More than 100 of you attended a dialogue session held on 27 January 2003 to discuss fees after the abolition of scale fees. There were concerns expressed of the public’s erroneous perception that conveyancing work involved mere form filling with little professional skill and time involved. Some of you spoke candidly of your fears that a few members of the Bar may lower fees to unrealistic levels that would sadly propagate this wrong impression.

Some suggested setting voluntary fee guidelines by reference to a simple formula that the public could understand. Others were concerned that the guidelines may be honoured in their breach rather than observance.

In a survey carried out with members who attended the session, we asked the question if you would support a voluntary scale set by the Law Society. From the 94 returned survey responses, 85 of you supported the idea of voluntary fee guidelines set by the Law Society.

Another important comment made at the dialogue session was if the Law Society would consider the issue of separate representation for mortgagors and mortgagees. This is an equally important matter, which Council will give careful consideration to.

The session was extremely constructive and gave the Council and myself much to think about and debate, which we did on 14 February 2003. The Council, together with representatives of the Conveyancing Practice Committee, discussed the views aired at this dialogue session. We also debated if the Council should issue voluntary fee guidelines and if such guidelines would assist the consumer and profession to find their way about in the early days after abolition of scale fees.

The Council accepted the recommendation of the Committee that we issue guidelines for standard types of conveyancing work. Guidelines would assist the public to be aware of what is a ‘fair and reasonable’ fee to pay their lawyer for the work he does. For the profession, they would set benchmarks of what is fair compensation for the time, skill and effort you put in to provide competent and diligent service to your clients. Given the spirit of the 2003 Remuneration Order, our guidelines are not mandatory.

As lawyers we all know that we have a duty to ensure our client clearly understands the time and skill required to prepare documentation, settle the terms of a contract and carry out legal checks that make up the basic core of what we do as real property lawyers. It is our duty to explain to our clients the professional skill and risk we undertake in each transaction, so that our clients understand the value of our professional work and why we price our services this way.

The fervent hope of the Council is that we all stand Tall and United in complying with these guidelines which came into effect on 1 March 2003, confident that we need to be remunerated fairly for the professional services that we provide to our clients.

Arfat Selvam
President
Law Society of Singapore