18 August 2009 2107 hrs (SST)
CNA

SINGAPORE: Parliament has passed amendments to the Legal Profession Act to make it easier for returning lawyers to practise in Singapore. The changes will also ensure Singapore continue to grow as a legal hub.

A law graduate currently has to undergo pupillage at a law firm before being admitted to the Bar in Singapore. But some pupils may have little direct contact with their pupil masters.

Hence, a new Training Contract will replace the pupillage to ensure that trainees have a structured learning programme for six months. It will also ensure the law firms take greater responsibility in the pupil’s training.

Law Minister K Shanmugam said: “The current system doesn’t train pupils adequately and you need to impose that obligation on the law firms. If they are not resourced to train their pupils, we will try and find a way in which they can arrange with other law firms to go and get their pupils trained.

“But the pupils’ interests and the profession’s interest on the whole must not suffer. People should take on pupils with the clear idea that the pupillage period, the entire pupillage period, should be used to train the pupils (and) not to use them as additional labour.

“It is no answer really to say that the law firms may not be in a position to train the pupils. It is not fair to the pupils – which is why we now say we will provide the framework.”

Another change to the Legal Profession Act is the doing away with the existing overlapping powers between the Board of Legal Education and the Law Minister. This is in preparation for the establishment of the proposed Institute of Legal Education next year.

The change will give the Law Minister single exemption power and allow him to exempt lawyers from certain practice training requirements based on their experience and standing. This will shorten the training period and encourage more graduates to return.

The move, however, raised concerns among some members of the House. Ellen Lee, MP for Sembawang GRC, asked: “Why should the minister be the only authority to so decide without consulting the other relevant bodies? What KPIs are in place to measure the quality of applicants’ contributions?”

Mr Shanmugam said: “It’s a government policy. What sort of criteria can we waive? How many lawyers do we need? Should we expand the criteria? These are issues that the minister should decide and be answerable in Parliament here.

“And bearing in mind, currently the minister has and does exercise substantive powers of exemption. So, it’s not a new development.”

Mr Shanmugam said that many Singapore lawyers are sought after by international firms as they are well-educated and have a reputation for hard work.

In view of the fact that Singapore firms are also short of lawyers, it is important to ensure that those trained overseas can come home and practise here, without too many hurdles.

On increasing the intake of law students here to meet aspirations, Mr Shanmugam said that the National University of Singapore (NUS) has almost reached its optimal level. The Singapore Management University (SMU) has also expressed that it wants to keep the cohort small.

Singapore acts to lure overseas-trained lawyers back home
By Imelda Saad | Posted: 13 February 2009 1755 hrs
CNA

SINGAPORE: Major changes are on the cards for Singapore’s legal education system.

The changes are aimed to ensure Singapore has an adequate supply of local lawyers who can compete against global competition and to strengthen Singapore’s position as a key regional legal education hub.

Law Minister Law Minister K Shanmugam announced the changes in Parliament on Friday.

In hoping to attract overseas-trained Singapore lawyers to come back and practise law at home, the Law Ministry will abolish the one-year-long Diploma in Singapore Law course.

Mr K Shanmugam noted that the course, which is a requirement for all returning lawyers, has proven to be a disadvantage as lawyers feel they can pick up most of what’s taught during practice.

Hence, from June this year, such students will be offered an optional three-month conversion course.

To enhance legal training, measures include:

- revamping the Practice Law Course;

- replacing the pupillage system with training contracts, with the intention of putting the onus on law firms to ensure that trainees have a constructive and structured learning programme;

- the possibility of making continuing legal education mandatory to ensure practising lawyers are up to date on any changes to the law and are familiar with emerging areas of law.

To ensure a steady supply of lawyers, graduates with a Second Class (Lower) degree from approved universities will be admitted to the Singapore Bar without the two-year minimum legal experience requirement.

Adding to this, the Singapore Management University’s Law School will put in place additional measures to add to the pool of lawyers.

The first batch of graduates from SMU will join the industry in 2011.

The NUS Law Faculty will also increase its intake from 220 to 250 students a year.

Together, Mr K Shanmugam said, these moves will result in an almost 70 per cent increase in the number of local law graduates in a few years’ time – from 220 to 370 annually.

