at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, whom Ho cited as influence for his political beliefs and Chinese national sentiment. During his college life, he developed his liberal ideals, got actively involved in student politics and campaigned for Mak Hoi-wah who ran for the Hong Kong University Students' Union against the Maoist nationalists who dominated the student union in the 1970s. Legal and early political career Ho got admission to practice law in 1977 and was appointed a notary public of the common law in 1988. He was employed for Messrs. C.Y. Kwan & Co. as a solicitor for nearly 20 years, then left to set up his own law firm, Ho, Tse, Wai & Partners. His litigation experience varied from banking cases and commercial law to land law and matrimonial disputes, as well as in criminal and medical negligence cases. Albert Ho worked a number of human rights cases on a pro bono (undertaken voluntarily and without payment) for the pan-democracy camp. Ho stepped into politics when he was first appointed to the Kowloon City District Board from 1982 to 1983. In 1985 he co-founded the Hong Kong Affairs Society (HKAS) to participate in the electoral politics during the transition period. During his spell as the leader of the HKAS, he demanded a faster pace of democratisation in Hong Kong and the safeguarding of freedom and way of life after the handover of Hong Kong to Mainland China after 1997. In 1989, he co-founded the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China to support the Tiananmen protests of 1989 and was critical of the Beijing government's bloody crackdown. He became the third chairman of the Alliance since 2014, succeeding Lee Cheuk-yan. He ran for the Urban Council in Kowloon City West in the 1986 municipal election but was defeated by incumbent Peter Chan Chi-kwan. He ran again in the 1991 Urban Council election in Southern District but was again losing to incumbent Joseph Chan Yuet-sut of the conservative Liberal Democratic Federation of Hong Kong. He was elected to the Regional Council in the municipal elections in 1995, receiving the largest number of votes in the Regional Council. He kept served on the council through 1997 until it was abolished by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa in 2000. Ho was a member of the Tuen Mun District Council for Lok Tsui since the 1999 District Council election.