I received some good news today. A law firm called and offered me the job as a Legal Assistant to one of the main partners. It is a permanent job this time as I made sure I checked with the Office Manager, who asked me to go down and sign the Letter of Employment tomorrow, and told me I will get a pay raise as well. I will also get to be exposed to other areas of law, mainly Litigation work like divorce cases, criminal cases, accidents, etc, and I get to go to court with the lawyer himself!
Yeah! Sounds like fun! So far I have only attended two court cases, once during an assignment for law school, and another time during a holiday job at a law firm. I always like to go to court because I can get to see how dramatic everything becomes when people are protesting their innocence. It always surprises me why suddenly there can be so much more evidence pointing to the accused's innocence while the trial is still on-going.
Most of you may not know but our courts had abolished the jury system as early as the 1960s. While England and America still depends on the jury to make the final decisions, in Singapore courts, the presiding judge makes the final and binding decision. This abolition of the jury came about because some of our pioneer lawyers felt that human emotions could be easily swayed.
Justice might not be fully met out if the accused and defending lawyer just blew the facts out of proportion to gain sympathy for the accused. There could be a big danger of the accused getting away scot-free. Thus it was decided that there would be no more jury, and the judge must be impartial to make the final decision. I will recommend John Grisham's "The Runaway Jury" for more examples on how the jury can be led astray by the defending lawyer's story. Besides Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie, I practically grew up on John Grisham's novels as well.
Actually I am quite looking forward to this job. The firm kindly gave me time off until after National Day, so I only need to start work on 15th August. Which means I still have one week left to treasure the free time I have. I better start clearing up whatever that is still left to clear up, otherwise I will have no time left to do anything after I start work.
Yeah! Sounds like fun! So far I have only attended two court cases, once during an assignment for law school, and another time during a holiday job at a law firm. I always like to go to court because I can get to see how dramatic everything becomes when people are protesting their innocence. It always surprises me why suddenly there can be so much more evidence pointing to the accused's innocence while the trial is still on-going.
Most of you may not know but our courts had abolished the jury system as early as the 1960s. While England and America still depends on the jury to make the final decisions, in Singapore courts, the presiding judge makes the final and binding decision. This abolition of the jury came about because some of our pioneer lawyers felt that human emotions could be easily swayed.
Justice might not be fully met out if the accused and defending lawyer just blew the facts out of proportion to gain sympathy for the accused. There could be a big danger of the accused getting away scot-free. Thus it was decided that there would be no more jury, and the judge must be impartial to make the final decision. I will recommend John Grisham's "The Runaway Jury" for more examples on how the jury can be led astray by the defending lawyer's story. Besides Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie, I practically grew up on John Grisham's novels as well.
Actually I am quite looking forward to this job. The firm kindly gave me time off until after National Day, so I only need to start work on 15th August. Which means I still have one week left to treasure the free time I have. I better start clearing up whatever that is still left to clear up, otherwise I will have no time left to do anything after I start work.
7 comments:
Congrats on your job.. and you even start your new job earlier than me :P
Wao.. law industry... I'm very excited with lawyer series from US... (serious like The Practice, comedy like ED, Ally McBeal..).
And additional knowledge for me, that Singapore use jury system before and has abolished it... Yeap, I somehow disagree with the jury system. Sometimes people just get away from the crime because his/her lawyer managed to get symphathy from the juries...
Thanks! You changed your job too?
Anyway what you see on the TV series is not really a true reflection of what law courts and trials are like. Actual trials are very serious, so can be very boring at times, although I always like the part where the accused start protesting his innocence. Sometimes you want to laugh at the lame excuse he can come up with.
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Well... not to mention that Singapore is small enough for Jurors to be tracked down easily...
I think it may also have something to do with the Asian mindset. I can't foresee many people that would be comfortable being on Jury duty. ("Retribution" comes to mind.)
Have fun with your new job. As a translator, I am personally also quite interested in some of the court lingo (legal translations are lucrative... *sigh*) even though they might bore me to death in the end.
Plus they need to allow us to edit our own posted comment... grr...
yea... i wrote in my blog that I'm moving to new company. You left some comment too there, remember? :P
shakespeareheroine wrote: This abolition of the jury came about because some of our pioneer lawyers felt that human emotions could be easily swayed. Justice might not be fully met out if the accused and defending lawyer just blew the facts out of proportion to gain sympathy for the accused.
I fail to see how the judges' emotion couldn't be tilted either. *perplexed*
btw, congratz for your new job.
ole'wolvie wrote: Well... not to mention that Singapore is small enough for Jurors to be tracked down easily...
Huh? As if Singapore is not small enough for the judges to be hunted down with equal ease? ;)
Ole Wolvie : I do a little translating too in my previous companies. And legal translation is the hardest because one has to get used to all the lingo and terms.
Sen : Oh yes, now I remember. Sorry about it, I can be very "blur" at times. :-p
Anon_X : Judges are normally selected from the best and most experienced lawyers who have proven their impartiality and capability throughout the years. They can be swayed but it will be tantamount to career suicide. So far none of our local judges have ever gotten into this type of trouble.
And nobody has ever hunted down any judges because as far as I know, the verdicts are normally fair, so even the accused's family members accept the decisions with no questions asked.
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