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The Singapore Law Gazette

CEO’s Message

Dear Members,

The Law Society’s Practice Directions and Guidance Notes are being updated and aligned with the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015 (S 706/2015) in batches, in consultation with the Professional Conduct Council. The design of the Ethics Portal (http://www.lawsociety.org.sg/For-Lawyers/Ethics-Portal) has also been refreshed. Users can now browse the first batch of updated Practice Directions and Guidance Notes by topic areas or search for materials by keyword and click on the topic headers to view Practice Directions and Guidance Notes relevant to a topic.

The rest of the Practice Directions and Guidance Notes are currently under review and will be made available in the Ethics Portal in due course. In the interim, the current version of these Practice Directions and Guidance Notes will remain in force (unless already expunged) and members may access these Practice Directions and Guidance Notes in the Members Library.

We will hold our Young Lawyers’ Forum on 18 June Monday at 5.45pm at Collison 8. A forum tailored for young lawyers, by young lawyers, it will provide attendees with practical tips for strengthening mental health and resilience in practice, and showcase best practices from young Bar leaders in the region on how young lawyers can support each other and advance the interests of the young lawyers’ community. A townhall with Council will also be conducted to canvass feedback on issues that young lawyers may like to address.

Members are invited to participate in a specially arranged closed-door dialogue session with our Law Society President on 28 June Thursday from 12 noon at TKP Conference Centre, 137 Cecil Street, Fuji Room, to share openly and give candid feedback on issues and challenges you are facing on the economic health of your law practices. We hope to meaningfully incise into such issues and challenges in this forum, which will be a precursor to a more comprehensive review during the second half of the year.

As part of our recently launched Lawyers Go Global programme, we are organising a small mission to Sydney (Mission), Australia from 30 July 2018 to 2 August 2018. This Mission will be beneficial for members who are interested to learn more about technology and innovation developments in Sydney’s legal landscape as well as to find out the best practices of legal practice management in the running of law firms in Sydney. We will be visiting the various Australian law firms, the New South Wales Bar Association as well as the College of Law’s Centre for Legal Innovation (CLI).

We will also be holding our second roundtable discussion with CLI on 27 June. The topic for this year’s roundtable is “In the Face of Change, What’s Left For Lawyers to Do?” It will focus on the future work of lawyers and explore how Tech/AI is being used, what skill gaps have been identified, how the gaps are being bridged, what skills new law graduates should have, how business models are changing to accommodate the economy, etc. Some 20 leaders of law firms and HR professionals have been invited for the event which will be facilitated by Miss Terri Mottershead, Director of CLI.

The Legal and Accounting Connect 2018 Conference will be held on 29 June. The event will explore the many opportunities available for lawyers and professional accountants in Singapore and ASEAN to work together for further growth and expansion of their organisations or practices, present practical case studies to show how it all happens in reality as well as provide a great platform for accountants and lawyers to network, share ideas and perhaps, sprout joint projects!

Our inaugural Cybersecurity Conference will be held on 19 July. This landmark event, organised by the Cybersecurity and Data Protection Committee of the Law Society, is timely given recent local and regional developments in laws on cybersecurity and data protection. The new Singapore Cybersecurity Act, the coming into force of the European GDPR, and recent developments in data protection law are some examples. This one-day conference offers legal practitioners, compliance experts and technologists opportunities to cover latest developments in the law, practice of cybersecurity, compliance strategies, and perspectives on managing multi-jurisdictional challenges in today’s connected world. The conference will also include a simulated data breach intrusion exercise with a practical walk-through, discussions on potential real-world situations, and discuss how organisations should inoculate themselves from new forms of cyber threats.

A gentle reminder that Round 2 of SmartLaw Assist ends on 29 June 2018. Informa Law, Thomson Reuters and Lexis Nexis are offering very attractive prices for their legal research databases and Singapore law practices (SLPs) can enjoy subsidies for the first year’s subscription fees for any one of the packages specially curated for SLPs. Please apply at https://www.lawsociety.org.sg/For-Lawyers/Running-Your-Practice/Practice-Support/SmartLaw-Assist.

Chief Executive Officer
The Law Society of Singapore