The Malaysian Insider revealed over the weekend that even in straight laced Singapore there are dodgy lawyers afoot..
The insider reports
Rogues lawyers cost Singapore Law Society record sum
SINGAPORE, May 31 – Singapore’s Law Society paid out some $631,000 in its last financial year to help victims of rogue lawyers. The payout is a record 1,288 per cent jump from the $45,481 spent in the previous financial year.
But this spike resulted mainly from $595,000 paid to two clients, making this the largest sum ever paid for a single case. The two had suffered losses from the fraud of lawyer Junaini Mainin, 46, who was jailed for seven years in 2004.
He had taken some $1.68 million from 12 clients over a period of seven years. His victims included those with modest backgrounds selling their family homes. One was an elderly woman who wanted her children to benefit from the sale of her house. Junaini swiped some $790,000 from the sale.
From the remaining $36,000 disbursed by the Law Society in its last financial year, $11,790 was compensation for the fraud of rogue lawyer Daniel Loh, who filched some $880,000 in clients’ monies. The 41-year-old was jailed for 41/2 years in 2003.
A Law Society spokesman explained that the funds paid out are not meant to fully indemnify victims but serve to relieve or mitigate their losses, as provided in the Legal Profession Act.
“Whether to make a grant and the amount of a grant is a decision made by the Council of the Law Society, having taken into account all the circumstances of the case.”
Senior lawyer Abdul Rashid Abdul Gani, chairman of the seven-member committee which studies the victims’ applications and puts up its recommendations to the Council, said a key consideration is the “hardship” suffered. It is understood this refers especially to victims left in dire financial straits as a result of the rogue lawyer’s fraud, as in the Junaini case.
