Errant lawyers making money off migrant workers but law society does not investigate

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ERRANT LAWYERS MAKING MONEY OFF MIGRANT WORKERS BUT LAW SOCIETY DOES NOT INVESTIGATE

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19 Dec 2014 - 10:19am








Lawyers in Singapore have been taking advantage of migrant workers to make money off them, by representing them to claim compensation for workplace injuries, migrant worker groups have highlighted.

Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME) executive director Jolovan Wham told TODAY that when workers get injured, they might seek the help of lawyers, especially in cases where workers are unaware of their rights.

The workers would commonly highlight that errant lawyers would charge high fees and there are some who would not follow up on their cases. There are even lawyers who have been complained of withholding the worker's compensation even when it has been paid, Mr Wham said.

Workers were also not informed how much legal fees they had to pay upfront and were eventually asked to pay an expensive sum, which they might not be able to afford, especially on their low wages.

Migrant workers in Singapore are paid as little as only a few hundred dollars every month.

TWC2 executive member Debbie Fordyce also told TODAY that these lawyers would solicit their clients by sending down their legal assistants to hospitals, or to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). They would even stake out places where foreign workers gather on their breaks, at Little India or Farrer Park.

“The lawyers will tell the workers, who are obviously unable to afford the lawyers’ fees, that they will be charged a percentage of the compensation amount,” she said.
For example, TODAY highlighted the case of a Bangladeshi construction worker Sohel Rana who was injured at work earlier this year.

As he was worried that he would not receive fair compensation, he decided to engage a lawyer. But upon realising that the lawyer was "doing nothing", he decided to discharge the lawyer's services.
“He just filled out forms and asked me to go to MOM (to make the claim),” Mr Sohel said.

For just doing that, the lawyer actually wanted to be paid 10 percent of the compensation amount. This is even though the migrant worker's wages would most probably be only a fraction of what the lawyer gets to earn.
The question that pops into mind is - do these errant lawyers even think it is ethical to do something like this?

With the help of a volunteer at TWC2, Mr Sohel then filed a claim at the MOM.

TWC2 said that it has been tracking the situation. According to them, there have been at least 939 workers who have engaged services from 21 legal firms to seek compensation claims.
The majority of the claims were made through MOM.

The issue has become so serious that both HOME and TWC2 have highlighted the issue to the Law Society.

However, the Law Society denied having ever heard from them about the issue.

It also did not seem to believe that errant lawyers exist within their midst.

It retorted that a claim made through the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) based on the Work Injury Compensation Act can be done without legal representation.

It also insisted that “This choice must be a legally informed one, and thus the worker may require the advice of a lawyer," a spokesperson said.

However, the Law Society admitted that workers might lose out if they do not seek legal recourse. It noted that insurers or employers might even pressurise the workers not to find a lawyer to make claims.
The spokesperson from the Law Society also admitted that, “If there was negligence and the worker simply accepts the MOM compensation, the worker will have lost out on a substantial amount of compensation.”
Also, even as the worker makes a claim through MOM, the Law Society admitted that "the amount received is generally lower than what a court may award if the employer is at fault."
Then why did the Law Society insist that workers do not need legal representation, knowing that without one, it would mean reduced compensation?






The Law Society also derided the claim that foreign workers can be "vulnerable".

“It is also fair to say that a foreign worker is likely to be relatively vulnerable — lacking in education and facility in English — and so needs help more than most," it said.
But this is even though the Law Society admitted that pursuing a claim in court “may be one of the hardest decisions an injured worker may ever make in his life”
If the Law Society recognises that foreign workers would need legal assistance to be able to get back higher compensation amounts and admitted that it would be difficult to go through it alone, then why does it not recognise the complaints that the migrant worker groups have highlighted to them?

"If the NGOs have concerns, they are free to raise these concerns with the Society or to make a complaint so that the investigation process can begin,” the spokesperson from the Law Society said.

“The Society does not want blanket allegations to be made... when there is an established statutory mode of complaint, which has not been used.”

Does this mean that HOME and TWC2 did indeed highlight the errant lawyers to the Law Society but because the complaints have not been made through "an established statutory mode of complaint", this is why the Law Society has decided to ignore the claims and refused to investigate the issue?

However, if so, then is the Law Society being rigid in its processes and also where errant lawyers are allowed to practice and where they are not investigated simply because official protocols are not being followed, is there not a moral or ethical responsibility to follow up?

But the Law Society has set up legal clinics with HOME and the Migrant Workers’ Centre to provide free legal advice to migrant workers, it insisted.
Moreover, “It is currently impermissible for a lawyer’s remuneration to be based on an amount proportionate to the sum recoverable by the client,” the Law Society said. It said that the Legal Profession Act and the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules prohibits this.

All the more that the Law Society should investigate these errant lawyers, shouldn't it?


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