Please, No More Peas!

This was the President’s speech delivered at the Law Society’s Annual Dinner and Dance, held on 25 September 2004 at the Marriott Hotel.

Just as childhood shapes men and women, the early years of an organisation shape it too.

In childhood, we acquire good things and bad: our prejudices, our habits, our values. Sometimes it is hard to know whether something that we do automatically, without thought, is truly a value or just an old habit. In my case, I was brought up to believe that I had to eat up everything on my plate — think of the starving millions in Africa, was the exhortation. Being a rather obedient child, I thought of them, considered the possibility of putting what was before me — peas perhaps, or some other green vegetable for which I have no particular fondness — in an envelope and posting it off, but having so thought, and always being alive to subtext, proceeded nonetheless to polish off what was on my plate. I carried this practice into marriage and middle age, until my wife finally persuaded me that this was just a habit, it did not represent any enduring or fundamental value or principle of living, and all that it was doing was widening my girth and probably shortening my life.

We too in The Law Society need to revisit the prejudices, habits and values of our formative years, and re-consider whether what is enshrined in our regulations are values that must be kept and reinforced, or just old habits, which should be swept away.

Last week, I was standing outside the facilities on the second level of the Supreme Court Building — the one with a urinal and a water closet and a sink and all so close together that the Bar has not yet been able to make up its mind whether professional etiquette permits two or three users at a time — or just one. I noticed, by the way, last week that the journalists were quite happy to crowd in, but that the lawyers were rather more sniffy — for want of a better word. So, anyway, in the queue outside, a lawyer said to me ‘President’ — which is always a bad sign; people normally call me ‘Philip’ unless they have a complaint to make, in which case it’s ‘President’, usually intoned in a deeper than normal voice – ‘why is the Law Society promoting gambling?’ It took me a moment to realise he was talking about this evening, and our Monte Carlo theme, and then I rather feebly said, ‘I think it’s just meant to be a fun night out’. And then thankfully the door opened and he went in to the cramped room and I chose not to follow him — as an aside, may I just say how much the Bar is looking forward to improved facilities at the new Building next year!

Well, gambling is another thing that was anathema in my childhood. You must earn what you get. But it seems that Singapore is changing in this respect, or perhaps the law is coming closer to the mood and habits of its people, and giving up the aim of reforming cultural values in this regard at least.

Let me come back to what the Law Society is doing. We have reviewed all of our regulations in the past few months and will continue with this review in consultation with our members. We want to remove rules which only serve to hamper practice. It is important to give members choice in how they structure their business. But we also want to reinforce values that must remain part and parcel of law as a profession.

Coincidentally, I was cheered to read in the papers today the comments of a former Council member, now sitting on the Bench, about the importance of separate representation in conveyancing transactions. This is something we have long advocated over the years, and in general been met by the point that clients prefer lower costs to lower risks, and that consumer choice (or should I say Bankers’ choice) trumps this concern of the profession. To counter this, we have worked over the last six months on a paper on separate representation, and it will be presented to Council next week.

Where we are looking to liberalise is in removing the restriction against holding of executive directorships, and in bringing the naming of law firms in line with the naming of law corporations. So perhaps one day we will catch up with law firms in China with such inspiring names as Shining Bright Law Firm or Goddess of Mercy Law Firm.

We are also looking at the rules on sharing of fees with non-qualified persons — the balancing act here is how to permit arrangements which are good for the public while continuing to prohibit touting. One model is the UK’s where there can now be fee-sharing arrangements with certain other professionals and institutions so long as these are disclosed to the client. And we are also considering whether there should be reform in the area of conditional fees.

As I have already said, members will be consulted on these proposed changes before final recommendations are made.

I would like to end by thanking all those who have made tonight possible, especially Siva and David and the entire Social and Welfare Committee; Jimmy Yim for lending us his dear and wonderfully talented wife, Cynthia; the Fabulous Barker Girls, who are truly icons of all that’s best in our profession; and the incomparable Ja, who is an icon of Singapore.

Philip Jeyaretnam, SC

President

The Law Society of Singapore