Speech by Senior Minister of State for Law, Indranee Rajah, during the Committee of Supply Debate 2017

3 Mar 2017 Posted in Parliamentary speeches and responses

Madam Chairman,

1. I will address the rest of the Members’ cuts.

1. Ensure quality and sufficient legal industry manpower

2. To ensure that our legal industry continues to be vibrant and competitive internationally, the key stakeholders of the industry must actively embrace disruptive change and grasp the opportunities at hand. These include the private practitioners, in-house counsel, and law students.

3. The Working Group on Legal and Accounting Services under the Committee on the Future Economy which I co-chaired with Mr Chaly Mah was set up to identify growth areas and develop strategies for the legal sector’s growth and development.

4. The Working Group report will be released next month. It contains several key recommendations to position the Singapore legal and accounting services sector for the future, in particular the need to :
   1. build thought leadership through driving standards and research; and
   2. equip legal professionals to be future-ready through deepening skillsets and industry expertise.

5. MinLaw will be working closely with the legal industry to achieve the outcomes envisaged in the recommendations.

6. Let me elaborate on our efforts in capability building.
   1. Last year, we established the UniSIM School of Law to address the projected shortage of family and criminal practitioners in Singapore.
      1. It took in its first cohort of 60 students in January 2017.
      2. 80% of the cohort are mature students with work and life experience and seeking a mid-career switch to law. Their experience will stand them in good stead to deal with the emotional demands of family and criminal law.
      3. To help these mature Singaporean students who are not eligible for MOE’s tuition grant defray part of the tuition fees, we introduced the MinLaw-UniSIM Study Award. There are 3 award recipients this year.
      4. The UniSIM law school curriculum is practice-oriented to better prepare the students for practice when they graduate.
   2. We also want to develop future-ready legal professionals who will be able to pursue the new opportunities that will arise in high-growth areas while leveraging new technology and innovation.
   3. Dr Tan Wu Meng spoke about the need for our lawyers to possess cross-disciplinary skills and expertise. We agree. This is important, especially in today’s increasingly complex business environment. To provide holistic advice, lawyers must have deep knowledge of their business and industries. This can be achieved through a more multi-disciplinary and practice-oriented law curriculum, as well as targeted efforts in continuing professional development.
      1. For example, the UniSIM School of Law has a multi-disciplinary curriculum where law students learn not only the law, but also have electives in social work, counselling, psychology, forensics and criminology.
      2. We will get feedback from the industry on the skills needed by young lawyers, study international best practices in legal education, and work closely with NUS, SMU and UniSIM to update their law curriculum to better prepare our law graduates for the future economy.
      3. Some of our law students have already taken the first step towards developing such multi-disciplinary and practice-oriented skills.
         1. For example, a common interest in legal technology and innovation led a group of NUS students to start a ground-up initiative, called “Alt+Law”.
         2. This initiative aspires to change the legal industry by exploring technological solutions for lawyers’ tasks.
         3. This informal group, which includes Computer Science and Engineering students, hopes to use data analysis to supplement expert opinion for lawyers, policy-makers and clients in areas such as sentencing guidelines.
         4. These are the types of innovative and cross-disciplinary efforts that we must cultivate and encourage.
      4. There are also programmes on leadership and management, such as the SAL-INSEAD Law Firm Leadership Programme, as well as specialist knowledge in the identified growth areas.

7. Another significant group in the legal industry are the in-house counsel.

8. We note Mr Patrick Tay’s suggestion for us to develop the talent pool of in-house counsel in Singapore and for a mandatory competency framework.

9. We agree that there should be continued efforts to develop the in-house sector.
   1. We have been working closely with EDB to promote Singapore as a choice location for Regional and Global headquarters, including in-house counsel teams.
      1. Based on a study of Fortune Global 500 employment in corporate functions by Aon, Singapore had more in-house legal employees than Hong Kong and Shanghai in 2014.
      2. We are actively encouraging companies to anchor their decision makers with global or regional mandate in Singapore. This includes the in-house legal functions.
   2. We also encourage in-house counsel to continuously raise the standards of practice in their community.
   1. To this end, we will continue to work with the relevant stakeholders to make available programmes to help in-house counsel develop the appropriate skillsets and competencies to carry out their jobs well.
   2. MinLaw will also monitor the progress and adoption of SCCA’s competency framework, with a view towards revisiting the issue of whether competency framework should be made mandatory in the future, taking into consideration the developments in the in-house counsel space.

2. Enhancing Access to Justice

10. Several members filed cuts relating to enhancing access to justice. Access to justice is extremely important. The best laws and the best courts will be of little effect if the ordinary citizen has no access to them. My Ministry is working closely with the Judiciary, the Law Society and other stakeholders to enhance access to justice, especially for the man-in-the-street, by:
    1. ensuring legal aid and pro bono advice are available to those who need it; and
    2. providing mechanisms to help resolve community disputes.

