SG Legal Profession Flashcards
Overview:
Liberalisation of SLS
Floodgates were not simply opened, entry was measured and managed.
Reflected the need to mediate between competing interests i.e., those of law practices themselves and the strategic needs of SG’s economy, the latter being the need to realign the legal sector to better support the financial sector and, later, to grow the legal sector into a key provider of legal services to the international economy.
Seen in this light, one can better understand schemes such as the JLV, FLA and QFLP.
Overview:
JLV / FLA
- JLV and FLA institutionalised the conditions within which knowledge could be transferred from offshore firms to onshore firms. Essential to better equip onshore firms to compete in the global mkt for legal services.
- JLV and FLA did not enable offshore firms to compete with their onshore counterparts but only to cooperate with them.
- Key reasons JLV and FLA schemes did not take off initially was because of the lack of sufficient self-interest in effecting the knowledge transfer and this was later rectified by enhancing profit sharing and tax rates.
- Eventually and perhaps inevitably, the domestic legal market had to be open to competition from offshore firms. The removal of domestic monopoly and the provision of legal services (aka competition) was explained as the only way to ensure that local firms became competitive. Local firms had been bracing themselves for this eventuality (e.g. push by bigger local firms to regionalise and internationalise).
- Opps presented to cooperate with would-be competitors with mechanisms like JLV and FLA helped. Onshore firms were given ~10yrs to prepare themselves for SLS opening up. Their reaction to what the QFLP scheme represents vindicates Govt’s decision to liberalise SLS.
Overview:
Liberalisation was not total
Liberalisation was measured and some fields remained closed off. The key reason amongst others was that there was no pressing necessity to open these fields up.
This fact ought to make clear that it was an inexorable necessity to open the legal sector up to competition and the only issues that were left to them to decide was to manage the cost of liberalisation and to ensure that local stakeholders would at the end of it come out on top of things.
Bodies governing the legal profession:
Law Society
- Essentially a self-governing body in charge of (a) maintaining and improving the conduct and learning of its members; and (b) representing, protecting, and assisting its members to render assistance to members of the public in all areas of the law.
- Membership is required by all all practicing lawyers.
- By compulsory vote, it elects 15 members annually to the council and the council thereafter elects from within a P and 2 VPs.
Legal Profession Act sets out both the functions of the Law Society and how it can regulate its members. - 2 crucial powers the council had until the 2014 amendments included:
(1) ability to make rules guiding the conduct of lawyers; and
(2) oversight over the breach of those rules.
The Council determined how the members organised themselves not only in terms of professional practice and etiquette, but also regarding accounting practices.
Lawyers wishing to set up law corporations could only do so with the council’s consent and in such a manner as it prescribed. - These functions have, through Nov 2014 amendments to the LPA, now been vested in the Legal Services Regulatory Authority (LSRA) and Professional Conduct Council (PCC).
Bodies governing the legal profession:
Singapore Academy of Law
- Established by statute in 1998 and officially opened in 1990. Structurally, SAL is led by a senate consisting of the CJ as its president, AG, Supreme Court judges, Law Society Pres, deans of NUS and SMU, and 9 other members appointed by the CJ.
- Intended as platform for the legal fraternity to “enrich and enhance the knowledge and dev of the law in SG through the sharing of experiences and expertise”. Most notable in the promotion and dissemination of legal research and scholarship, vocational training, continuing legal education and promoting cordial relationship between its members.
- Every qualified lawyer of the SG bar is obliged to join, incl judges, notaries, in-house counsels, etc. regardless of whether they hold PCs.
- SAL has evolved into a comprehensive legal service provider, with 14 specialised sub-comms which involve themselves in every possible area of the law, from legal heritage to the promotion of SG law abroad. Also acts as the regulating body for commissioners of oath and notary public and the appointing authority for senior counsels and the safeguard of stakeholder monies in legal transactions in SG.
Bodies governing the legal profession:
Legal Services Regulatory Authority
- Dept of the Ministry of Law. Took over from the AGC and the Law Society.
Current function is to register and regulate local and offshore law practices in SG including law corporations, JLVs, FLAs, QLFPs. - In addition, has sole authority for licensing non-traditional law practices like legal disciplinary practices.
Regulating supply of lawyers:
Pt I, The Issue - Past Committees’ Actions
- Issue has always been linked to SG economy, particularly the liberalisation of the economy at large.
- Successive committees might have been Vs of their own success. The measures did precisely what they were meant to do, e.g., measures in 1993 which severely restricted SS, and measures in 2005 and 2007 increasing SS. These were done taking into account current and anticipated DD for legal services.
a. But the 1993 Committee could not have anticipated Asian financial crisis nor Govt’s response (i.e. liberalisation) and therefore could not account for extrinsic facts which led to increased demand for lawyers. Could only consider organic growth of the popn and economy and match it with anticipated supply.
b. Similarly, successive comms could not have foreseen 2008 subprime mortgage contagion which spread across the intl financial system, severely dampening global economic growth. They operated in an environment of pent-up demand and acted rationally by loosening the cap. Could not have anticipated the extent to which societal affluence and perceived value of lawyering had on aspiring entrants with the means and motivations of overseas legal education.
Regulating supply of lawyers:
Pt II, The Issue - Delayed Effect of Govt Intervention
- Govt intervention in this area is:
a. based on incomplete information; and
b. delayed (we have the hindsight that previous committees and future committees would not have). - Equally impt is that measures implementing the committee of SS recs are, by their nature, felt only a couple of years down the road. SS-side measures thus constantly play catch up to constant and immediate changes to DD curve. If this is true, there will always be a mismatch in the supply and demand of legal talent so long as govt intervention persists in this manner.
- Shortage of SS coupled with increased DD in liberalised areas resulted in an upward pressure on salaries which was not uniform, resulting in a migration of legal talent within the legal sector. This resulted in the need for a calibrated approach which gave rise to the rec of the setting up of the 3rd law school (an effect of liberalisation).
Regulating supply of lawyers:
Necessary Liberalisation
- Impt to emphasise that liberalisation has to be understood not in terms of desirability but that of necessity.
- Liberalisation had to take place initially in order to support the strategic positioning of SG as an intl financial hub and, later, as that of an intl legal svcs hub. Made econ sense. Part of the price paid for this agenda relates to problems like the oversupply of lawyers.
- Through liberalisation, SG’s legal sector was now in a position to capitalise on the region’s continued and deepening econ integration. That being the case, natural that with each successive comm, whether with regard to SS of lawyers or regulatory framework of the legal sector, the language of their respective reports suggests the implicit acceptance of the price to be paid in return for SG achieving its econ competitiveness. Many of the measures recommended can be viewed as considered attempts to mitigate the harsh consequences of a very necessary liberalisation.
Changing face of the legal profession:
Overview
- Measures intended to place SG lawyers in a better position to capitalise on the opps beyond its limited shores, e.g. changes in local legal curriculum from 2000, emphasising subjects with cross-border or comparative element.
- While legal profession has gone through enormous growth and change since the early 1990s, liberalisation was and is a necessity.
- Opening up the legal sector to comp brought both benefits and costs, not least in relation to SS of lawyers, how the profession is to be regulated, and changes to legal education.
a. Policy recs of comms must continue to be managed efficiently and ultimately on the basis of what is within SG’s strategic goals.
b. Have to continually manage global changes if they are to remain in SG’s best interests and in the best interests of SG’s legal profession.
