I asked him if the lawyer has a duty to uphold the integrity of the legal process. For example, is it all right for a lawyer to act for the client in the following actions?
a) writing a prospectus that is confusing to the public?
b) arranging an investment scheme that defrauds the public?
c) intimidating the public with defamatory action without sufficient grounds?
d) helping the client to draft untrue statements?
e) drafting legal contracts that are unfair to the customers (i.e. possible contravention of the fair trading act)?
My friend found it difficult to answer my questions. The law is not clear on these matters. There are insufficient case history to rely on.
I will be asking the Law Society on these ethical questions. I hope that they can provide some guidance to their members who are practicing lawyers.
Tan Kin Lian
My friend found it difficult to answer my questions. The law is not clear on these matters. There are insufficient case history to rely on.
I will be asking the Law Society on these ethical questions. I hope that they can provide some guidance to their members who are practicing lawyers.
Tan Kin Lian
12 comments:
I wonder if I will ever hear a financial advisor say "The duty of a financial advisor is to protect the best interest of his client".
Singapore lawyers cannot act for both the plaintiff and the defendant. Conflict of interest.
But Singapore property agents can act for both buyers and sellers. Presumably there is no conflict of interest here?
The murderer or rapist has a lawyer to defend in the court.
Is the lawyer doing the morally right time?
A joke to brighten your day:
A very successful lawyer parks his brand-new Lexus in front of his office, ready to show it off to his colleagues. As he gets out, a truck passes too closely and completely rips off the door on the driver's side.
The lawyer immediately grabs his cell phone, dials 911, and within minutes a policeman pulls up. Before the officer has a chance to ask any questions, the lawyer starts screaming hysterically that his Lexus, which he had just bought the day before, is now completely ruined and would never be the same, no matter what the body shop did to it.
When the lawyer finally calms down a bit, the officer shakes his head in disgust and disbelief. "I can't believe how materialistic you lawyers are," he says. "You are so focused on your possessions that you don't notice anything else."
"How can you say such a thing?" asks the lawyer.
The cop replies, "Don't you know that your left arm is missing from the elbow down? It must have been torn off when the truck hit you."
"My God!" screams the lawyer. "Where's my Rolex?!"
Dear Mr Tan,
There is an overriding duty of the lawyer to the court, and to facilitate the legal process.
In helping the client, lawyers are also bound by the legal profession act and professional responsibility rules.
There are clear rules for lawyers available and enough cases (precedents available) to keep young lawyers in training very busy =)
Hope this helps.
Michael
In MAS investigation, has anyone one ask how the group of PROFESSIONAL ADVISORS sold MB to Town Councils that lost $16 million. Some indicators of mis-sold:
i) The presentational material to the TC.
ii) What are TC opinion of the product? Is it the same as the normal retail investors i.e. it is a bond from the 6 big companies.
iii) After LB collapse, did this Professional Advisors told the TC that TC understood the risk as TC has read the Prospectus, Pricing statements as well as brochure.
Where I am coming from is no one from TC came forward on the above. If MB investors like us were mis-lead by our FA, there is a high chance TC is too. But no one came out to clearified. Why? same old answer --> not transparent, not independent and grandmaster don't allow them to.
So who is responsible for the lost of $16 million dollars? Where is the duty to citizen on how MB was sold to TC? Too much PAP in the system, I must say.
It seems the lawyers, the doctors have a set of regulation to regulate their practice and behaviour the insurance agents and the RMs do not.And they are the ones who committed the most atrocious misconduct ripping off old folks and the man in the street of their hard earned saving. It is strange that there is no aurthority or there is aurthority but sleeping.
Mr Tan
Excellent!
The questions you raised involve fundamental change in the mindset for duty as lawyer
Ethically, lawyer should not be the tool used to oppress, exploit, cheat or intimate the ordinary public who are the weaker in dispute with powerful organizations such as FIs and other commercial enterprise with abundant resources.
The purpose of law is to uphold justice and fairness but what we see in our pro-business society is sometimes, if not very often, the other way round.
This could be due to the statement that "the duty of a lawyer is to protect the best interest of his client" without any ethical qualification.
I believe a lot of your blog readers, including myself, are keen to know the views from the Law Society on these ethical questions you raised.
Richard
To Michael.
While what you say may be true in theory, the point is that Mr Tan Kin Lian's young lawyer friend was unable to answer Mr Tan's rather pointed questions on morality and social responsibility in practice.
I'm not a lawyer. But I believe there is a general guiding principle for lawyers.
Lawyers are suppose to use their knowledge of the law as a shield and not a sword.
I'm surprised our young lawyer did not raise this point.
It is not just lawyers it is all of us. Anyone who knows an investment is bad but says nothing enables it to take place. I saw this comment on the UK site propertyscam here.
"It does not matter how much 'evidence' you produce. You have not changed anyones mind that we can't change back with a single phone call. We are their friends and when you give our friends doubt they call us. We make them feel better and we sell them more. They willingly bring their friends and family to us. They want to give us their money. You try to use facts to make them feel bad or stupid. They will never ask for more facts, they will just tell you why you are wrong and call us. We make them feel better. It is not a scam if they want to give us their money and they always do.
We dont steal their money. They give it to us. They want to give us their money and we take it. We give some of it to lawyers, consultants, newspapers, TV and even UK planning departments. They take it. Everyone takes the money. Nobody complains or asks questions because we all share the same desire to be rich. There is no profit in being against us so nobody significant is. The only time anyone important complains about us is when the money runs out so they can show they are doing their job.
Nobody important wants to hear your story or tell your story because nobody can get rich from your story, and nobody want to be made feel stupid.
People would rather be wrong or poor than be made to feel stupid."
There're folklores of lawyers in Singapore declining cases before. The most (in)famous one being perhaps the Adrian Lim murder cases in the early 1980s.
It was widely rumoured that Adrian Lim represented himself in court because no lawyer was willing to represent him at whatever fee, an implication that all lawyers then believed him to too guilty (or "evil") to defend. Such are urban legends hard to verify.
A more recent example is Dr. Chee Soon Juan's defamation and protest cases. He also claimed difficulty in getting a lawyer of his choice. Whether the lawyers believed he's beyond defence or are they avoiding political cases, that's up to anyone's guess and opinion.
This case concerns legal action against insurance company and lawyer, should be of interest to the readership here:
aialawsuit.blogspot.com
1. Should a person committed manslaughter entitle to the service of a lawyer to defend him in court?
2. Should a public prosecutor go after a woman who killed his husband to protect her daughter from rape?
My view is that both sides are entitled to the service of a lawyer and it is their duties to do the best for his client and for the public.
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