1. Legal Aid, Pro Bono Advice and Awareness

11. Let me address the Government-funded legal aid, pro bono legal advice, and legal awareness.

12. The Legal Aid Bureau provides civil legal aid to less-privileged Singaporeans who pass the means and merits test.
    1. The means test framework is regularly reviewed to allow persons of limited means to qualify for legal aid.
       1. In 2013, the qualifying criteria was updated to allow approximately 25 per cent of Singapore citizens and permanent residents to qualify for legal aid, up from about 17 per cent previously.
       2. This translated to about 300,000 additional Singapore citizens and permanent residents who can potentially qualify for legal aid.
    2. In response to Mr Louis Ng’s and Mr Murali Pillai’s queries, the discretion to depart from the general means test already exists for certain vulnerable groups of people, such as those who face hardship or who are involved in certain family proceedings, to qualify for legal aid.
       1. In 2007, we amended the means test criteria to help persons facing hardship, such as sudden mental or physical disabilities, or the sudden loss of income.
       2. In 2013, we amended the means test criteria for persons in family proceedings involving children or protection orders, in order to protect the most vulnerable persons in family disputes.
    3. We will continue to review and update the means test framework and qualifying criteria to ensure access to justice for people who cannot afford to hire their own lawyer. This includes considering whether additional discretion should be granted to the Director of Legal Aid or other authority for exceptional cases.
    4. Mr de Souza asked specifically about legal aid for probate matters.
       1. First, legal aid is available for such matters, if the applicant qualifies.
       2. Second, if the estate value does not exceed $50,000, the next-of-kin can apply to the Public Trustee to administer the estate, subject to the fulfilment of certain criteria.
       3. Third, for estates exceeding $50,000, the next-of-kin may engage a lawyer to assist in the estate administration, and the costs of doing so can be recovered from the estate.

13. Criminal legal aid is available under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme (“CLAS”) run by the Law Society’s Pro Bono Services Office.
    1. Since the launch of enhanced CLAS in 2015, when the Government started directly funding CLAS, the number of CLAS applicants has increased significantly.
       1. CLAS received 2,308 applications in 2016 compared to 1,780 applications in 2014, before the Government started directly funding CLAS.
       2. All 2,308 accused persons who applied to CLAS in 2016 received basic legal advice, of which 1,373 also received full representation or legal services not involving court attendance.
       3. This is a threefold increase compared to 2014, where only 431 accused persons received full representation.
    2. More applicants are being helped because of the increased coverage of enhanced CLAS, such as under the Moneylenders Act. For example there was an elderly lady charged with assisting illegal moneylending because she was tricked into letting a stranger access her bank account. She was assigned a lawyer by CLAS, who was ultimately able to get her charges dropped.
    3. From December last year, we have provided additional funding to hire two CLAS Advocates, to strengthen the scheme.
    4. I am encouraged by the strong partnership and support from law firms for CLAS.
       1. Several law firms have taken on a significant number of CLAS cases. Many lawyers have generously waived their honoraria.
       2. The largest 5 law firms in Singapore have also supported the CLAS Fellowship scheme since its inception.
    5. I hope law firms will continue to support CLAS and take on more cases on a regular basis, to enhance access to justice.

14. Other than Government-funded legal aid, pro bono basic legal advice is also provided at many legal clinics across Singapore. There are also family, civil and criminal legal clinics run at the State and Family Courts.

15. The Law Society also has various schemes aimed at promoting legal awareness. These include general legal awareness talks, as well as the annual Law Awareness Week programmes.

2. Community justice

16. On community justice, we have put in place mechanisms to help resolve community disputes.
    1. Our Community Mediation Centre has a good track record of mediating disputes within our community.
    2. Disputes can also be resolved at the Community Disputes Resolution Tribunals (“CDRT”) and the Small Claims Tribunals (“SCT”).
    3. The Protection from Harassment Act (“POHA”) provides for simplified Court procedures and Court forms for Protection Order applications.

17. Mr Tay spoke about our initiatives in this area.
    1. The issue of increasing the SCT’s jurisdiction is currently under review by my Ministry and the State Courts.
    2. To update on POHA, as of 31 January 2017, 268 applications for Protection Orders have been filed since it took effect on 15 November 2014. These include applications by victims of sexual, workplace and online harassment.
       1. Out of the 96 Protection Orders granted, 59 were granted by consent. 99 applications for Protection Orders were withdrawn.
       2. 77 Expedited Protection Orders have also been granted.
       3. 18 Magistrate’s Complaints have been filed for alleged breach of a Protection Order or Expedited Protection Order.
       4. Out of the 46 applications referred to mediation at the State Courts Centre for Dispute Resolution, 23 were successfully settled. 5 are pending completion of mediation.

3. Event-triggered fee arrangements

18. Finally, on event-triggered fee arrangements which Mr de Souza asked about.

19. MinLaw and the SAL are studying this. There are some important considerations.
    1. There are different types of event-triggered fee arrangements. Each has its own pros and cons.
       1. In contingency fee arrangements, the lawyer shares in an agreed percentage of the sum recovered by the client where the claim is successful.
          1. On the one hand, there is certainty upfront as the lawyer’s fees are directly tied to the amount the client recovers.
          2. But on the other, the lawyer’s fees have no co-relation to the work done. The lawyer could receive a large sum of money for a short trial, or a small sum for a protracted trial.
       2. In conditional fee arrangements, the lawyer receives payment of his legal fees only if the claim is successful. The arrangement may also allow for an uplift of fees in the event of success.
          1. For such arrangements, the lawyer’s fees are based on the amount of work done for the client.
          2. But it also means that there is less certainty upfront about the fees that could be incurred.
    2. There are also other considerations regarding event-triggered fee arrangements. For example:
       1. Whether such arrangements give rise to a potential conflict of interest, as the lawyer has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the litigation.
       2. Whether they may increase frivolous litigation, or raise litigation costs.
    3. Different countries have adopted different models.

20. We need to carefully assess these considerations to propose the framework which is most suitable for Singapore.

3. Conclusion

21. Thank you.

Last updated on 03 Mar 2017