” said Datuk Megat — pride, he explained, in a turnout so large that guests had their meals standing, and in the sincerity he could feel in the room: “They wanted to be here because they like to be here. That means a lot.” His wish for the next 25 years wasn’t a growth target. It was that the office stays “a joy, not a chore.” When a staff member’s request — please don’t retire early, Datuk — was relayed to him, his answer came without missing a beat: “Insya-Allah. Even if I take on a lesser role, I’ll still be doing the work. Don’t worry.”

Among the long-serving staff honoured that night, Wahidatul Lail binti Kamaruddin — known to everyone at the firm as Kak Liza, with ZMM from day one, all 25 years — remembered moving boxes with Datuk on the day the firm relocated offices, and could barely finish her sentence when asked what she hoped for next: “I feel like I want to cry. I can’t say anything — it’s all in my heart.” Abdullah bin Osman, who joined a few months after ZMM opened its doors, put the sweetest part of 25 years simply: “A boss with so much heart.” And speaking, he said, for everyone who’d stayed as long as he had: “Please don’t retire early, Datuk. Don’t retire!”

Long Service Awards

Nine members of staff were recognised across three service milestones — proof, as Datuk Megat put it, that these aren’t just numbers. They’re people who chose to stay.

20+ Years: Wahidatul Lail binti Kamaruddin (25), Abdullah bin Osman (25), Sharifah Nor Marziah binti Syed Omar (20) 15+ Years: Siti Fatmalida binti Mohd Fauzi (18), Nor Ain binti Othman (16), Zalmanazian bin Mahadi (16) 14+ Years: Nooranisa binti Shamsuddin (14), Wan Faizah binti Wan Abdullah (14), Nordiana binti Nordin (14)

Once ZMM, Always Part of the Family

A firm’s real measure isn’t how many cases it has handled or how many years it has survived. It’s whether people still come back. On that night, they did — clients who could easily have gone elsewhere, staff who’ve been there since the first office, founders who never had a falling-out in 25 years.

True to form, the formalities didn’t get the last word. Once the guests had gone home, Datuk Megat and the ZMM team joined the Anjum staff for an impromptu Middle Eastern jig on the now-empty floor — unassuming, unplanned, and exactly the kind of moment that sums up why people keep coming back to this firm.

Here’s to the next 25.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mohd Shahir Md Tahir

SHAHIR TAHIR

Partner

LL.B IIUM

shahir@zainmegatmurad.com

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