People
Shue Yan's helmsman
Dr Hu also stresses serving the society, which he has been teaching students. He lives up to the virtue by providing free legal service for those who have grievances in their cases but are too poor to hire a lawyer.
He has handled about 4,000 cases over the past 50 years, including some 100 on a voluntary basis. "Every year, I would voluntarily take over one or two cases," he said.
The most impressive case he could remember was defending for the 22 students charged in relation to their involvement in the movement of protecting the Diaoyu Islands in the 1970s. "Since I was teaching in university and was also a barrister, I had duty to defend for those students," Dr Hu said.
His eight-week of hard work at the time did pay off not only in winning an acquittal, but also in seeing how the students have all taken up important roles in the society today.
This was just one of the many stories that Dr Hu wants to tell about his legal profession. He has a plan to write some books about the cases he has handled when he retires. "I have lots of cases to write about in my barrister's life over the past 50 years."
Dr Hu studied law at the University of Paris in France in 1949. Before that he served for three years as a Chinese diplomat in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which was part of the then Soviet Union at the time. After he obtained his law degree in 1952, he then moved to London where he got the qualification as a barrister.
Dr Hu recalled that while most Chinese in foreign countries at the time opened restaurants to make a living, he chose to become a barrister because he wanted to do something for China with his high education level.
He then chose to settle in Hong Kong, where he has created the legend of Shue Yan with perseverance.
"There are only two ways, one is success and the other is failure. You cannot give up; otherwise, you'll lose everything. You will never be successful if you always have the thinking of giving up," Dr Hu said.
Mr Hu shows his photo with Chinese President Hu Jintao and others.