Retired CJ heads SMU's law school board

FORMER Chief Justice (CJ) Yong Pung How - who headed Singapore's judiciary for 16 years - will now help nurture young minds in the country's second law school.

He chairs the 13-member advisory board of Singapore Management University's (SMU) School of Law, which will open in August.

The board will provide 'strategic guidance and direction', SMU president Howard Hunter, himself a law professor, said at an event held at the university yesterday to announce details of the board.

More than 100 members of the legal profession were present, including current Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, who took over from Mr Yong in April last year.

The SMU panel reads like a who's who of the legal fraternity- with judges, senior counsels and senior partners of law firms on the list.

Mr Yong, 80, said in a media release that the board will 'forge close relationships between the school, the legal profession and its stakeholders'.

He has also been appointed Distinguished Fellow of the SMU School of Law, which will help stem the decline in the number of lawyers here.

In a speech at yesterday's event, CJ Chan said that, as of Jan 31 this year, Singapore had 3,347 practising lawyers - down from 3,521 in 2000.

'This represents a net loss of 174 practitioners, during a period when about 1,600 law graduates qualified to become advocates and solicitors.'

Professor Hunter said that the new law school, which will take in 90 students, has already received a 'substantial number of applications'.

Its four-year programme will have a corporate and commercial bent, with subjects including corporate finance and accounting.

It will devote a third of its curriculum to non-law subjects, and impart knowledge in small group seminars.

CJ Chan, noting that it will compete with the NUS Faculty of Law for the 'same pool of scarce academic resources', urged that the competition not be destructive.

Both should 'collaborate and cooperate in designing and teaching' the best courses and complement each other's strengths.

He listed three key ingredients needed to produce a good lawyer:

Strong ethics and professionalism to ensure relationships with clients are based on the utmost good faith;

Strong grasp of legal doctrine to 'respond effectively' to new demands brought upon by changes in technology and society; and

An understanding of 'the context in which laws are made, why they were made, and what their objectives were'.

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High-powered panel MEMBERS of SMU's School of Law advisory board are:

Mr Yong Pung How (chairman) former chief justice

Justice Andrew Phang
Judge of Appeal, Supreme Court

Justice V.K. Rajah
Judge, Supreme Court

Judicial Commissioner Sundaresh Menon, Supreme Court

Professor Walter Woon
Second Solicitor-General,

Senior Counsel Michael Hwang

Senior Counsel Davinder Singh
Chief executive, Drew & Napier

Mr Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara
Managing partner, Wong Partnership

Ms Lee Suet Fern
Senior director, Stamford Law Corporation

Mr Kevin Wong
Managing partner, Linklaters

Mr Chen Show-Mao
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell

Mr Eduardo Ramos-Gomez
Managing director, Duane Morris Singapore

Mr Richard Sauer
Associate general counsel, Microsoft Operations