'Of Champs, Chumps and Chimps' - Clash of Legal Titans
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At last, the legal profession is coming out of the woodworks and giving voice - even if done subtlely - to the public outrage that remained circumspectfully suppressed.
Top lawyers weigh in on salaries debate
Law Society president's column draws sharp rebuttal from MP and fellow Senior Counsel
By Jeremy Au Yong
Jun 02, 2007
The Straits Times
TWO of Singapore's legal heavyweights have weighed in on opposing sides of the hot-button topic of ministerial pay.
An article by Law Society president Philip Jeyaretnam following the rise in ministerial salaries drew a detailed response from Member of Parliament and fellow Senior Counsel K. Shanmugam.
Mr Jeyaretnam's 1,200-word column was published as the president's message in the May issue of the Law Gazette, a magazine published by the Law Society.
With references to legal and judicial salaries, he discussed several aspects of ministerial pay, including pegging it to the pay of top earners in the private sector.
This led Mr Shanmugam to issue a nearly 3,000-word reply, made available to the media, rebutting some of Mr Jeyaretnam's points.
The exchange marked the latest instalment in what has been one of the country's most hotly discussed topics.
In April, the Government announced a salary revision - the first in seven years - that resulted in the pay of top government officials rising 14 to 33 per cent. The salaries were benchmarked against top earners in the private sector.
When contacted yesterday, both men declined to comment further on the views in their articles.
In his column titled 'Of Champs, Chumps and Chimps', Mr Jeyaretnam said that the way ministerial salaries are now decided was a 'shift from an attempt to reward contribution to government and country to an attempt to estimate what he or she would otherwise have earned in the private sector, what has been described as the opportunity cost of a public sector career choice'.
He added: 'Singapore has long since moved away from a system based on valuing the contribution made and honouring the office for itself.'
Mr Jeyaretnam also recounted a conversation with a daughter of a former Supreme Court judge in India. She was shocked when asked if the income gap between the public and private sector caused difficulties, and explained the tremendous respect she and her family had been accorded.
He went on to argue that the 'market' may not be the most accurate measure of talent, as it tends to 'reward disproportionately people who have been lucky, or have acquired the aura of a champion'.
He also contends that an 'emphasis on money' would 'undercut volunteerism and the spirit of public service'.
In his response, Mr Shanmugam tackled two main points: the shift away from rewarding contributions, and whether the market may be imperfect in selecting champions.
On the first, he said Mr Jeyaretnam may have confused the objective to be achieved (rewarding a contribution) with the method of achieving it - benchmarking.
He wrote: 'The question is not whether public servants need to be properly remunerated...The real question is what amounts to 'proper remuneration' and how that remuneration should be quantified.'
He continued: 'Mr Jeyaretnam does not himself clearly explain how he believes the 'reward' for contribution to government should be quantified.'
He highlighted views of the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, and US Chief Justice John Roberts, who both spoke about the problems in recruiting good candidates due to the private-public sector pay gap in their countries.
'The point is fairly straightforward,' Mr Shanmugam wrote. 'It is unrealistic to suggest that private sector remuneration would be irrelevant when the best in the private sector are asked to accept public appointments.'
He also pointed out how low official pay had eroded the reputation of the judiciary in India.
He quoted studies that showed that people believed there was a high-level of corruption in the judiciary, and pointed to comments by the Indian Chief Justice and Prime Minister criticising this corruption.
And while he conceded that luck may play a part when the market picks its champions, he contends that 'when market selection takes place over a period of time, in a sophisticated legal environment, by knowledgeable clients, it is not only luck, chance and an aura that contribute to success'.
Mr Shanmugam summed up by stressing the importance of ensuring Singapore's judges are of the highest quality.
'The decisions of judges affect lives, liberty and commerce. Their decisions on commercial matters will have a huge impact on the business sector...
'A first-rate judiciary is one of the key essentials for a commercial centre like Singapore to thrive.' -
From non other than the son of the vernable JB Jeyaretnam no less. Wonder if he'll have a hand in the "Democratic Reform Party"
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Jeyaretnam sure picked an unconventional way to spend his retirement....
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By sheer autocratic royal edict that if anyone among the lucky lottery-winning CEOs in the private sector, are paid higher (excluding those who are paid lower or who have lost their jobs) then ministers must be paid higher in order not to lose their talents or let them become corrupted, the whole of MPs and Ministers have no choice but to accept such an argument as correct and unquestionable.