He added the incoming Qualifying Foreign Law Practices (QFLPs) will also bring in more lawyers as they consolidate their regional offshore work here.

To oversee the legal education in Singapore, a new statutory board – tentatively called the Institute for Legal Education – will be set up.

Mr K Shanmugam said: “Most essential for a vibrant legal sector are good quality lawyers. Therefore ensuring that legal education and training is top notch is extremely important”.

The minister also gave an update on moves to free up legal services in Singapore.

The Law Ministry notes that despite the current economic crisis, there is potential in the medium term for the legal sector to expand in certain areas.

One example is arbitration as Singapore is fast becoming an arbitration venue of choice.

By mid-2009, Singapore will have the Maxwell Chambers to house arbitration hearings under one roof.

Mr K Shanmugam said: “Our advantage is our connectivity and world class infrastructure, our judicial philosophy in respect to arbitration and being accessible at a much lower expense than some of the other popular arbitration centres.”

Another good sign is that international law firms have been setting up new offices in Singapore in recent months.

In the past four months alone, four new firms opened up offices here, one of them among the Global Top 40.

Another two firms have already registered with the Attorney-General’s Chambers and have announced plans to open new offices in Singapore.

ST Aug 27, 2008
Young lawyers get to practise with global firms and gain exposure
By Selina Lum

CHANGES to the Legal Profession Act passed in Parliament yesterday will now open up the hitherto protected legal sector to allow foreign firms more leeway to operate here.

The presence of strong local and foreign law firms will strengthen Singapore’s reputation as the region’s legal services centre, said Law Minister K. Shanmugam.

Young and talented Singaporean lawyers too stand to gain as they will now have more opportunities to practise in big international firms and gain international exposure, he said.

The amendments to the Act follow recommendations made last September by a committee, headed by Justice V. K. Rajah, tasked with developing the legal sector.

They come nine years after the Government first sent signals that the sector should be liberalised.

Three key changes will result from yesterday’s legislative amendment:

Come October, five foreign law firms will be allowed to hire Singapore-qualified lawyers to practise Singapore law in certain areas, namely high-end work in corporate and banking sectors.

Second, an existing scheme in which a local firm ties up with a foreign one has been enhanced, among other things, allowing the foreign part of the venture to share up to 49 per cent of the local constituent’s profits.

Third, the scope of work that foreign firms can carry out in international commercial arbitration involving Singapore law has been widened.

Four of the five parliamentarians who spoke on the issue yesterday were practising lawyers. To a man, the latter expressed concern about the impact of the liberalisation on local law firms. They also had reservations about whether the moves would really benefit Singapore as envisioned.

Mr Shanmugam said he understood their concerns about competition but pointed out that a number of areas would continue to be ‘ring-fenced’ beyond the reach of foreign firms.

These include constitutional and administrative law, conveyancing, criminal law, family law, succession law, trust law for individuals and litigation.

Local firms also stood to benefit if the economy as a whole prospered. ‘We must remember that the decision to liberalise was taken because we believe that it is in the overall economic interest of Singapore. It should also benefit the legal services sector as a whole,’ he said.

Explaining a key driver behind the moves, Mr Shanmugam noted that financial-sector representatives had asked ‘very strongly’ for the legal market to be liberalised.

‘We survive as an economic entity by reason of being open, by reason of being economically competitive. The financial services sector is one of the key pillars of our economy and we have to listen to the feedback from that sector,’ he said.

He later addressed a point made by Mr Sin Boon Ann (Tampines GRC), who was concerned that top local firms could become ‘footnotes in our history books’.

Mr Shanmugam, a partner in Allen & Gledhill until he became Law Minister earlier this year, said he would be the last person to disagree with the point that the major law firms contribute significantly to the legal heritage and legal culture in Singapore.

But when dealing with policy issues, one had to look at things in terms of the benefit to the public, he said.

Singapore’s interest was best served by allowing competition, enabling more choices for young lawyers and creating a more vibrant economic legal market.

‘When that calculation comes through, it cannot be dominated by emotion,’ he said.

To Nominated MP and accountant Gautam Banerjee, who asked for even more liberalisation, he said: ‘We start at five (foreign firms). I think it’s better for us to proceed cautiously and make sure we get it right.’

