Response by the Chief Justice at the Opening of the Legal Year 2020

In his Response to mark the opening of the 2020 legal year on 6 January, The Honourable the Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon touched upon access to justice, reshaping legal education, technology and the online court, among others, under four broad themes that emerged from conversations with the profession in the past year: developing lawyers of the future, building law firms of the future, reimagining the future of Singapore’s courts and regulating legal services of the future.

Specifically on legal education to train lawyers of the future, Chief Justice Menon mentioned that there was wide support for the idea that it might be timely to review the undergraduate law syllabus in order to focus on key growth areas, such as in cross-border insolvency, international arbitration, e-commerce and financial services. Another suggestion was that the syllabus be tweaked to increase the exposure of students to core private law subjects in civil law jurisdictions, particularly those of China and ASEAN nations.

ABLI is heartened to see that its projects fit into this vision to nurture the next generation of law students and lawyers. All our projects include ASEAN member states and other major civil law jurisdictions in Asia, serving as a one-stop reference point to which users may turn for information on relevant areas of the law in key markets. The Restructuring Project jointly undertaken with the International Insolvency Institute hits squarely on the hot topic of cross-border insolvency.

The Full Response by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon can be read here. 

Chief Justice Menon chairs ABLI’s Board of Governors.