LEGAL SERVICES IN THE 1990s

• Citation: (1990) 2 SAcLJ 168
• Published date: 01 December 1990
• Date: 01 December 1990

If you will look at the skeleton at the beginning of your pack you will see what I am trying to do in the time alloted to me. I can only say — think of me as a computer. You switch on, you get a menu. This is the menu for today. All I can do at this stage is to be a curtain raiser to set an agenda for thought and discussion for today’s proceedings. I should mention that this skeleton has been settled jointly in consultation with V K Rajah and Tan Kay Bin. After it was settled, they decided that they had something to add. So I shall try and get through this as fast as I can to leave them sufficient time to say what they want.

The President has already referred to the sweeping changes that are about to take place in England; the Green Paper, the White Paper and the Courts and Legal Services Bill. In my view most of the proposals that have come before the British public are not yet relevant for our legal system. The discussion which has engendered so much controversy with regard to licensed advocates and so on have no relevance for us at this stage. There are other things which do have relevance for us, for example their discussion about advertising, multi-disciplinary and multi-national partnerships, but the real significance of the English developments is that they show that no practice,however venerable, is sacrosanct. There are no sacred cows, and we must constantly be reviewing our rules and practices to see if they are still valid in today’s world. Perhaps they are, but our profession will be on stronger ground if our principles are constantly retested against changing circumstances.

In reviewing our practices, I suggest that the questions to be asked are these. The essential question will be: how we meet the changing demands of our clients? Can we give clients what they want? If not,why not? If the reason is an existing rule of practice, can that rule of practice be easily justified not only to ourselves, but to the client? If it does not make sense and if the words that would justify the practice sound hollow in our mouths, then it is time to look at it again. But if the reason is something endemic in ourselves then how can we address this defect?

Let me suggest very quickly some areas which it will pay us to look at in the coming years. The question has been posed: do we generalise or do we specialise? In the old days what practitioners in Singapore used to do was to specialise out of certain subjects. For example they might not do crime, they might not do matrimonial, they might not do runners but they would do everything else. Unfortunately, that day has passed. Certainly in medium and larger size firms specialisation is inevitable although I

personally regret it, and I will now suggest some of the possible topics that will be growth areas for the 1990s — they are set out not in order of importance, but alphabetically.

First, Building Contracts. The building industry is still burgeoning and new legal concepts need to be mastered such as turnkey and build-operatetransfer (BOT) contracts.

Second, and this I think is the real growth area of the 1990’s, Commercial Crime — otherwise known as CAD law.

Third, Commodities Law: we are talking about SIMEX, futures trading and commodity contracts.

Fourth, Computer Law: I need say no more about that.

Fifth, Energy Law, which might need a little more explanation: we are living in an area where oil exploration, refining and trading are all very active. Potentially, this is an important growth area. For example, LAWASIA has a separate Energy Law Section which our members are free to join.

Next, Financial Law. If Singapore is going to be a financial centre, expertise in Financial Law will be vital to its success. I emphasise the term Financial Law to highlight that this is more than just Banking Law; we are talking about the law of company finance, financial instruments like NIF’s, RUF’s, Swaps and so on.

On another plane, Intellectual Property is going to be of great importance in the coming years. We are soon to see a Patents Bill, which will introduce an independent regime of Patent Law into Singapore. We will also see the introduction of Service Marks legislation. Copyright Law is already developing, so there are whole new areas of law which it will pay us to get involved in and will be important, not only for our clients, but for our professional development.

Insolvency will be another important area. There are plans for an Insolvency Bill, which will introduce a comprehensive regime for the whole law of Insolvency. This will not only be...