Lawyer suspended 3 months for allowing paralegal to act as lawyer, sharing fees with him

SINGAPORE — A lawyer of more than two decades was suspended from practice for three months on Monday (May 18) after admitting to exercising inadequate supervision over his paralegal and having a fee-sharing arrangement with him in 2015.

Jonathan Tan See Leh’s misconduct was not a "simple case of negligence” but a “blatant disregard of the professional and ethical standards” of the legal profession, said Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang.

He was delivering the decision of the Court of Three Judges which metes out disciplinary sanctions to errant lawyers.

Over video-conferencing platform Zoom, Judge Phang, however, noted that no harm was caused to Mr Tan’s clients and that he has voluntarily stopped practising from April last year. He also has no similar antecedents and pleaded guilty before the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc).

Without these mitigating factors, Mr Tan would have been suspended for a longer period of time, Judge Phang added. 

Mr Tan, who began practising in 1998, was a consultant at Whitefield Law Corporation when he hired Mr Colin Craig Powell Phan Siang Loong as his paralegal in 2015. 

Mr Phan had failed to renew his certificate to practise as an advocate and solicitor one month before working for Mr Tan.

Between January and February 2015, Mr Phan sent five emails to three individuals where he represented himself as a lawyer. Mr Tan was copied in the emails.

Both men also agreed to share about half of Mr Tan’s fees for the legal work that Mr Phan performed. 

The precise percentage was decided on a case-by-case basis and Mr Tan paid the other man a few hundred dollars in total.

Judge Phang said that Mr Tan knew the other man was an unauthorised person under the Legal Profession Act but proceeded to facilitate his misconduct. Such unauthorised people are not allowed to receive fees for the legal work they do.

Paralegals are trained in matters of law but are not fully qualified as lawyers. 

While they are able to help draft letters and affidavits, and help with trial preparations, they cannot advise clients, for instance.

While Mr Tan had argued before the LawSoc’s disciplinary tribunal that Mr Phan was not a lawyer due to a “mere technicality” of failing to renew his practising certificate, he told the court on Monday that he was no longer making that argument.

He added that he conceded with the LawSoc on the severity of his behaviour and agreed with the recommended sanctions.

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon further ordered him to pay S$8,000 in costs to the LawSoc.

In the court’s oral grounds of decision, Judge of Appeal Phang — who heard the case with Chief Justice Menon and Justice Woo Bih Li — said that Mr Phan had committed a criminal offence by representing himself as a lawyer when he was not one.

The judge added: “Proper supervision is vital for the protection of the public. It ensures that clients receive legal advice only from those duly qualified and authorised to carry on legal work. 

“This preserves public confidence in the legal profession which is an indispensable element in the fabric of the justice system.”