i am endangered
Spotted in Today, 7 April 2008:
"Lawyers In S'pore: Time for Market Forces to Decide
Conrad Raj
Editor-at-large
conrad@mediacorp.com.sg
It is not that difficult to put a finger on why Singapore has suddenly found itself in a situation where lawyers have become an endangered species.
It goes back to decisions made some 20 years ago when the Government took three controversial decisions: Reducing the National University of Singapore's intake of law students, disallowing lawyers with third-class honours from being admitted to the Bar and restricting entry only to those who graduated with good grades from some overseas universities.
This decision to arbitrarily turn off the tap was grounded in some sound reasons, such as the desire to maintain the quality of the profession.
But it did not anticipate a new world where financial services and telecommunications becoming sunrise industries with lawyers having a big role to play to make them economic winners.
A Government-appointed committee admitted as much in a report several years ago, which stated: "For Singapore to become a premier financial centre and a regional telecommunications hub, there is a need to increase the pool of lawyers to provide the necessary legal support services."
It said Singapore needs another 250 lawyers a year up until 2010, compared to the 150 or so now called to the bar annually. The aim is to have between 99 and 115 lawyers per 100,000 people. This means a target of between 4,837 and 5,658 lawyers by 2010, against the present total of about 3,500 practising lawyers.
Another unfortunate and unexpected event struck. A tough and no-nonsense approach by the courts to upgrade the profession led some to retire early and many to look for jobs in non-law firms where lawyers' skills were urgently needed.
The Government reacted by relaxing the rules somewhat to admit graduates from certain universities in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and raise the limit on foreign law degree-holders from 50 to 70 a year.
But only the top 30 per cent from the scheduled universities in Australia, New Zealand and the US were recognised for admission to the Singapore Bar.
Just last month, the rules were further eased so that Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents now need to show that they have spent two years doing relevant legal work or were solicitors in England, Wales or Hong Kong to practise law here. The previous relevant legal work requirement was three years.
This is in addition to the other requirements that all those intending to be called to the Singapore Bar have to meet — like passing the Diploma in Singapore Law Course, Postgraduate Law Course and serving pupillage at a local law firm.
This amended rule is for those who have a second-class lower honours from a scheduled British university, or have been ranked in the top 70 per cent in terms of academic performance of the total number of graduates in his or her batch from a recognised university in Australia, New Zealand or the US.
Even these reactive measures are still grounded in a mindset of a "softly-softly" approach which raises some questions: Why do we need to impose time limits on foreign graduates when they are already being creamed from only scheduled universities?
Why are those with third-class honours still being barred from practising when the bench has had prominent judges and the Bar has seen some prominent lawyers with such degrees?
Haven't we also got competent practising lawyers here who obtained their degrees from less-recognised foreign universities?
What the profession needs is a maverick approach by the Government to solving its problems. And that approach can only come when law firms are allowed to decide the competence of the lawyers they hire, provided they meet the necessary qualifications of all scheduled universities, be they from Singapore or overseas.
The market is often the most efficient arbiter of needs, and should there be an oversupply, people will stop studying law or any other discipline where there are no jobs available and switch to areas where there is a shortage and need.
Let market forces decide the supply of and demand for lawyers, or for that matter any job."
Conrad Raj
Editor-at-large
conrad@mediacorp.com.sg
It is not that difficult to put a finger on why Singapore has suddenly found itself in a situation where lawyers have become an endangered species.
It goes back to decisions made some 20 years ago when the Government took three controversial decisions: Reducing the National University of Singapore's intake of law students, disallowing lawyers with third-class honours from being admitted to the Bar and restricting entry only to those who graduated with good grades from some overseas universities.
This decision to arbitrarily turn off the tap was grounded in some sound reasons, such as the desire to maintain the quality of the profession.
But it did not anticipate a new world where financial services and telecommunications becoming sunrise industries with lawyers having a big role to play to make them economic winners.
A Government-appointed committee admitted as much in a report several years ago, which stated: "For Singapore to become a premier financial centre and a regional telecommunications hub, there is a need to increase the pool of lawyers to provide the necessary legal support services."
