THE LAW SOCIETY OF SINGAPORE v SYN KOK KAY

Facts

Syn Kok Kay, a solicitor called to the Bar on 22 March 1993 and sole proprietor of Patrick Chin Syn & Co, acted for JWR Pte Ltd in a professional negligence suit, HC/S 992/2015, which was dismissed in May 2019. He billed JWR roughly monthly with un-itemised round-figure bills, charging $1,340,000 in professional fees, which JWR paid. On JWR's application, Tan Siong Thye J ordered taxation on 24 October 2019 and directed him to deliver a bill of costs within 14 days. He instead appealed unsuccessfully and did not file his bill until 18 November 2020. The fees were taxed down to $288,000, leaving $1,052,000 to be refunded. He did not repay it and was adjudged bankrupt on 30 September 2021.

The Law Society brought three charges. He pleaded guilty to all. The Disciplinary Tribunal referred the overcharging charge and the charge of failing to comply with the taxation order to the Court of Three Judges, and reprimanded him on the third charge of retaining the excess. In Originating Application No 2 of 2022, the Law Society asked the Court of Three Judges to sanction him, proposing two years' suspension with immediate effect.

Issues

1. Whether the overcharging amounted to due cause for sanction and what sanction it warranted
2. Whether failing to comply with the taxation order for over a year was misconduct unbefitting an advocate and solicitor
3. Whether a suspension imposed on a bankrupt solicitor should begin immediately or on discharge from bankruptcy

Holding

The court allowed the application, finding due cause for sanction under s 83(1) of the Legal Profession Act 1966. It suspended the respondent for three years and nine months, made up of three years for the overcharging and nine months for the non-compliance, with the suspension to commence upon his discharge from bankruptcy, and ordered him to pay costs fixed at $10,000 inclusive of disbursements.

Reasoning

On overcharging, the court set out a consolidated approach looking, in order, at the extent of the overcharge (both in absolute terms and as a ratio of the reasonable fee), the solicitor's intention, his conduct afterwards, and offender-specific factors. Charging over 4.65 times what the work was worth was egregious. The court rejected his claimed belief that the fees were reasonable: the bills were un-itemised round figures, and his bill of costs simply asserted 2,233 hours at $600 per hour without detail. It concluded that he intentionally and unethically took advantage of JWR. His guilty plea carried little weight, his failure to make restitution was aggravating whatever his means, and transferring a vehicle and a club membership to his wife for $1 each appeared to be an attempt to put assets beyond creditors. His seniority and a 2013 warning letter about fees also aggravated. The court refined Law Society of Singapore v Andre Ravindran Saravanapavan Arul [2011] 4 SLR 1184: proven dishonesty in overcharging makes striking off the presumptive penalty, and conduct bordering on dishonesty warrants more than the few months' suspension in earlier precedents.

On the second charge, the court held that not every breach of a court order merits sanction, but here no contemporaneous explanation was given and most of the delay came after his further arguments were refused. Prolonged incompetence came to resemble wilful non-compliance, and his silence suggested he was putting JWR off. The court found the comparison to a breached solicitor's undertaking unhelpful.

On timing, a bankrupt solicitor cannot practise, so a suspension running concurrently would have little effect. Lengthening the suspension would wrongly treat bankruptcy as a moral taint, so the court ordered it to begin on discharge.

From the judgment