NEWS

Law Society’s Inaugural
Primer on Professional
Ethics for Practice Trainees

“Despite the bad rap that lawyers get for being amoral, even immoral, the reality is that no profession obsesses more about morality and ethics than the legal profession.”

- Professor Alan Dershowitz in Letters to a Young Lawyer1

Although Professor Dershowitz’s observation was made in the context of the American legal profession, it is an accurate reflection of what all established law societies in the world try to achieve –the promotion of high ethical standards in the Bar.

High ethical standards are precisely what the Law Society’s Inaugural Primer on Professional Ethics for Practice Trainees (“Primer”) sought to achieve. The one-day Primer is a mandatory course for practice trainees who became “qualified persons” on or after 9 October 2009 under the new practice training contract regime.2 Organised by the Law Society’s Representation and Law Reform Department, the one-day Primer was conducted on 21 and 28 April 2010 for two different groups of practice trainees.

A total of 117 practice trainees participated in the Primer, with a significant percentage of trainees (about 41 per cent) being voluntary participants. The high number of voluntary participants demonstrated that many law practices took professional ethics training seriously and were willing to commit their trainees’ time to the Primer.

The Primer aimed to familiarise practice trainees with the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules and equip them to deal with practical ethical issues arising from different practice settings. The morning segment of the Primer commenced with a general lecture on a solicitor’s ethical obligations by Ms Malathi Das, an experienced practitioner who is a lecturer for the Professional Ethics component in the Law Society’s Legal Practice Management Course and a lecturer and tutor for the Professional Responsibility module at the Postgraduate Practice Law Course. Specific topics covered during the lecture were: conflict of interests, allegations against other solicitors, duty to the Court and duty to third parties.

Next, participants from different law practices worked together in small groups to identify various ethical issues arising from a carefully designed and complex hypothetical problem encompassing both litigation and transactional work. Representatives of each group then engaged in an interactive dialogue with the trainers on whether the relevant party had acted in breach of the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules or any other ethical obligations. The main trainers for this segment were Mr Alvin Chen, the secretary to the Law Society’s Ethics Committee who also teaches the Professional Ethics component in the Law Society’s Legal Practice Management Course and the Professional Responsibility module at the Postgraduate Practice Law Course, and Ms Ong Rui Juan, who practised corporate law with a large law practice for several years before joining the Representation and Law Reform Department. The highlight of the Primer was the role play segment in the afternoon, where participants played the roles of various actors in two ethical dilemmas. In the best traditions of the Bar, the trainees valiantly performed their assigned roles and improvised entertainingly, to the delight of their fellow course mates in the audience, drawing jubilant laughter. Then it was down to serious business as the trainees wrestled with the difficult dilemmas that the protagonist was faced with. Should the lawyer disclose to the Court the fact thathis client’s star witness, who may have an axe to grind, was an ex-employee of the opposing party, even after the witness’s credibility had been destroyed in cross-examination? Should the lawyer tip off his client of an imminent police raid on his client’s premises or simply stand by and do nothing? Based on actual controversial cases in foreign jurisdictions, participants were given the opportunity to exchange views with one another on what they would do in these situations and whether they approved of what the real lawyers actually did. The segment closed with a round-up of the outcome of the actual cases and what the position in Singapore is likely to be.

Finally, in line with the rigorous nature of the Primer, the participants were assessed on their ethical competence based on the learning outcomes of the Primer, with the only reference being the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules. The assessment took the form of a multiple-choice question test with a twist – participants were allowed to write an alternative answer with reasons if they felt that none of the prescribed answers was the best answer. In this way, the participants were able to reflect on the ethical concepts that they had learnt in the earlier segments and articulate their thoughts in writing.

The Primer achieved its objective of raising the practice trainees’ awareness and understanding of their professional ethical obligations in different practice contexts. Feedback from the participants on the Primer was very encouraging and repaid the hard work of the Law Society’s trainers and staff in preparing the course materials and planning the course: “the seminar was very educational and enlightening”, “role play and discussion helped me to grasp the issues quicker”, “practical and engaging course” and “interesting role play”. The trainers were equally impressed with the enthusiasm and diligence of the participants in seriously engaging with the ethical issues raised in the Primer.

Another important aspect of the Primer was that the trainers highlighted to the practice trainees the full range of the Law Society’s support for lawyers seeking ethical guidance, such as the Law Society’s Ethics Committee, the Legal Ethics Database on the Law Society’s website and the “Ethics in Practice” articles published in the Singapore Law Gazette. Moving forward, the Law Society will be exploring more initiatives to help all lawyerswith ethical issues.

On behalf of the Law Society’s trainers, I wish to congratulate all the participants for successfully completing the April 2010 Primer courses. The following participants have been awarded the Honors Roll for scoring the highest marks in the test:

21 April 2010 Primer: Elaine Wong Yee Ling, Marie Sharmila Ravindran and Nicholas Fong

28 April 2010 Primer: Chia Wei Fen Joanne, Durga Devi d/o Thanabal and Loh Jen Vern

Alvin Chen
Director, Representation and Law Reform
The Law Society of Singapore

Notes

1 (United States of America: Basic Books, 2001) at 151.

2 Rule 6(1)(c) of the Legal Profession (Practice Training Period) Rules 2009 read with para 4 of the Guidelines for Practice Training Contracts issued on 4 December 2009.