Progress is a double-edged sword. While achieving developed-country status has heralded Singapore as having arrived and shown that Singaporeans have attained an enviable level of literacy, mortality rate, technological advancement, economic superiority and social sophistication, it has also brought with it a backlash and weakening of society’s moral fabric.

The pace of modern life and cosmopolitan living has exacted a price, which invariably comes in the form of the breakdown of social and family values that has manifested itself in the types of ‘domestic’ crimes that we are seeing more and more of. Some say that these are early signs of ethical bankruptcy.

The hectic pace of modern life has robbed us of some amount of neighbourliness and public-spiritedness, the ability to communicate with our friends and neighbours and to look out for one another, as neighbours of an earlier generation that lived in kampongs were wont to do, with the concept of ‘gotong royong’ (mutual assistance). The lack of such social cohesion is now fertile ground for petty thefts and robberies, with seldom a whistleblower in sight.

It is not only common to not know what your neighbour’s name is or how many children he has, worse yet, the ‘me’ generation and the self-serving and greedy attitudes it has fostered go so far as to bring petty neighbourly quarrels into our courtrooms. We are becoming an increasingly litigious society: if a neighbour’s wall or plant intrudes within a square foot of our space, we call up our lawyers. Sadly, the art of talking things through, and of a certain give-and-take, which was how our parents in their time resolved conflicts, is somewhat dying.

Within households too, we see the breakdown of families and an increasing number of what the experts would term ‘dysfunctional’ families. Problems of juvenile delinquency, not just in the form of acts of vandalism or boisterous horseplay, but serious computer crimes and hacking with the potential to cause grave economic damage, are beginning to rear their ugly heads.

We can no longer rely on the values of filial piety and inherent parent-child love to guarantee the support of elderly dependants: we now have to have laws to compel us to maintain our parents. Added to these are issues of domestic violence: child abuse, spousal abuse, children beyond parental control, elder abuse, the list goes on.

Before the advent of a strong reliance on foreign domestic help to assist families in raising children and housekeeping, the term ‘maid abuse’ was unheard of. But now, practically every month, we read of cases of maid abuse, sometimes even by the children in the family. We also now read of crimes against the elderly, whether of the snatch-thief variety or more insidious forms of undue influence or emotional blackmail exercised over them by their younger relatives to make them part with property or their hard-earned savings.

While we could leave it to the sociologists to figure out what is happening to our society that has brought on this phenomenon, what can we as lawyers do in the face of this unravelling of the country’s social fabric? While we can’t stamp out the problem, we can each do our part, in small ways, to help alleviate some of the problems or symptoms.

I want you to consider the role of preventive law in our society and in your practice.

Preventive law is comprised of legal and practical principles for anticipating and avoiding legal problems. Its goal is to provide for the legal health of individuals and business entities.

Similar in concept to that in medicine, preventive law in its broadest sense seeks to encourage new methods and concepts for how legal services can be delivered in the future to avoid conflicts and disputes. In the process, it seeks to help the public understand how both individuals and business entities can most effectively create and maintain an improved quality of legal health; it concerns issues of client counselling, legal access and conflict prevention.

To develop such a market, two ingredients are required: firstly, public awareness that, just as medical services are best sought on a preventive basis, legal services should be viewed in the same light; and secondly, awareness of lawyers of the many existing resources for helping develop new preventive legal service offerings as well as the ability to package them in a way which clients would value. Conventional lawyers and lawyering are becoming less useful to clients and to society as our clients are becoming less concerned with managing liability and more concerned with managing quality. We are losing opportunities to be useful — and to be usefully employed. Far too often, lawyers are missing the boat by caring too much about who is to blame, when the right question to clients is how can we do it better.

Realise that the best test of a good contract for a client is not its ability to withstand challenge in litigation but whether it helps parties achieve their goals, and that a good risk management programme is not one which reduces the costs of errors, but one that reduces errors.

Which is why it is vital that we continue to develop the field of preventive law.

For one, for those of us who practise family law, try to look beyond the dollars and cents that a decree nisi can bring in. We are trained observers and cross-examiners. Beyond gathering the evidence to nail a straying spouse in court, think also of the family unit. Is it really all that hopeless? Are the children of divorcing parents breaking under the strain? Do they need a counsellor or a psychologist? Can the couple consider reconciliation? Because of our unique position vis-à-vis our client, we are privy to information that we can use for the greater good.

Some may say that lawyers are not social workers, and should not try to be, but there should be some degree of balance in all that we do, in our professional as well as personal lives. For every marriage that we get paid to bury, we need to achieve an equilibrium, bring back a sense of balance to the world that we live in. It is very much akin to the eco-system addressing an imbalance.

Or, go a step further and volunteer your pro bono services at legal counselling clinics run by many family service centres or community development centres. Many who attend such clinics are in the throes of some domestic difficulty, and some of them actually do not require legal representation. They may simply need to clarify some doubts, or need a referral to some other party or service organisation that can help them. And as lawyers, in the course of our work, we come in contact with various agencies and organisations that will be able to extend help.

For others who prefer to take a macro view, and believe in seeing the bigger picture, then contribute your services in the area of research and policy planning. The legal and domestic cases that you take on can provide useful data that can further the research of the social service agencies looking at certain types of social phenomena.

This is why I applaud the initiative of our Family Law Practice Committee in spearheading the production of a Family Practice Manual and Protocol, which has amongst its objectives, a best practices guide, giving guidance on practical aspects not found in case law or academic texts in the hope that lessons learnt second-hand can produce better resolutions to family disputes, giving concise, useful background perspectives through the eyes of family practitioners, sociologists/counsellors on how parties and children are affected by family breakdowns, including the latest programmes and services available within the family justice system.

We are all, each of us, in turn, an employer, an employee, a spouse, a parent, a sibling, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour, in the myriad of relationships that we form around us. Use your unique position to be attuned to the needs of those around you. If you see someone weakening under the strain of the heavy burdens that they bear, be especially vigilant, and do what you can to help that person cope. The stressors of daily life are all catalysts that can lead people to act in ways that they did not know they were capable of. And that includes ourselves. Know when you are reaching breaking point. Take time out to get away from the harried pace that besieges our daily lives.

The faces of those who commit the so-called ‘domestic’ crimes that stare out at us from the newspapers are the faces of the educated, holding respectable jobs, earning decent money and well regarded by family and friends. These are faces that can belong to you or me. It has been said that Singaporeans are so rich materially, yet we have become so poor in many other aspects, not least of all, in our treatment of our family and fellow human beings. Surely, it is about time we did something to address that irony and be able to bring back the days where home is where the heart is.

Palakrishnan, SC
President
Law Society of Singapore

Your President Listens Members of the Law Society will continue to have the opportunity to meet Mr Palakrishnan, SC, President of the Law Society, at his fortnightly Saturday sessions at the Law Society's premises between 10.30am and 12noon.  The sessions for next month will be on 9 and 23 November 2002.