Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Demand For Law

When a member of a certain profession tries to discourage you from going into the same field, chances are that he is protecting his turf for ulterior motives. The law of supply and demand is immutable, or as Law Minister K Shanmugam pointed out, the juicy starting salaries and annual increment of past years won't last forever. Budding lawyers will have to understand that the market may change based on laws of economics, not fine points of law.

Going by Nominal Value Added, we are told the legal services sector has grown from $1.5 billion in 2009 to an estimate of $2.1 billion last year. It helps when professionals like Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo and Member of Parliament for Chua Chu Kang GRC have no qualms about billing $46,729 to $77,102 for each day in court, and as much as $100,000 per hour of hearing. A friend had a taste of cowboy town when he was quoted $500 for a simple transfer of title for a 2-room flat after his mother passed on. Fortunately someone within the housing board was prepared to do the same paperwork for $38.50.

The total number of lawyers churned annually out by local universities NUS and SMU in the last 3 years range from 334 to 369. The third law school, at SIM University, is expected to take in 50 to 75 students yearly. Compared to the estimated 1,142 Singaporeans reading law in the United Kingdom, one can see a big squeeze ahead if the number of local training contracts fail to absorb the potential flood of applicants.

Then again, not every young legal mind may want to practice law here. Not when we have rulings like it's okay to be found inside a prohibited zone, but not if caught loitering within 200 meters of it. The advantage of an overseas education is that one can be tutored by first world legal expertise, instead of third world partisan practitioners. Hopefully we can look forward to a future generation who will champion the rule of law, instead of rule by law.

16 comments:

  1. Now jialat the PAP Govt must make sure justice is served on Roy before serving justice on KH & Company. Otherwise Roy cannot be guilty of anything if the latter is found not guilty of anything by God.

    But the problem is our PM already accused him of being guilty when he should be presumed innocent and don't want to even give him the benefit of doubt to be tried in a court of law.

    Where is the Rule of the Law in such a straight forward case?

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  2. But I thot Law Minister K Shanmugam was on our side?
    ROFL.

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    1. Shanmugam will be on our side only when the ex wife stands for election in the same GRC and their children campaigning for the mother.... LOL

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    2. How does a lawyer sleep?
      First he lies on one side, and then on the other.

      LMAO

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    3. Q: Why do they bury lawyers under 20 feet of dirt?
      A: Because deep down, they're really good people.

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    4. Q: What do you call a bus full of PAPigs at the bottom of the ocean?
      A: A good start.

      Q: What do you call the one empty seat on the bus?
      A: A wasted opportunity.

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  3. Who's that CJ? Chan??? He is a total disgrace to the law fraternity. Considering the law soc is fragmentary, this looks to be the new normal of Singapore's justice system.

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    1. CJ ? More like Con Job masquerading as chief justice.

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  4. Only M. Ravi can save us. Look at the word "GREED" written on the foreheads of these undergraduates of which Edwin Tong is a prime.

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    1. The PAP has to be given the boot first before Ravi can save us....and he will need plenty of help....from ex judge like M Khoo, etc, ...even Francis Seow, Tan Wah Piow, Tang L H should be persuaded to return to help out. There are just too many kangaroos in the system whom I deem as being a much greater menace than those criminals in Changi resort....and I am sure the criminals themselves will agree with me. What do u think ?

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  5. Don't trust lawyers unless they have gone to jail, then they become vertebrates with backbone. The one famous invertebrate here has been bearing down on us after 50 years. He can twist and turn his way around us, one day a Nip sympathizer, next a socialist who conned the commiies, then a bankster-backed thug taxing us bone-dry. Most lawyers are taught to be like chameleons, no backbone. wat say teo?

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  6. Our Minister has his head so full of laws of jurisprudence, that he now has to be cognizant of other laws, like Murphy's law that says: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong".

    But then all these lawyer wannabes (and practicing lawyers - you know who) are simply following Sutton's law: "Go where the money is". The law is named after bank robber Willie Sutton, who when asked why he robbed banks, is claimed to have answered "Because that's where the money is."

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  7. The US is such a litigious society because lawyers have infiltrated the politics. An average new bill runs into thousands of pages. When bureaucracy and legalese join hands, the losers is the people who cannot afford legal help. For years the medical profession protected its own by finding all sorts of excuses not to increase intake at NUS school of medicine. Today the resistance to increase intake is less apparent, comes in the form of unwillingness to perform lecturing duties amongst those senior practitioners in the public hospitals. We want democracy, but reject elitism. Man's nature is selfish, just ask the doctor who failed to win back Punggol after mango-gate. He calimed to be from humble background, made it thanks mainly to taxpayers' money, but did nothing , zero social work until he was asked why he chose to run for politics, and suddenly he rediscovered his fish-sharing experience to want to help the people. A a brilliantly successful doctor, just like that breat repair surgeon named hen, had they ever taught a day in NUS SoM? People must see this is a natural progression of unfettered elitism, the country can only go down from here if left as it is, like all great civilizations in the past..

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  8. Same goes for doctors as well. Why protect these 2 profession and basically ensure that they will be very well paid for life. Shouldn't "faster, cheaper, betterer" apply to them as well. How are law & med applicants assess in the first place? by a panel from the same profession, there why indirectly ensuring the 2nd gen will have a golden spoon in their mouths. Guanxi (connections) very important. Elites rule the day.

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  9. We don't have to worry about the glut of lawyers. They are trained to tell lies and can easily find alternative employment and become politicians and second-hand car salesmen.

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    1. Hmmm....the PAP has a lot of MPs who are lawyers. What does this imply?

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