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."

 

 

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...

credit and security??!?!

It somehow seems ironic that one day the mumblings of Prof P. Ellinger might possibly come in useful in my career, given that I was usually unable to decipher the ongoings of the Credit & Security module taken in my 4th (?) year in NUS...

But nonetheless, the deed is done, and I will officially be leaving the convoluted world of capital markets into the (hopefully) brighter sunshine of banking. No, not joining a bank, but rather the banking team in FSD. Am presently trying to ensure that everything is handed over smoothly to fellow associates who have the luck of the draw to be taking over my current files, and should be doing so for the next couple of weeks before I take on the new challenges of facility agreements and security documents.

Anyway, boring stuff aside, I was asked to join the banking team lunch today, and I gladly accepted. Since I'm probably gonna be seeking plenty of precedents from my future teammates, I might as well get started on building relationships! But seriously though, they seem to be a pretty nice bunch of people - light-hearted and ready for humour, which many of you will know is an important trait that I value.

Lunch was supposed to be at L'Angelus at Club Street, but due to the heavy rain, we were compelled to switch venue to the Rang Mahal at Pan Pacific. I thought I'd never been there before, until I arrived and realised I did do lunch there before, though I can't remember exactly who was there. Probably some random monthly lunch back at my old firm. Food was not bad, company was great, so am looking forward to embarking on the new journey ahead.

Watch this space for updates! (yea, yea...i know that's what i said in my last post yonks ago too...)

i'm still alive!

Yea, it's really been quite a while since I last posted anything. Been simply too caught up with work and making the most of the times when I'm not working!

Anyway, since my last post, I have travelled twice more for work - once to Jiangsu in China through Shanghai, and once to Korea. Doesn't seem like a lot, but considering that my roommate hasn't travelled anywhere since joining the firm almost 3 years ago, 3 times in 5 months is a lot!

Shall not bother to give detailed updates since May, but suffice to say that I have apparently lost 4kg since switching firms, and that was measured about a month ago, so I might have lost more! Will try, however, to resume more regular updates here. Right now I'm just shooting off with whatever comes to mind.

Work is interesting, but very tiring. It just seems inconceivable that the bosses managed to survive through so many years of this crap, and I wondering how long I can do it. But for future's sake, I just gotta grit my teeth and get through this trial by fire.

Wedding prep is moving along. We've taken our photos, and selected them for the albums! Ad thinks it's mad that we forked out an additional 2,300 buckaroos on top of our package price to have 2 albums instead of 1. Yea the pinch is sorely felt, but well, it's once in a lifetime! And I'd rather spend a bit now, than for us to look back year from now and wish we had chosen more photos. Next step: settling the guest list and the invites.

On the housing front, things aren't as brilliant - we received a letter in May saying that TOP is expected to be in August, but it's already late September and there's no news yet. I got an email from SQ who found me though this blog, and he shared that the developer had told him the TOP is delayed and likely to be in October instead. Very annoying. I might write to bug the developer too by early October.

Ok, gotta go do some work. Let's see if I can keep to my promise to update more regularly. ;)

Goodbye....and hello!

11 April 2007 was my last day of work at WTL. By sheer coincidence, I had spent exactly 10 months in WTL, and I am grateful for the learning opportunity which it had proved to be. Much as I feel bad about “abandoning” the firm which very obviously needs its associates, I guess I simply had to do it for the greater long-term good of my career path. I will certainly miss the great work-life balance though.

After returning from Macau, it was a week of rest for me, but it flew past in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, I had started work at A&G on 23 April 2007.

It is only now that I realise why my first employers cannot compete in the big league yet. This place is truly huge, and has brilliantly solid infrastructure to facilitate the management and day-to-day operations. Evident of this is that fact that I had a proper orientation programme planned for me on my first day, taking up ¾ of the day with personal briefings from the various departments - HR, Admin, Finance, IS, etc. I am duly impressed with my new employers.

And frankly speaking, they do take care of their lawyers pretty well. Save for the workload, which I have yet to properly experience, I think this place might well be worth staying for some time. Plus the fact that God has blessed me with seemingly nice bosses, and I haven’t heard anything to the contrary yet. :)

My first week was really quite boring, as there was no work for me. I toyed with the idea of going to ask for work, but was advised by various parties that it might prove to be suicidal, and that I should just enjoy this slack period while I can. Finally attended a kick-off meeting for a new IPO this Monday, and the work should start building up soon. Am currently slated to head off to China from 14 to 19 May for due diligence, and while it sounds somewhat exciting, I’m not sure whether I should be looking forward to it at all. After all, due diligence is NEVER fun! And it doesn’t help that we’ll be dealing with Chinese clients, which means a lot of drinking. The bosses have asked me to brush up on my drinking ability, but that’s a really really tall order.

Been bugging the IS Dept to give me a blackberry, as I keep harbouring an irrational fear that I could be missing some urgent email from the bosses after office hours. Much as I don’t want it, I hate to admit that a blackberry is essential for the job. :( They appear to be currently out of stock, so I’d better enjoy this period of freedom from emails while it lasts.

I am also pleased to find out that A&G has a pretty active badminton thing going on as well. Have signed up for the legal vs. business services challenge in late May, and have been playing with the legal team for the past 2 Wednesday evenings. Coupled with my existing sessions on Saturday mornings, it should help to maintain a bit of fitness. Should throw in some jogging as well though. Sigh.

So that’s that. A new milestone, a new journey. May God direct my path. :)

the end of an era...

Ok, the title's a bit of an exaggeration, but nonetheless, I am in fact about to move on to a new phase in my career.

The wait I had described a couple of posts back was for the outcome of an interview with my future employers. Notwithstanding that I had told them at the interview that I would be leaving for ICT the following week, they were unable to get back to me before then, and it was only during my day off-in-lieu on 2 Feb that I got the long-awaited phone call offering the job. :)

So I'll be joining the Equity Capital Markets team in the Frantic Slogging Department of a very large local firm. For the finer details, click here.

The benefits of the move are clear to me, as the experience gained will place me in a much much better position for future career moves and options in the event that I choose not to stay (or am compelled by fatigue to move). The downside is of course that I am voluntarily giving up the most excellent hours which I am enjoying at my current firm.

Weighing the pros and cons, I suppose it's a necessary sacrifice (and investment) to slog a bit harder now while I am still young, and reap the benefits in time to come. Every person is granted with certain gifts from God, and for me, I suppose the parable of the talents come into play here. I should not be sitting comfy where I am, and allowing the gift from God to stagnate. As my ex-pastor used to say all the time, if you're comfortable, you're not growing.

Of course the most difficult aspect of the move would be having less time with Ad, but I truly hope we can both look at this shift with the right perspective, and support each other through these (still) formative years of my career. There will come a point of time some years down the road when I will have to choose between family and career, and because I will be choosing family, hence it is all the more important to establish the career aspect firmly for now.

Dealt with another difficult issue yesterday - the tendering of my resignation. It was very hard to break the news to my boss, and even harder to look him in the eye when discussing the matter thereafter. I'm sincerely grateful to my current firm for helping me transit to corporate law, and I apologise for the disappointment caused by my departure. May God prosper the firm always.

So this shift is accompanied by mixed feelings, but with trust in the Lord, I need not fear, for He shall direct my paths. (Back to the key Bible verses of my life - Proverbs 3:5-6)

Last day of work at my current place on 11 April 2007, whereupon I'll be scooting off to Bangkok from 12 to 14 April. Starting work tentatively on 23 April. FYI. :)