So, Thursday night (Oct. 15) was a significant one for our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — it was the 60th anniversary of the founding of his late parents' and uncle's law firm, Lee and Lee.

For us, though, it was more than that: we are convinced PM Lee must have set a record — national, surely; world, maybe? — for the most number of times the word "Lee" was used in a speech.

How many times was it said? If you thought 20 to 30, you're nowhere close — he spoke his surname a total of 58 times in that one speech. Don't believe us? Read and count it for yourself here.

To be fair, it was interesting enough. Lots of descriptive details of how the first Lee and Lee office was set up, and its first photocopying machine:

"(It was) a precious instrument that was very rare, not a Xerox machine – those had not been invented yet – but a wet chemical process, messy and finicky to use. I remember it particularly because on one occasion when my parents needed some documents copied urgently after work, after hours we made a trip to the office at 10-B Malacca Street late in the evening and opened up the office. We made the copies and took all the messy extra wet bits back home — quite an expedition."

He also shared a few interesting details about his upbringing by his late mum, Kwa Geok Choo, saying she would go home from the office to have lunch every day so she could see him and his siblings, and would also take a nap while at it. And on some days, when business was slow, she would bring her knitting to the office to wait for call-in clients.

Lee also amusingly shared that his mum would chide other female lawyers against litigation because "that would make them argumentative, and more difficult to find husbands!", but was cautious enough to add quickly that "of course I would never venture to offer any such advice to anybody".

About his uncle Dennis, who founded the firm with his parents, Lee said he would ride to and from court by trishaw, also making his law pupils spend their entire tutelage inside his room.

There was even a very fascinating "warning letter" that PM Lee read out, sent from John Laycock (the late Lee Kuan Yew's first law firm boss at Laycock & Ong) to his father, chiding him for taking on too many pro-bono trade union cases:

“Dear Harry,

Ong and myself have been discussing the question of members of our firm appearing in these lengthy arbitrations or commissions on wages etc. which are now all the vogue. We have been suffering from these heavily during the past few months. Coupled with the absences of so many of our qualified lawyers during March, they have left us with a backlog of purely legal work in the way of our ordinary business which cannot easily be overtaken. We have come to the conclusion that we must not take any more of these wage disputes. They can never be short , we fear, because they are always preceded by long negotiations; and we can see clearly that it is likely there will be more, perhaps many more, in the near future.

If any special case arises, the same might be specially considered by us; in that case, please let us have full information before you accept any work.

Yours Sincerely,

John Laycock”

Guess this goes to show none of us is spared from scolding by our bosses, heh heh.

Speaking of all the Lees, here's another family of Lees — the one that spawned Dick Lee: