Doctors, Lawyers and their fees

I have been skipping most of the news articles because I had been busier than usual. But I still read the headlines and if you add large graphics, I would notice them too.

My retina detached slowly when I read of  Dr. Susan Lim's charges to Brunei's royalty. My eye balls popped out when I see these lawyers' fees. MP Alvin Lim looked real bad and that bad brush is used to paint the PAP as well.

Yesterday NUS Law Dean contributed this to the ST and he took the opportunity to add a few lawyers' joke. As such jokes persist and we know humor is frequently just dressed up truth.

This is what Professor Simon Chesterman said,

Typically the line is invoked in jest - a shorthand example of the many jokes about lawyers that accuse our profession of being something that society would be better off without. (What's the difference between a jellyfish and a lawyer? One's a spineless, poisonous blob. The other is a form of sea life.)

and one more,

Singapore is not particularly litigious, though it appears to be growing more so. (God and the Devil are having a fencing dispute between Heaven and Hell that escalates until God says he will take the Devil to court. "Ha!" scoffs the Devil. "Where are YOU going to find a lawyer?")

and he is not a good lawyer if he had failed to defend the indispensability of lawyers quoting Shakespeare,


But Shakespeare was also highlighting the role that lawyers play as the guardians of stability and order, standing between society and the unruly mob. If you want chaos or to start a revolution, getting rid of the lawyers is a reasonable first step.

His point is lawyers are just simply a reflection of our society. So please stop the lawyers' jokes because we would just be pointing a finger at them with three digits pointing back at ourselves. Lawyers are insufferable.

What the majority of us do is to stay away from lawyers as much as possible except of course, to encourage your offspring to be one in order to make good money. I discouraged mine from reading law but it wasn't necessary as she had on her own also concluded it was a bad idea. I told her there there are a ton of lawyers out there who shouldn't be and are now regretting their choice. Law is a worthy pursuit if entered with the right reasons and especially love. A good lawyer must at least be a private practical philosopher. That's why he/she isn't a philosopher but a lawyer. Don't forget there were lawyers before there were universities and what did those revered colleges teach then? Theology and Law. From there we had our studies of  moral and natural philosophy which we now call the Humanities and Science.