There are some things money can't buy. And that would include a Senior Counsel in Singapore, apparently.

This is so as no amount of Mastercards can help 60-year-old retired banker Deepak Sharma and his surgeon wife Susan Lim hire a Senior Counsel (SC) in Singapore.

Dr Lim was accused of overcharging her wealthy Bruneian patient and lost her case against the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) last year.

As the losing party, she was ordered to pay for the cost of SMC's lawyers.

SMC's lawyers are Senior Counsel Alvin Yeo and Melanie Ho of WongPartnership (WongP). Yeo is currently also a People's Action Party MP.

However, Sharma asked the High Court to conduct a judicial review of the Law Society committee's decision to dismiss his complaints that he was being overcharged by Yeo and Ho.

The Straits Times reported that Sharma sought legal representation from lawyers in Singapore but claimed that "all of the over 20 Singapore Senior Counsel” he approached declined to represent him.

Who are these senior counsel?

There are currently 67 SC in Singapore.

Click on picture to go to source

Three SC are dead, two SC are government office-holders, 10 are Justices in the Supreme Court, five are in the Attorney-General's Chambers, four are in the universities, one in Subordinate Courts. And there are four SC in Yeo's law firm WongP.

If we take out these 27 SC who are not eligible to take on the case, there are still 43 SC who are practising lawyers here.

Since over 20 SC declined to represent him, it means that about half of the SC in Singapore declined to take on Sharma's case.

In fact, Sharma implied in The Business Times that the SC turned him down "mostly because of their personal and/or professional relationships with WongPartnership and/or its lawyers".

He also said that "none of the law firms or Senior Counsel contacted declined on the basis that my case was unmerited."

According to the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL), SC have top-tier advocacy skills, professional integrity and are learned in the law.

SAL also said that "they also have a duty of leading and being an example to the rest of the Bar, especially younger members".

I think the SC have a duty to explain to young lawyers the reasons they decide whether to take on a client or not.

Top photo from TED

Find Mothership.SG on Facebook and Twitter.