LawEddie.com

This Article is reproduced in this blog with permission from it’s original writer Lee Shih, and the article itself is extracted from Loyarburok website.

By Lee Shih

Recent changes to the Singapore Bar admission requirements have made it easier for foreign lawyers to get admitted to practice law in Singapore. Here are the requirements Malaysian lawyers need to meet.

This first-part will set out in some detail the process in which a Malaysian lawyer can get admitted to the Singapore Bar. Due to the various rule changes over the years, with different admission standards applying for different years, it will focus mainly on younger lawyers who obtained their law degrees after 1997.

Part 2 will then shift to a different perspective where we get to learn about the personal experience of a LoyarBurokker who recently sat for the Singapore Bar examinations.

Increasingly, Singapore seems to be the port of choice for many Malaysian lawyers to practice in. There are many factors attracting Malaysians over, including higher pay and the opportunity to gain better exposure to higher level work.

In the past, the most common route to work in Singapore was to find a position as a foreign lawyer. This allowed a lawyer to work at Singapore law firms but without the need to be admitted to the Singapore Bar. Strictly speaking, as a foreign lawyer, you could advise only on foreign law but in practice, you largely carried out the same duties as a Singapore qualified lawyer but without the ability to attend Court or to sign off on documents or opinions. Some of the drawbacks of being a foreign lawyer were that in most cases, you would draw a lower pay than a Singapore qualified lawyer and your promotion prospects may also be affected.

While many Malaysians do still go over to Singapore to work as foreign lawyers, there have now been some recent changes to the admission requirements which make it easier to get admitted to the Singapore Bar.

PREREQUISITES

Even before you consider taking the Singapore Bar examinations, you will need to see if you satisfy certain prerequisites, and if you don’t meet these requirements, then you need to plan and see if you can apply for exemptions.

Broadly, to get called to the Singapore Bar, you need to satisfy 3 requirements:

1. Satisfy the requirements of being a “qualified person” – more on this below.
2. Complete the Part B Singapore Bar exams. The Part B is similar in some respects to the Bar Vocational Course or Certificate of Legal Practice, in that it focuses on more procedural law.
3. Complete a 6-month training contract at a Singapore law firm. This is similar to pupillage.

I will explain more on these 3 requirements below and how the most important threshold to cross is that of being a “qualified person.”
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As previously mentioned in my another post about attending the Advocates Asia Conference 2010, below is the report written by Min Choon (the chairman of Advocates Asia) about the said event.

It has been the practice of AA to have annual conferences. The last AA conference was held in Sri Lanka in 2007. There was no AA conference in 2008 due to the Global Convocation in Washington DC in October 2008. In 2009, the original host, Jordan, informed the AA Board in January 2009 that they could not host. Korea offered to step in but in April 2009 informed the Board that they too were unable to host. In June 2009, Malaysia agreed to host but after a few months of preparation Malaysia said that it did not have enough time to organize a conference and requested for a postponement to the following year.

The conference was eventually held at the Cititel Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 1-2 October 2010. Before the conference, there was a certain amount of uncertainty as to the support for the conference in the present worldwide economic climate and rising airfares. However, we praise God for 140 registered delegates out of which about 85 were international delegates. The Asian countries represented at the 2010 Conference were Korea, Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Jordan and Malaysia. Non-Asian countries represented were Russia, Nigeria, Switzerland, Australia, United Kingdom and United States.
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I am going to Sabah to attend the B2.0 Bloggers + New Media Dialogue (“the Forum”) as one of the guest speakers.

This Forum is organised by borneocolours.com. It will be a great platform for bloggers to get together to explore and exchange ideas on the new media landscape especially in Borneo.

The organiser has reserved a flight ticket for me to depart on 28 October from KL so that I am able to attend the Preview Dinner with Sabahan Bloggers on the same night.

The Forum officially started on 29 Oct 2010 as early as 9am till 6pm. My speech will be given at 11.30am which entitled “Blogging Limitation – Law & Ethics”. You can see the full programme here.

The next day, 30 Oct 2010, will be a fun and exciting day whereby the participants will be going for whitewater river rafting and paintball game. As for me, I guess I will be looking forward for the paintball game which I have never played before. In conjunction of this event, the organiser will also hold the Borneo Bloggers Award Dinner (is it something like Oscar’s Award for bloggers?! hehehe) in the evening.

If you are keen to attend this Forum, below are the details of the tickets or you may visit borneocolours.com for more info:
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Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Advocates Asia is proud to inform you that the ASIA ADVOCATES CONFERENCE 2010 will be held on the 1st and 2nd October 2010 at The Cititel Hotel Mid Valley, Mid Valley City, Lingkaran Syed Putra, 59200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Conference theme: JUSTICE-CONNECT TO GOD’S CALL.

Venue: The Cititel Hotel, located at MidValley MegaMall, Kuala Lumpur

Date: 1 & 2 October 2010 (9am – 5pm)

Speakers: Legal professionals from various Asian countries, UK & US.

Conference programme: please visit www.advasia.org
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As stated in my previous post, I was invited to speak in the Asian Bloggers and Social Media Conference 2010 on 30 July 2010.

I was the 1st speaker of Day 2 programme. I arrived around 8.15am and there were no delegates yet.

As usual, it will be helpful for me to get a feel of look from the stage.

My speech started at 9.00am.

I was given the topic of “Blogging and the Law: Where Should Bloggers Draw the Boundary with their Content?”

During my introduction, I pointed out that internet is not a legal vacuum, namely wrongdoings / misconducts in cyberworld are also subject to the relevant laws.

I also analyzed the legal risk faced by a bloggers as oppose to journalist.

“…The difference between a blogger and the reporter at local newspaper is that in many cases, bloggers may not have the benefit of training or sufficient resources to help them to determine whether what they write is legal or illegal.

And also due to the fact that blogging is comparatively new, there are not many cases decided on the legal issues involving blogging activities. Moreover, many such issues are yet to be tested in court.
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