By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 18 August 2007 2259 hrs

SINGAPORE: More young lawyers are switching careers, citing long hours, unrewarding pay and stress as reasons.

This causes a shortage of lawyers, and as the economy booms and the demand for law services goes up, the problem is becoming more acute.

How to address this problem?

“Pay them well,” said Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, in his address to law students at the inaugural Singapore Legal Forum on Saturday.

“Our young lawyers enjoy a degree of professional and social freedom and mobility which lawyers of my generation have never experienced. Perhaps the solution is in the old fashion but still fashionable way of using carrots without the stick since the latter doesn’t work. Pay them well. Greed works most of the time, even for the large majority of people in affluent societies,” he said.

In recent years, even the best-paying firms in Singapore are seeing their young lawyers jumping ship to Hong Kong, where salaries for junior lawyers start at about S$11,650 a month.

In contrast, the big firms in Singapore pay junior lawyers just over $4,000.

A second law school has been established at the Singapore Management University.

Also, the NUS Law Faculty has increased its intake and firms are now allowed to hire foreign lawyers.

But the shortage has not eased yet.

Another issue of concern addressed at the Legal Forum is how to make the law more accessible to the public.

Laws may be available online but the language in which it is written makes it difficult for the layman to understand it.

So the Chief Justice said that he would ask the Law Academy’s publishing committee to study the feasibility of publishing simplified law books.

While access to the law is important, access to justice is even more so.

This need will be provided by lawyers who do pro bono work, that is providing service free of charge.

But such services are currently confined to Community Court cases, and this year, more convicted offenders are appearing in High Court appeals without lawyers.

In his speech, the Chief Justice also addressed the issue of restoring confidence in the law profession, particularly after the high-profile case of lawyer David Rasif who fled with more than $12 million in clients’ monies.

“We must be more discerning about what we read in the media. The facts do not suggest any loss of confidence in the legal profession,” said the Chief Justice.

“On the contrary, our large and medium law firms are generally held in high regard in Singapore and in the region. All the ethical and professional lapses that I have come across in my 40 years in the law have emanated from small law firms. It’s very unfortunate,” he added.

Although only a small minority of lawyers in these firms have committed breach of trust, the Chief Justice stressed that all law students must be taught the importance of ethical values.

The forum was organised by the UK Singapore Law Students Society. – CNA/ir

This follows on the heels of many high-level moves in the legal industry
By WEE LI-EN
Business Times

FOLLOWING a series of recent high-level movements among law firms, Rajah & Tann (R&T) has strengthened its practice with four new senior additions to its team from a rival firm.

The R&T recruits are leading telecommunications and information technology lawyer Andrew Ong, mergers and acquisitions lawyer Christina Ng, finance and securities lawyer Evelyn Wee and medical science lawyer Lim Wee Han.

R&T has recently been beefing up its practice with high-level additions to its firm. Former High Court judge Sundaresh Menon re-joined the firm last month, along with 12 other lawyers from international law firm Jones Day.

The firm’s four new lawyers are expected to join in the third quarter of the year.

The four are directors of a 32-member board at Drew & Napier (D&N), each with a long career at the firm.

According to D&N’s website, Ms Ng joined D&N in 1990 and heads its Indonesian and Thai desks, and Ms Wee joined D&N in 1989. Mr Lim joined D&N in 1992 and co-heads its medical science practice group.

Mr Ong, who heads the info-communications and technology business group at D&N, said yesterday in a statement: ‘I am extremely privileged to have been a part of Drew & Napier’s renown. After so many delightful years at Drew, I leave behind many good friends and colleagues as well as the fondest memories one could hope for.’

Yesterday, managing director of corporate and conveyancing David Ang said that despite the departures, Drew ‘will grow from strength to strength’.

He said of his departing colleagues: ‘We fully understand their plans to pursue their careers elsewhere. We will remain friends.’

D&N has itself just admitted four lawyers to its board from within the firm and is poised for further growth.

The new lawyers are Cheryl Tan, Adrian Tan, Kelvin Tan and Valerie Kwok.

There have been many high-level movements in the legal industry recently. It was reported last month that top criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan is leaving Harry Elias Partnership (HEP) for KhattarWong while Singapore’s first specialist judge Tan Chee Meng and co-managing partner of HEP is also leaving the firm for personal reasons.