Jobs-for-a-fee site for law students under probe by LawSoc

Singapore

THE Law Society is investigating coaching platform lawmentors.sg after the enterprise - which promises to equip students and graduates to land plum training contracts for a fee - came under fire in Singapore's legal circles early this week.

The programme - with its website set up just over a week ago before being pulled on Tuesday - claimed it had a "mentor network" across elite law firms in the United Kingdom and the United States. It had promised to help mentees land jobs among the Big Four and mid-sized firms here, amid the rough economic climate.

The move to charge one-and-a-half to two months of the mentees' starting salary in return for the purported offer of placement in plum jobs was especially alarming to the LawSoc, it told The Business Times. It called the website operator's claims "speculative" and "unsubstantiated".

Premising its raison d'etre on the economic fallout due to Covid-19, lawmentors.sg offered over 100 hours of "hands-on coaching and practice" to equip participants with a "decisive advantage" to "outshine all (their) fellow practice trainees and secure a training contract".

In its website that has since been taken down, the programme's creators claimed that "work (in the legal industry) has largely dried up" in the wake of Covid-19, and that many firms are on a hiring freeze. It also estimated that 700 fresh graduates will have to jostle for between 150 and 200 openings for newly qualified lawyers.

"You are facing a brutal fight for career survival," the site wrote.

One of the lawyers behind lawmentors.sg, said he set up the platform to help peers in the industry who had lost their jobs as a result of the economic crisis - they were the mentors he had in mind.

But he took down the site after receiving feedback that it was unreasonable, he said in a phone interview with BT.

"I meant it for interest gauging, but took it down after people said it was not right to take money from students who are just starting to look for jobs," said the lawyer.

"No formal programme was started, no money was taken from them."

In a statement on Wednesday, the Law Society's spokesperson assured prospective lawyers that prospects for newly qualified lawyers "are not as dire, stark, or bleak as portrayed by the website operator".

"We strongly caution parents and law graduates to be discerning about hungry wolves in sheep's clothing who seek to prey financially on the vulnerability of law graduates," said LawSoc president Gregory Vijayendran.

"Such opportunistic operators and disservice providers will face the wrath of the Council of the Law Society and the Society's right thinking members," he said.

In response to BT queries, a LawSoc spokesperson further said it was alerted to the matter on Tuesday - the day the site was taken down - by practitioners with "serious concerns" about the site. Checks with the Singapore Network Information Centre showed that lawmentors.sg was created on April 19.

The spokesperson noted that it is premature to say whether the perpetrators have breached the Legal Profession Act.

According to the Act, a legal practitioner or law practice must not engage in any business which "derogates from the dignity of the legal profession" or "is likely to unfairly attract business in the practice of law". (see clarification note)

Among other things, lawyers here have called the enterprise "exploitative", "fearmongering" and "unethical".

"Fearmongering of this sort during a public health crisis is irresponsible and misleading," National University of Singapore's law dean Simon Chesterman told BT.

In pitching its services, the creators of lawmentors.sg referred to the 2008 global financial crisis, noting that fewer than one in four practice trainees were retained then.

"Disillusioned, many became teachers, civil servants, re-trained or furthered their studies. Some took a gap year and tried again the following year, competing with their juniors and further exacerbating the labour glut," wrote the website.

It also estimated that, with Covid-19 and the "effects of a structurally shrinking legal market", two out of three called to the Bar will "never get the opportunity to practise as lawyers".

Professor Chesterman said his faculty's discussions with students and employers did not suggest that firms are reneging on training contracts, nor that they intend to reduce training positions substantially.

"These are trying times. But seeking to exploit the anxieties of graduating students - at a time they should be celebrating completion of their degrees - is reprehensible," he stressed.

Leslie Chew, dean of Singapore's newest law school at the Singapore University of Social Sciences, said the website evokes "unnecessary stress on graduating students".

"Although the present pandemic will affect all economies, it is speculative to say that law graduates will not be able to obtain training contracts," said Professor Chew, noting that a majority of his school's prospective graduates this year have secured training contracts.

Singapore Management University law dean Goh Yihan said: "This endeavour is opportunistic in these difficult times. Instead of trying to exploit the uncertainty of the situation, we should be looking to help each other, without expectation of any reward."

A practising lawyer, who wanted to remain anonymous, called lawmentors.sg an "exploitative" platform that "dilutes" underlying values of the legal profession in Singapore.

"Paid mentorship and coaching platforms, in law or any industry, aren't new by any measure, but I feel that the platform dilutes the notion that the legal profession in Singapore is an honorable one," he said.

"I think there are some underlying values for the legal profession, including serving the public interest and upholding high standards of conduct, including ethics. If a selective group of people are able to pay to have an advantage over their peers, I think that goes against these values."

- Additional reporting by Fiona Lam and Marissa Lee

Clarification note: The Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules 2015, which are pursuant to the Legal Profession Act, state that a legal practitioner or law practice must not engage in any business which "derogates from the dignity of the legal profession" or "is likely to unfairly attract business in the practice of law".