This is the impression one could gather than MPs' comments about the edict. By virtue of the continuous challenges by MPs it will become clear that PM Lee donation of his own increments aside, the gist of benchmarking of ministers' salaries is simply this: despite the truth that top pays in the private sector are attributable to a combination of factors e.g. luck of the draw in evaluation of talents, connections, timing and opportunities, entrepreneurship, contributions of capitals etc, the whole case was sealed without arguments or votes in parliaments being allowed notwithstanding the total illogic of such a benchmarking device.
It is like a CEO telling his board of directors or shareholders that "as long as others earn more than I, I shall pay myself more that him or else I may become corrupted or you may end up losing my talents and that will be bad for business".
Can anyone with a common sense understand such a benchmarking logic of paying ministers or judges higher than or equal to the many top law firms' partners who have made good in their own ladder of success who happened to have left the public sector for private practice and who have succeeded in building up the law firm in boom time and making profits with their own contributions and capital risks to boot.
For everyone such private law firm lawyers who left public sector service to set up or join a law practice how many have actually failed. Would ministers accept the fact that not all top lawyers have made good and the luck of the draw is very much the factor at work.
Philip obviously saw this point much more clearly from his position as president of the law society due to his close contact with the actual situation or the market.
How could he be dead wrong as Ngiam Tong Dow would have put it.
Just imagine, as president of the law society he could not even speak the simple truths. What kind of society are we descending into. -
Philip Jeyaratnam does the good work in his own subtle and quiet way. This is a very powerful and influential Singaporean we are talking about, not to mention intellectually far more sharper and incisive than the average PAP politician.
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This piece is about ''not paying peanuts but pay with a banana, one can still get a MONKEY''.
This entire debate seems to have been unnecessary if LHL had kept to his word that were said so eloquently in his Budget speech in March 2006, when he had stated :-
68. So, we have to keep the Government lean and trim to manage these new spending priorities. Over the years, we have introduced various initiatives to help do this. To drive discipline, we have the Manpower Management Framework (MMF), the headcount freeze and other schemes. To get value for money, we have best sourcing, demand aggregation, the Centre for Shared Services and so on.
A difference in one year, the meaning of - ''we have to keep the Government lean and trim to manage these new spending priorities'' have taken a new ominous meaning in increasing Cabinet Ministers and Civil Service Wages between 14% to 30%. -
I wonder why the phrase "Give the guy an inch, he takes a yard." hasn't been brought up yet.
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the papers are only reporting the mp side of the 'debate'...anyone has the article which started it?
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Sorry but i some how don't trust baby JBJ.
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Are you casting aspersions on the character of a Senior Counsel and the President of the Law Society? And winner of the 1993 National Arts Council Young Artist of the Year?Originally posted by pearlie27:Sorry but i some how don't trust baby JBJ.
So you place deep, unwavering trust in Shanmugum's words?
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Of Champs, Chumps and ChimpsOriginally posted by countdracula:the papers are only reporting the mp side of the 'debate'...anyone has the article which started it?
What lawyers earn has been in the news of late. The focus has been on the top eight earners in the profession, who apparently earn substantially more than their counterparts in five other sectors. The context has been the financial sacrifices that government ministers have made in agreeing to become ministers, on the basis that if they had not done so they would have been top earners in the private sector.
The issue can be approached at three levels. First, there is principle. Second is mechanics, or structure. Third and finally, there is the impact of it all on social values.
At the level of principle is the shift from an attempt to reward contribution to government and country to an attempt to estimate what he or she would otherwise have earned in the private sector, what has been described as the opportunity cost of a public sector career choice. The reward for contribution method, still employed in many countries today, typically ensures that a government employee and his or her family are housed, chauffered, medically attended to and in due course pensioned in accordance with a scale that fits that person's status. It is detached from the employment market, and indeed from the housing market, as the government holds a stock of prime housing that it recycles from generation to generation. It has the virtue of expressing society's gratitude (coupled with a sense of what is enough to mark that gratitude), and explicitly matches status to office. Against it is the risk that society's sense of enough may not match the ambition of talented people, and so the public sector will not attract sufficient talent.
When I was in India last year I asked the daughter of a former Supreme Court Judge whether there was any difficulty posed by the gap that exists there between judicial salaries and private sector salaries, say those of top senior advocates. She looked at me as if I was mad, and patiently as if to a small child explained the tremendous respect in which she and her family had been held, not to mention the lovely home in which she had grown up, although of course that home was passed on to another judge once her father retired. She went on to say that as far as she knew no one turned down a higher court appointment, as the opportunity to make and interpret law authoritatively was of incalculable reward for anyone who loved the law.
