Working Hard For the Money …
For A Few Dollars More
and Making Sense of It All

The competition for hiring quality lawyers, whether through campus recruiting or through lateral moves, has never been tighter. The unemployment rate is low, remuneration packages are increasing and lawyers have a whole new world of legal developments with the advent of globalisation and technology.

Coupled with recent announcements of measures having to be taken by the government to ease the shortage of lawyers, one would think that the outlook for lawyers has never been brighter.

However, these measures have mainly focussed on increasing the supply of lawyers at entry point. Salary hikes have now added one more dimension to the vexed question of career satisfaction in the legal profession and its effect on supply and demand.

As a profession, we need to explore the potential impact that these developments will have on the profession in the long run. I see the impact as being on three fronts: on the quality of life of our young lawyers, on the profession, and on the values of the profession.

Naturally, if law firms pay their legal assistants more, they would expect more from them in return. In effect, more billable hours and consequently less free time for its assistants. Yet, first-year assistants would generally not be in a position to command the kind of billable hours or rates to justify their salaries. As such, the pressure would be to produce more in less time and this in turn causes much anxiety about whether sufficient time is being paid to fully develop the necessary legal analysis in a given problem, and lead to the creation of an environment ripe for mistakes, and to that effect, negligence.

Previously, law firms used to view the opportunity cost of paying new assistants as being an investment in the firm's future - the nurturing of a fledgling lawyer who would understand the firm's culture, be loyal to the firm, share the firm's philosophy, grow with the firm and eventually be made partner. In short, firms as well as their baby lawyers expected low returns in the initial years of the legal assistant's tenure to be compensated somewhere down the road - and were prepared to wait, or sit out.

However, such traditional longevity mentality is no longer the norm. Chances that today's crop of young legal assistants will be with their starting firms in five years' time is exceedingly slim. Many recognise that they will have to work long hours in exchange for the monetary rewards they receive, and actually expect to burn out after a minimum of five years in practice.

Even more see it as a necessary evil to put nose to grindstone with the expectation of a future career move after the initial intensity of commitment to the practice of law. However, the physical, mental and emotional toll on the individual is quite something else to be reckoned with, quite apart from the economic costs to society of having pursued a legal education only to sustain a legal career for a short period of time.

Much as we hate to admit it, the era of the disposable legal assistant is upon us; except it is the other way around, where the hiring firm is seen as the disposable commodity, once a better offer comes along. Incidents of lateral assistant migration or firm-hopping abound to the extent of allegations of assistant/associate-poaching. Part of the ease with which this is done is due to the fact that the philosophy of and spirit of having young legal assistants go through the ranks of the firm has been soured by the recent favourable economic conditions which has spurred on a market of avarice.

However, the economy does not hold forever, and new lawyers must be careful not to demand themselves out of the market.

For small to medium-sized firms, recruitment has become a nightmare since young legal assistants are now holding out for more, but smaller firms by their very nature of work and clientele are hardly able to raise their charges. On the other hand, smaller firms have traditionally offered their legal assistants more flexibility and variety in exchange for their lower salaries. The pressure was also more manageable. With the gaping gap in salaries caused by recent hikes, the imbalance may be too great to sustain.

Even the public sector has had to match legal service emoluments with remuneration packages being market-driven and benchmarked against the income of practising lawyers in the private sector.

One concern raised by this is its effect on the young assistants' ability to contribute by way of pro bono work. The Law Society of Singapore, and under its auspices, the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme (CLAS), and its various Committees depend upon volunteer lawyers. Inculcating a sense of belonging in our young lawyers, not just to a profession viewed as financially viable, but which has traditionally given back to the community and the profession will be well nigh impossible if young lawyers cannot be persuaded to divert some of their billable hours to pro bono work. Focussing entirely on the financial bottomline also stands to erode our efforts at preserving the practice of law as a profession more than a business.

What are some of the options? Perhaps instead of looking at salary as being the only indicia with which to compete, firms should sell on the quality of work offered and the quality of the work-place.

Reserves can be channelled to training and career development and other collateral benefits. Commission-sharing translated to equity sharing may be another option.

Leveraging on technology to make an assistant's work easier: subsidising the cost of a notebook to enable an assistant to work away from the office, enabling remote access to a firm's document management system, providing a good precedent and research database so that there is sound knowledge management are some such initiatives. Allowing an assistant to feel a sense of belonging by including him in the networking and business development aspects of the firm is another possible area. Consideration of issues such as treatment by partners, training and guidance, firm culture and atmosphere, partnership chances, billable hour expectations and its reasonableness and pro bono commitment should be some of issues firms should address, and which young lawyers should think about during recruitment.

As one lawyer put it when queried on what he would ask his firm's managing partner if he could about job satisfaction 'Would you want your son or daughter to work here? I'm sure your answer is "No''.' - and this from one of the legal world's top law firms where 80% of its lawyers responded that they were happy with their compensation package -but they sure work hard for their money!

Palakrishnan, SC
President
The Law Society of Singapore

Your President Listens The President of the Law Society, Mr Palakrishnan SC, will be holding his fortnightly sessions to meet members of the Law Society on Saturday mornings at the Law Society's premises. Next month's sessions will be held on 5 May 2001 between 10.00am and 10.30am (on account of the Malaysia/Singapore Bench & Bar Games) and on 19 May 2001 between 10.30am and 12 noon.