Pay lawyers more to keep them: Chief Justice
Date : 18 August 2007 2259 hrs (SST)
SINGAPORE: More young lawyers are switching careers, citing long
hours, unrewarding pay and stress as reasons.
This causes a shortage of lawyers, and as the economy booms and the
demand for law services goes up, the problem is becoming more
acute.
How to address this problem?
"Pay them well," said Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, in his address
to law students at the inaugural Singapore Legal Forum on
Saturday.
"Our young lawyers enjoy a degree of professional and social
freedom and mobility which lawyers of my generation have never
experienced. Perhaps the solution is in the old fashion but still
fashionable way of using carrots without the stick since the latter
doesn't work. Pay them well. Greed works most of the time, even for
the large majority of people in affluent societies," he said.
In recent years, even the best-paying firms in Singapore are seeing
their young lawyers jumping ship to Hong Kong, where salaries for
junior lawyers start at about S$11,650 a month.
In contrast, the big firms in Singapore pay junior lawyers just
over $4,000.
A second law school has been established at the Singapore
Management University.
Also, the NUS Law Faculty has increased its intake and firms are
now allowed to hire foreign lawyers.
But the shortage has not eased yet.
Aiyah, why need something so complicated as higher pay to keep
new lawyers? 
Do the tried and tested method we already use for our
DOCTORS!
Just increase the NUS school fees to $120,000 per year, and BOND
THOSE LAWYERS for 5 years la! 
It works for doctors, don't see why it won't work for
lawyers.
Still not enough lawyers?
Nevermind lah! Just allow law firms to hire foreign
talent.
After all, which HK lawyer will be able to resist coming here where
he can earn $4000 a month??
Worse come to worse just outsource to India or China lor!
Already doing that for the doctors what.
But after that kena lead-poisoning don't say I never say....