Singapore has long since moved away from a system based on valuing the contribution made and honouring the office for itself. The focus today is on trying to determine remuneration that, while not outpacing the private sector, does not fall too far short of top earners. The justification for it is precisely the fear that top talent will not join the public sector. That peanuts will attract only chimps. But as a method it is fraught with uncertainty. It is hard to put a value on the many differences between the two sectors - for example, the greater security and higher status of the public sector, the longer working hours and greater business stress of the private sector. Not to mention different pension rights, and the vast difference in consistency and longevity of earnings (lawyers' earnings typically peak in their forties and early fifties and can then fall away quite sharply, and in any case fluctuate greatly from year to year). If a career in the public sector is perceived to be less risky and yet as rewarding, then the best and brightest (as the expression goes) will choose government over business, which may not after all be in the best interests of the nation.
Hard as it is to get the benchmark right in terms of career signals, it is harder still to convince people of its rightness. The market operates to reward disproportionately people who have been lucky, or have acquired the aura of a champion. Think of the huge gap in earning power between the top basketball players and the next rung - the difference in ability may be marginal at best. The same phenomenon occurs elsewhere, and certainly does in the legal profession. Yet some of the best judges in England, Australia and elsewhere have not been top earners in their previous incarnations as advocates or as solicitors, but have excelled as judges because of their combination of good minds and stout hearts.
In short, the opportunity cost method assumes or reflects an attitude that money is the common currency for all the choices one can make about one's life. In its favour, this could be said to be just being realistic. Moreover, it assists transparency. Without comparable pay, the risk of hidden perks - ranging from the legitimate to the shady - associated with office is a real one. But it can hardly be doubted that one effect of the emphasis on money is to undercut volunteerism and the spirit of public service. It is a reductionist ethos that leaves little room for other motivations. One often hears the expression 'national service' to describe various unpaid posts that private sector individuals take on for a public cause, often specifically in aid of a government policy. Such work benefits us all. But, given the materialist spirit of the times, people urged to do their part by way of such 'national service' will be forgiven if they sometimes wonder whether they are being taken for chumps.
Unfortunately, there's very little that the profession can do to change or even influence the terms of the debate. The public is told that top lawyers earn astronomical amounts. And that top engineers earn much, much less. What will this mean to the image and standing of the two professions? For sure, the law faculties at NUS and SMU will be even more over-subscribed than they are at present. And the engineering faculties will see a sharp drop off of applicants. It is unfortunate that the public may be getting a rather skewed idea of the two professions - there is much less of a gap once one looks below the rung of top earners.
Expect clients too to wonder how to square lawyers' complaints about the very real squeeze on legal fees with the apparent exuberance of top lawyers' pay. Will they understand that the headline numbers don't tell the whole story?
Perhaps the only way to redress what is probably a misleading glimpse of what it really means to be a lawyer (or doctor or accountant or engineer) would be for IRAS now to release figures showing what the average income levels are at different stages of a legal, medical, accounting and engineering career, including how they fluctuate, plateau and taper off.
But there seems no way to redress the underlying shift in how we count our time on earth - a shift from values of service and significance to emphasis on success measured in dollars and cents. But it is a terrible shame all the same. And whether the cause is hopeless or not, we should not succumb just yet. The profession still has plenty of room for socially aware, dedicated lawyers to make a mark, and earn a decent living in the process, as well as for the few financial champs. So long as one has enough to keep self and family in food, shelter, health and education, giving up billable hours for professional or social service is still a worthwhile endeavour.
Philip Jeyaretnam, SC
President
The Law Society of Singapore
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Here's the link.
http://www.lawgazette.com.sg/2007-5/president.htm
Law Gazette - May 2007 issue. -
alarmak....it's was a fairly muted piece of article...from the language and unnecessary waste of good paper which shanmugum presented his argument, i had thought philip jeyaratnam wrote a stinging editorial...looks to me a case of political paranoia.....some lawyers should just go get a life, especially after a divorce....
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Hhhmm....Jeyaratnam's article is very insightful and well-written. Now for fairness' sake shall we have K. Shanmugam's article as well so as to make a comparison?
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Originally posted by LazerLordz:
Thanks for the piece, which I did not wish to tangle with any claims from the Law Society concerning copyright infringement.
Here's the link.
http://www.lawgazette.com.sg/2007-5/president.htm
Law Gazette - May 2007 issue.
On the surface, it was a very mild and seemingly innocuous piece but with a strong underlying statement that can be read in many ways.
To those whose conscience had been piqued, they would have responded in the manner that Shanmugam had made in his response.