The Law Society was born as an independent Bar Association in 1965. The first meeting of Council was held under the chairmanship of our first President, Mr Po Guan Hock.

Since that eventful day, we have seen nine Presidents elected by the collective wisdom of Council as ‘Servant Leaders’ of the Bar.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, a distinguished Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States of America said, ‘The noblest service comes from nameless hands and the best servant does his work unseen.’

Each member of Council, volunteers on our Committees, members of the Criminal Bar who gave their time for the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme, fellow members who conduct legal counselling at the 15 Family Service Centres as well as members who give their time for our many Law Awareness initiatives and ad hoc projects, all do their work unseen.

The Society tries to ensure that our volunteers are not ‘nameless hands’ as we endeavour to recognise each volunteer in our annual report, other publications and during the annual dinner and dance. However, I know many of you have worked unseen for the benefit of the profession and the community. To each volunteer member, I express my heartfelt gratitude on behalf of the Society for your service and commitment to your profession and its calling.

There is also another group of persons whose work is many times unseen and overlooked — that of the secretariat of the Law Society. Though the secretariat are paid employees of Council, during my two terms as a member of Council, I have seen at all levels that the secretariat’s commitment to the Society goes beyond the call of duty as they commit personal time to serve the interests of the profession, the welfare of members and the community.

The dawn of the 1980s saw a growing Bar which called for a better organised Society and professional secretariat. In 1983, Council began to lay the foundations to build a professional secretariat as it was clear that members of Council who held honorary office could not physically commit the time and focused attention needed to develop each programme and initiative of the Society. There was thus an urgent need to develop a professional secretariat. My predecessors, Mr Harry Elias SC, Mr Giam Chin Toon SC, Mr CR Rajah SC, Mr Peter Low and Mr George Lim, began the journey to slowly build a professional secretariat.

Today we have a secretariat of 30 employees in seven departments, four of which are headed by fellow members of the Bar. The directors at the secretariat serve on each of our 28 committees as well as many ad hoc committees of the Society. They work on special projects of Council and implement and monitor annual workplan programmes of the Society. They act as our liaisons with the public, other professional bodies, the Courts, statutory bodies and International Bar organisations. Their collective experience in serving the profession and the community will always be invaluable to each succeeding Council and to the membership as a whole.

Council has recognised that to continue to improve and build up an effective professional secretariat that will complement and assist the profession in changing times, there must be an acceptance that some new enterprises of the Society must be outsourced not merely to:

• lower overall staff costs;
• improve efficiency and service to our members;
• make up for a lack of skilled resources that Council or the current secretariat structure cannot offer the profession;
  

but also to create a flexible and creative collaboration with third parties so as to stimulate creativity to meet the many new challenges, initiatives and needs of the profession.

The Society must commit itself to a process of constant change and improvement if we are to help the profession create, articulate and achieve new visions.

Arfat Selvam
President
Law Society of Singapore