October is the month when the Law Society is required by law to hold its annual general meeting and this year’s is to be held on 22 October. The Society at this meeting reports on the activities of its 28 standing committees and the work of Council. Nearly 200 selfless volunteer members and 21 members of Council currently serve the profession and the community.

October is also the month in which we hold our annual Council elections. Nomination day falls on 14 October 2003, where it will be known if the Bar will be called upon to cast its votes for its leaders for 2004.

Serving on a Law Society committee or Council is a sacrifice. It takes personal and professional time away from family and office. Volunteering to serve also requires much hard work and patience.

A committee or Council project can take several months to several years to come to fruition. The road ahead can be long and sometimes difficult, especially when the project calls for changes to be made to the structure of the profession or how we practice or manage our law practices.

Two projects come to mind when I write about patience and hard work. Our Multi-Disciplinary Practices (‘MDP’) Committee started its work to develop a MDP model for the profession in 2002 and continues to re-look and seek feedback not only from our own members but other professional organisations as it moulds a final model to be submitted to Council before the end of this year. The ground-breaking work of the MDP Committee chaired by George Tan has required sacrifice of time, patience and, I know, much hard work from each member of his Committee.

Similarly, the sub-committee of the Practice Management Committee chaired by Leo Cheng Suan, began in 2001 to develop voluntary practice management standards to help improve the way we manage our practices and the people who work for us. We will, in a ceremony to be held in December to coincide with the visit by the President of the Law Society of England to Singapore, mark the signing of the knowledge buy-out agreement with the English Law Society for its practice management standards called Lexcel. The sub-committee now begins the second phase of its work to modify the English Lexcel standards for our profession.

Often when you serve, you are called upon to make recommendations, give feedback and decide on the long-term future of the profession. You put aside professional or personal self-interests to serve public and professional needs. Personal integrity is a must.

As a member of the Council or a committee, you must be prepared to act as counsellor and adviser to the profession. You must hear concerns, however small, and tackle everyday practice concerns.

When you serve, there are bound to be times when you know that a decision or a recommendation you make would not be popular. The vast majority of the profession, I am confident, respects and appreciates the hard work put in by each volunteer and accepts that each decision and recommendation is made in good faith.

As a small Bar, unity is our strength. There must be mutual understanding and trust; otherwise we cannot progress as a profession or cross hurdles in difficult times.

I am confident members will always step forward to help mould the profession to maintain its independence and integrity to ensure that we assist in the administration of justice and facilitate access to justice for all.

Arfat Selvam
President
Law Society of Singapore