Several years back, due to the fact that there was an excess of lawyers, many were forced to leave the industry as their law firms merged and retrenched.

Now, with the property boom, even more legal practitioners are leaving the profession to seek out other lucrative means of employment.

The Law Society is trying to boost the number of lawyers and even provide fast-track courses at the university for qualified overseas lawyers so they can pass the bar and practise here.

This article has me pondering. Why would the Law Society think of providing vacancies for foreign lawyers and not grooming people from its own land to fill the positions?

Many Singaporeans are just as qualified, and would be interested to practise law here as well, but the chances for them are slim because of the stringent academic system and rigorous selection process for entry into NUS' law course.

The law governing lawyers has stopped taking in part-time law students after 1993, so for students who are unable to make it into NUS' law faculty and do not have the means to go abroad to pursue their legal education, a dream goes bust as the lawyer-wannabe watches a foreign-trained solicitor take his/her place.

Is this fair to Singaporeans?

Temasek Polytechnic of Singapore has a Law and Management course (used to be called 'Legal Studies') and pray tell, how many of the students are able to make it into NUS' law faculty?

Places are offered to JC students who, although have sought a more relevant academic path, do not have any legal background whatsoever.

Most of the students who graduated from the Law and Management course at Temasek Polytechnic are forced to either fork out the funds to go overseas to pursue their dreams or forgo them - if not, they will be cast into the small legal industry in Singapore as legal secretaries or paralegals.

Is this really fair? Why are the relevant authorities not looking out for the academic and career welfare of local students and thinking of ways to help them become our future advocates and solicitors?

Why would they rather have someone else step in to practise law here and perhaps in place of our own citizens?

Surely it would be easier to recruit people who have been brought up through the local legal system.

If not, does that also mean that Singaporean students who hold a Diploma in Law and Management or law degree from an unrecognised institution locally (that is, Uni of London) have to seek legal profession opportunities in foreign lands as well?

Ellouisa Chen (Ms)