Number of foreign lawyers growing faster than local lawyers: Law Society President

Singapore's legal profession is growing steadily in numbers, but at the same time, trends indicate that the number of foreign lawyers is growing faster than its local counterpart. 

Making the point at the opening of the New Legal Year was the newly appointed President of the Law Society of Singapore, Lok Vi Ming. 

The number of lawyers holding practising certificates here has exceeded the four thousand mark for the first time in 2012. 

But between 2007 and 2012, the growth in the number of local lawyers was 27 per cent whilst that of foreign lawyers was 42 per cent. 

So a call was made by Mr Lok for the profession and the Law Society to pull even closer together, and for foreign lawyers to lock hands with their local counterparts in cooperation and integration, and also to act with dignity and decorum, when corresponding with one another when handling cases. 

"We have colleagues and friends who are on the receiving end of pretty harsh letters and pretty harsh language. That's not the way we want to practise. It helps in the resolution of cases for lawyers to be courteous with each other and constructive in their approach and if you write harsh letters, the effect can be fairly agressive and destructive to the resolution of cases."