It used to be news when stories, first carried in the Singapore Law Gazette (‘SLG’), were extended to a wider readership, thanks to the local media picking it up. The most recent subject was that of the protection of elders, from an article featured in the October 2002 issue of the SLG by the sagacious Dr Chiang Hai Ding of SAGE (see The Straits Times, 28 October 2002, Home section headlines). But these days, simply writing for the SLG also makes news, as our contributor to this month’s Consumer Law focus article, Mr Stephen Loke, would tell you. Whilst being interviewed by The New Paper (26 September 2002) after his resignation from CASE, he was quoted as saying that he was still in the midst of completing his article on consumer law for the SLG. Mr Loke’s dedication did him credit: see page 12.

Just remember, you read it here first!

Word has it that a former barrister, but now general practitioner, has begun a campaign to persuade lawyers to sign their letters personally, rather than with the name of their firm. One would think that it is all in the name of good client care, but the proponent of this campaign has time saving as his bugbear. With over 80,000 solicitors on the Roll in the United Kingdom, he estimates that if one lawyer sends just five of these ‘anonymous’ letters each working day, and the recipient of each letter spends an average of 10 seconds tracing the author of the letter (by decoding the file reference number, phoning the secretary etc; it will often take much longer than 10 seconds), over 255,000 expensive man-hours of professional time are wasted each year identifying anonymous solicitors.

One wonders how many man-hours Dr Gray spent in coming up with this ingenious campaign, eh?

Participants at the recent IBA Conference were flummoxed by this introduction to one of its knowledge management courses ‘Knowledge is everywhere and nowhere less than in a law firm’.

Talk about a thought-provoking introduction. Or is it a case of the truth hurts?

Good thing our Law Society premises south of the bridge comes with added security, in addition to eggshell beige walls. Not so ‘eggstatic’ were the staff at the Law Society of Hong Kong’s offices, to whom having eggs for breakfast took a whole new meaning when they suffered the indignation of having their office pelted with yolks and whites last year.

The perpetrator, a former spokesman for the China Properties Problem Association, was jailed for 15 days after being found guilty of behaving in a disorderly manner in a public place on two occasions, although he was considerate enough to ask the staff to move out of the way before firing his fragile missiles. The egg fight was a form of protest against what he claimed was the Law Society’s shielding of lawyers who had misrepresented the buyers of flats.