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SINGAPORE – Attorney Lee Suet Fern’s “singular focus” on achieving what her husband, Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, wanted, outside of the interests of his father-in-law, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, was a factor weighing on favor of a bigger phrase.
Failure to properly consider Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s interests was a “grave failure” on Ms. Lee’s part, the Three-Judge Court said in its judgment on Friday (November 20) in establishing the various factors it considered. by deciding to suspend her from practicing law for 15 months after finding her guilty of misconduct for her handling of the late Mr. Lee’s last will.
Preparation of a will is not just a routine form-filling exercise, the court said.
An attorney tasked with preparing and servicing a will has serious responsibilities and must conscientiously avoid being in any situation where it may appear that there is even a potential conflict of interest, the court said.
“An attorney who does not act with exceptional care and … with restraint and circumspection must be prepared for his conduct to be examined and perhaps even his motives questioned,” said the judgment written by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon. .
While the court accepted that there was no attorney-client relationship between Ms. Lee and her father-in-law, it said the current case was analogous to cases involving attorneys who prefer their own interests over those of their clients.
Given the absence of an attorney-client relationship, the alleged penalty of firing would be disproportionate, the court said.
“However, the sanction imposed on (Ms. Lee) should reflect both her guilt and the harm caused by her misconduct,” the court said.
On the afternoon of December 16, 2013, Ms. Lee’s husband, Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, who was going overseas that night, told her to make arrangements for the elderly Mr. Lee to return to your original 2011 will.
The court said that when told about this, Ms. Lee knew full well that she was in a position of potential conflict as her husband had been a significant beneficiary under that will.
Despite this, he set out to locate a draft of that will and sent it to Mr. Lee, telling him that it was the first will he had executed in August 2011.
The court said that Ms. Lee was so focused on what her husband wanted done that she did not consult with Mr. Lee Kuan Yew to ensure that he really wanted to go back to that will.
He also sent the draft of the will to his father-in-law without even checking if it was the final draft of the first will.
After the last will was executed, Ms. Lee asked her husband, rather than her father-in-law, what to do with the two original copies.
The court said that his “remarkable lack of diligence” in ensuring that his father-in-law’s wishes were duly verified and that he was fully informed of all the facts, was also weighed in favor of a harsher sentence.
Ms. Lee’s experience of more than 30 years also weighed against her.
“While this was the first blemish in the course of a long career, his significant experience made his conduct totally unacceptable and inexcusable,” the court said.
On the other hand, the court determined that the lack of honesty in her dealings with Mr. Lee Kuan Yew was a factor in Ms. Lee’s favor.
While the court said Ms. Lee was “clearly reckless” and “grossly negligent,” it noted that she had testified that she would not have dared to send the draft will if she did not believe that was what her father-in-law wanted.
However, the weight to be attributed to this factor is tempered by the fact that it acted with a certain degree of dishonesty in the disciplinary process, by giving an “artificial and ultimately false account” of its role in the preparation and execution of the will.
Considering all these factors, Ms. Lee’s guilt was at least “moderately high,” the court said.
He added that pecuniary damage was caused when Mr. Lee Kuan Yew ended up signing a document that was in fact not the one he had indicated he wanted to sign.
“The fact that the last will and the first were materially similar was fortuitous, and does not rule out the fact that the potential harm could have been much more serious than the actual harm that occurred,” the court said.
He noted that while Mr. Lee Kuan Yew had changed his will several times, he was happy with the last will after it was signed, and lived with it for over a year and did not visit him again, other than bequeathing two rugs to Mr. Lee. Hsien Yang.
The damage caused in this case was “at the lower end of the moderate range,” he said, adding that a substantial period of suspension is warranted in this case.
Before determining the appropriate period of suspension to impose, the court examined three precedents in which the errant lawyers involved were suspended for between two and three years in cases involving a conflict of interest.
In comparing the facts of the current case with the preceding ones, the court said that a 15-month suspension was appropriate.
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