It said Singapore needs another 250 lawyers a year up until 2010, compared to the 150 or so now called to the bar annually. The aim is to have between 99 and 115 lawyers per 100,000 people. This means a target of between 4,837 and 5,658 lawyers by 2010, against the present total of about 3,500 practising lawyers.
Another unfortunate and unexpected event struck. A tough and no-nonsense approach by the courts to upgrade the profession led some to retire early and many to look for jobs in non-law firms where lawyers' skills were urgently needed.
The Government reacted by relaxing the rules somewhat to admit graduates from certain universities in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and raise the limit on foreign law degree-holders from 50 to 70 a year.
But only the top 30 per cent from the scheduled universities in Australia, New Zealand and the US were recognised for admission to the Singapore Bar.
Just last month, the rules were further eased so that Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents now need to show that they have spent two years doing relevant legal work or were solicitors in England, Wales or Hong Kong to practise law here. The previous relevant legal work requirement was three years.
This is in addition to the other requirements that all those intending to be called to the Singapore Bar have to meet — like passing the Diploma in Singapore Law Course, Postgraduate Law Course and serving pupillage at a local law firm.
This amended rule is for those who have a second-class lower honours from a scheduled British university, or have been ranked in the top 70 per cent in terms of academic performance of the total number of graduates in his or her batch from a recognised university in Australia, New Zealand or the US.
Even these reactive measures are still grounded in a mindset of a "softly-softly" approach which raises some questions: Why do we need to impose time limits on foreign graduates when they are already being creamed from only scheduled universities?
Why are those with third-class honours still being barred from practising when the bench has had prominent judges and the Bar has seen some prominent lawyers with such degrees?
Haven't we also got competent practising lawyers here who obtained their degrees from less-recognised foreign universities?
What the profession needs is a maverick approach by the Government to solving its problems. And that approach can only come when law firms are allowed to decide the competence of the lawyers they hire, provided they meet the necessary qualifications of all scheduled universities, be they from Singapore or overseas.
The market is often the most efficient arbiter of needs, and should there be an oversupply, people will stop studying law or any other discipline where there are no jobs available and switch to areas where there is a shortage and need.
Let market forces decide the supply of and demand for lawyers, or for that matter any job."
The writer seems to have a strange inclination towards the school of thought that the quality of lawyers does not matter.
"This decision to arbitrarily turn off the tap was grounded in some sound reasons, such as the desire to maintain the quality of the profession. But it did not anticipate a new world where financial services and telecommunications becoming sunrise industries with lawyers having a big role to play to make them economic winners." -- erm, so financial services and telecommunications do not require quality lawyers?
"Another unfortunate and unexpected event struck. A tough and no-nonsense approach by the courts to upgrade the profession led some to retire early and many to look for jobs in non-law firms where lawyers' skills were urgently needed." -- why is it unfortunate for the profession to be upgraded? Would he rather have incompetent lawyers in court, hindering rather than facilitating the course of justice?
"Why are those with third-class honours still being barred from practising when the bench has had prominent judges and the Bar has seen some prominent lawyers with such degrees? Haven't we also got competent practising lawyers here who obtained their degrees from less-recognised foreign universities?" -- I'm not saying he is wrong, but without substantiation or examples, this is but a bare assertion.
I certainly agree that we are facing a shortage of lawyers, but the solution is not to relax the standards. Why compromise on the quality of lawyers? The writer has probably never experienced the pain of dealing with incompetent lawyers. No, the key solution is to reduce the attrition rate. While I fully agree that measures should be taken to increase the new blood coming into the profession (while maintaining the high standards of qualification), any amount of new lawyers we attract is useless if the existing lawyers are dropping like flies.
But I'm too lazy to go into a discourse on curbing the attrition rate now, so that will have to be another argument for another time...
Labels: career, commentary, law, news
posted by feelingsleepy | 12:10 pm
1 Comments:
Agree! I think the problem isn't with the number of lawyers being churned out annually but with the number actually staying - jus look at our year-on-year "percentage growth" over the last 10 years!
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