Manning the Tiller

This is abridged from the speech delivered by the President at the Society’s annual Dinner and Dance on 
4 November 2006.

The President’s speech¹ provided us with fascinating stories of encounters with the law, in Muar and in Singapore. Council will look into the many thought-provoking observations and heart-felt exhortations, and act if we can.

The annual Dinner and Dance is the premier event in the legal profession’s social calendar. It is an opportunity for the Bar to honour the Bench, to show our appreciation to old friends in government, in the Attorney-General’s Chambers and in the faculty, and to build ties with other professions in Singapore, and with legal professions elsewhere. This year we are especially pleased to have Ms Angeline Lee, the new President of the Singapore Corporate Counsel Association, here with us.

I have spoken a lot over the last three years about the virtues of civility. By this I mean showing respect to those with whom we deal professionally, even if they are on the opposing side. But tonight I would like to talk about two other virtues, camaraderie and courage. Camaraderie is to civility what interaction is to tolerance. In Singapore we have a good deal of racial and religious tolerance, but we could do more to promote and sustain interaction. Similarly, in our profession 
I would like to think that the virtue of civility is alive and well, despite going through some severe bouts of illness over the years. In particular, I am always impressed by the politeness of our young lawyers. When I first came into the profession, and had my first encounters with some of the legends of old I could hardly believe the ferocity and distemper of their language. That’s long gone, and in general lawyers are more temperate and considered. But there is more to do, and it involves going beyond civility to camaraderie. Beyond respect for opponents to empathy and fellow feeling.

The profession has gone through a difficult eight years since the collapse of the property market with the Asian crisis. Some lawyers have had great difficulty in finding reasonable fee-paying work. While the need to pay bills is not an excuse, it is a fact that some of the recent breaches of professional conduct stem from these trying and changing economic circumstances.

The Society has actively and firmly engaged with the banks, in an attempt to make the playing field fairer for the profession. We have had some success, as they have come to understand the long-term damage that a short-term race to the bottom 
can do.

But there is another problem we need to tackle. There are individuals out there who purport to offer legal services. They are not lawyers, but pretend to be lawyers of a sort. They use misleading stationery, and somehow build up networks that bring them clients. Unfortunately, our complaints to the authorities about them in some cases have not resulted in prosecutions, perhaps because these guys are very clever in how they operate.² But the problem has reached a level where we must do more ourselves, and I will be asking Council to authorise private prosecutions, if need be, or perhaps hire private investigators to turn up more evidence for the authorities to act on. We will have two prongs with which to go after them – one on the supply side and one on the demand side. On the supply side, we are going to see if we can justify more prosecutions, if we can gather enough evidence. On the demand side, I believe that the efforts we are making – which will be greatly expanded in the next year – to reach out to people who cannot afford lawyers, will help to reduce the pool of desperate and needy persons on whom unauthorised purveyors of legal services prey. That is one among many reasons why those in the profession who can afford to do so must assume a greater pro bono burden, in partnership and cooperation with government.

In addition we are strengthening and revamping our pastoral care programmes. And of course multiplying our social events.

All of these measures spring from empathy, and the importance of camaraderie.

It is precisely because I know that many in the profession have had a tough time that I have been so moved by the overwhelming support for the increase in members’ subscriptions that was resolved on at the AGM. I was of course pleased that lawyers with thriving practices saw the value in the Society as a representative body so as to justify the increase, but I was deeply touched by the number of not so well-off lawyers who spoke to me to lend their support to the work of Council. And to express their willingness to part with an extra hard-earned $100 a year to strengthen the Society.

Let me end with a story about courage, the other virtue that I promised to talk about. It comes from the year 1872, and concerns James Guthrie Davidson, then the principal partner of the firm that bears his name to this day and to which I am proud to belong. He was also at that time the Leader of the Singapore Bar. The story is told by the young Frank Swettenham, on his first tour of duty in the East. A Chinese headman was being tried for the abduction of a young Chinese girl. Davidson was defending him, and convinced of his client’s innocence, set off for Kuala Lumpur in search of the rival gang that he believed had kidnapped the girl and smuggled her out of relatively prosperous and orderly Singapore. Swettenham describes KL as just two rows of attap houses under the sway of Kapitan China Yap Ah Loi. It was a murderous and lawless place in those days, nothing like the grand metropolis it is today, and Swettenham even encounters a dead body – with a single gunshot wound to its chest – in one of the huts. On their return, the last leg of which is by boat, they hit a bigger Chinese ship, and are soundly abused by its crew. Swettenham ends with this punchline – ‘Davidson did not even look around to see what was happening; as he held the tiller, and was leader of the Singapore Bar, I saw no cause for worry.’

Members of the Bar, that old Davidson spirit walks among us – the Singapore lawyer cares so much about work and clients that we go out of our way to fight for them, at personal cost to ourselves. This is a lawyerly virtue that we must cherish. Its survival depends on the guaranteed independence of the Bar, which is a value implicit in Singapore’s constitutional arrangements. A strong Law Society is the greatest guarantee of that independence. Council holds the tiller, and while Council does so, do not worry.

Thank you once again, President, for honouring us with your presence. And thank you all for coming. Remember, tonight is a night for feasting and friendship, for courting and dancing. I see a lot of young lawyers out there – good night and good luck!

Philip Jeyaretnam, SC

President

Notes

1    President S R Nathan’s speech is reproduced on 
page 13.

2    There have been some successful prosecutions by CAD following information referred by the Society, most recently in December 2005.

The Law Society of Singapore