I have had the honour to serve as a member of Council of the Law Society for five years, three of those years as Vice-president and this year as President.

During this period, I have experienced the strong bonds of camaraderie and friendship that one naturally develops as one works side-by-side with fellow servant leaders of the Bar for the benefit of the profession and the public and as one carrying out one’s public responsibilities.

Unless you have stepped forward to serve, it would be difficult to appreciate the camaraderie that is built as you carry the joys and burdens of the Office as a member of Council.

As a group, each of us in Council shared the deep sense of loss when one of us was no longer amongst us, as we did on a June morning this year, when we learnt of the sudden passing of Pala in Melbourne.

In these last 12 months as President I have been touched by the support and hard work of my fellow 20 Council members and I am also grateful for the service of each member of the Society who served either on one of our 28 standing committees or on one of our several ad-hoc committees.

The work of Council and of our committees, as volunteers, goes unnoticed and many a time is done quietly. Our volunteers give of themselves simply from the desire to serve and to make a difference.

Some of you know that all my professional life I have practised and continue to practise as a corporate lawyer. I have long admired the corporate culture of embracing best practices and adopting good corporate governance rules to adapt to rapidly changing technological, economic and social conditions. I believe that as a profession and also as the Law Society, we can adapt and use the tools of the corporate world to help meet the wide ranging challenges faced by the legal profession.

I am therefore proud to have been President when we launched on 11 December 2003, our own voluntary quality mark for law practices which would be our best practice standard for the profession.

I am confident that many of our law practices, regardless of size, would step forward in the new year to make the commitment to promote excellence as a standard for our profession and reap the benefits of increased profitability and efficiency that better managed practices achieve as they are better equipped to deliver client care and manage risk.

It has been an honour for me to serve as President and I must thank many members for their letters, cards and e-mails of friendship, support and encouragement during my term as President.

My best wishes to all of you for a happy and healthy 2004.

Arfat Selvam
President
Law Society of Singapore