20 June 2003

De-linking of Practising Certificates
Council was informed that the Society’s insurers were finalising conditions for issuing cover to locum lawyers. The terms of cover as tentatively proposed were presented to Council by the CEO. Council requested that certain terms be relooked at before Council could deliberate on the issue.

Lexcel Practice Management Standards — Knowledge Buy-Out Contract with the Law Society of England and Wales
The contract with the Law Society of England and Wales had been finalised and the agreement would be signed formally later this year when a delegation from the Law Society of England visits Singapore. The Law Society of Singapore had about a year ago begun negotiations to carry out the first knowledge buy-out of the English Practice Management standards called Lexcel. These standards which cover areas such as case management, finance management, forward planning, people management and risk management were developed for the legal profession in England. The knowledge buy-out is financed by a grant from the Society’s Insurance Brokers, Alexander Forbes, from a fund set aside to improve risk management in our law practices.

Law Society’s First Family Day
A concept paper by the relevant sub-committee of the Social and Welfare Committee that would organise the event was discussed. Council noted that the Committee would approach sponsors, subject to the Council’s approval, to help underwrite the event. The event would be held at Sentosa Island on 2 August 2003.

Council’s Mid-Year Workplan Review
The mid-year workplan review had been rescheduled to a date to be confirmed in August. The Law Society’s public relations consultants, Blackie MacDonald, would present the results of the communications audit that they had conducted with 36 members of the Bar.

Presentation by the Continuing Professional Development Committee (‘CPD’)
Mr Thio Shen Yi, Chairman of the CPD Committee, appeared before Council. He advised Council that the objectives of the CPD Committee were to keep all seminars reasonably priced, educate our members, leverage upon the seminars to help our members network with other professions, increase the number of seminars organised and formulate different seminars for different target groups.

The Committee would continue to conduct the ‘Nuts and Bolts’ courses, and expand its scope to cover practical and practice skills topics such as financial and personal management.

Mr Thio also touched on the Society’s e-learning portal and outlined the Committee’s plans to expand the topics on the portal and how marketing and promotional efforts would be stepped up to attract more people to visit our portal.

Proposal for the Law Society’s Law Awareness Project for 2003
Council granted an in-principle approval to the Law Awareness Committee to run the project at two community development councils, which would comprise talks for residents as well as exhibitions. The proposed talks would cover Child and Immigration laws.

Law Society’s Survey on Pro-Bono Work
Council gave its approval for the Law Awareness to conduct a survey amongst members to ascertain their current and projected levels of commitment to do pro bono work for non-governmental bodies involved in charitable causes.

Consultation Paper on Limited Partnerships in Singapore
The Ministry of Finance’s study team on Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Partnerships had sought the Law Society’s feedback on its consultation paper. Council decided to refer the paper to its Corporate Practice and Practice Structures Committees to respectively give their views on the legislation and how these proposed business vehicles could help lawyers in their practice.