Singapore’s Ministry of Law has announced a broader review of legal education as law schools and the profession respond to changing expectations and workplace pressures. Minister for Law Edwin Tong said attrition figures alone do not explain why lawyers leave practice. A more important distinction is whether lawyers are pursuing other opportunities or are being driven away by working conditions that have made practice unsustainable. The review will consider international developments in preparing the next generation of lawyers and how they might apply in Singapore.
The Ministry is also considering a sustainability code or guide for the legal profession. Rather than prescribing how firms must operate, it would set out aspirational professional norms and workplace behaviours, including approaches to supervising junior lawyers, giving and receiving feedback, entrusting responsibility and treating colleagues with respect. The announcement follows a four-year Law Society study linking attrition to toxic workplace culture, bullying, unreasonable workloads and intrusion into lawyers’ personal lives. Mr Tong said those experiences did not represent most of the profession, but stressed that poor supervision, harassment, bullying and unreasonable treatment were unacceptable.