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The Legal Profession Offers Free Representation to the Next of Kin of Victims of the Tsunami Disaster 
Posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - 12:47 PM

To support families of victims of the tragedy, law practices have volunteered to be part of a Law Society of Singapore scheme to act free of professional fees to help the next of kin apply for a declaration of death. The scheme will be administered by the Law Society which will assign a volunteer law practice to act for the next of kin.
The scheme is the profession's response to help families deal with legal issues they sadly face as a result of this tragedy.

The President of the Law Society, Philip Jeyaretnam was quoted in Channelnewsasia as saying "The difficulty arises when you don't have the body and it happened overseas, so you need to prove the death of the person and this requires taking it up in court. And so it is that part of the proceedings where the law firm that is matched with the particular next of kin would actually make the application, collect evidence, go to court and persuade the courts."

The next of kin of victims can contact the Director of Community Relations at the Law Society, Mr Gokul Haridas at 65323105 or via e-mail at gokul@lawsoc.org.sg" to register for this free legal representation programme.
Details of the scheme can be found on the Law Society of Singapore's Website. They are as follows:-

The Law Society of Singapore's Legal Assistance Service to Families of Victims of the Asian Tsunami Disaster

1. The Law Society of Singapore will administer a scheme where Singapore law practices will act free of fees for the next of kin of victims of the Asian Tsunami disaster to apply for and obtain in a Singapore Court a declaration of death (the Scheme).This Scheme overseen by the Law Society is the legal profession’s response to help the families of the victims of the disaster.

2. The Law Society will assign a law practice to act for next of kin that has sought assistance from the Society.

3. The Assigned law practice cannot delegate the work to another law practice or lawyer of any other law practice without the Law Society's prior approval.

4. The Assigned law practice will comply with all the rules governing the conduct of lawyers in Singapore, in particular, the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct) Rules, the Publicity Rules and the Solicitors' Accounts Rules.

5. The Assigned law practice cannot charge professional fees for legal work undertaken to obtain the declaration of death save for disbursements that the practice must explain and account to the next of kin as client.

6. The Assigned law practice will also explain before engagement the scope of the legal work that it will undertake free of fees namely to apply for and obtain from a Singapore Court the declaration of death.

7. If an Assigned law practice is requested by the next of kin to undertake legal work outside the scope of the Society's Scheme as described above then that law practice will inform the next of kin as a client that he/she is free to instruct any law practice of his/her choice to provide the other legal services requested.

8. When the Assigned law practice is engaged by the next of kin to undertake other legal work beyond the scope of the Law Society's Scheme, then the law practice will explain to the next of kin as client that it can charge professional fees for such work unless the law practice of its own volition decides to undertake the other legal work free of fees too.