News

Launch of Academy Publishing 
Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 06:00 PM

Ethics and Professional Responsibility: A Code for the Advocate and Solicitor is the first publication by Academy Publishing, a new division under the Singapore Academy of Law.

CJ Chan who also launched Academy Publishing today said that it is not the intention for Academy Publishing to become a purely commercial publishing house. The priority of Academy Publishing in the next few years will be to publish books on areas of law that fulfil practice and student needs.

The aims of this new division are threefold: to provide affordable legal materials to the legal profession and law students; to provide an alternative avenue to academics in the two law schools in Singapore to publish their writings; and to disseminate the laws of Singapore to a wider public in the region or internationally.

In line with the third objective, CJ Chan announced that, “In future, we, the Judges, would like counsel who wish to cite court decisions in support of their arguments to give priority to Singapore court decisions if the relevant points of law have already been considered by our courts.” He said that this practice would help to build up, over the years, a large body of local jurisprudence.

To encourage lawyers, students and the public to own and refer to more law books, Academy Publishing aims to price its books at least 50% lower than most comparable law text books currently in the market. These publications will be made available at major stores and through the Academy’s website.

A Commissioning Panel has been set up to identify the titles that the Academy should publish in the near term. The Panel is chaired by the Honourable Justice Andrew Phang Boon Leong, himself an established and respected author of many leading text books.

Academy Publishing will produce two series of books: the Law Practice Series and the Monographs Series. It expects to bring out at least 15 new titles over the next two to three years. The authors of these books will include judges, legal academics and senior counsel.