Singapore's Incoming Chief Justice: "People Join Organisations but Leave Bosses"

Justice Sushil Nair, Singapore's incoming Chief Justice, addressed the Legal Profession Symposium (July 29) with a direct call to firm leaders on supervision and culture accountability. Drawing on the Anthro-LawSoc Sustainability Study's finding that toxic workplace cultures, bullying, and unreasonable workloads are primary drivers of attrition from private practice, he noted the paradox in attrition data: "some teams regularly go under significant work pressure but manage to retain most of their younger lawyers, while others suffer high turnover." The difference, he argued, is leadership — "people join organisations but leave bosses." His operational prescription for firm leaders: recognize "the need for proper distribution of work" and build "a system that alerts leaders to the fact that particular lawyers are being pressed to an unsustainable level." He also made a business argument alongside the wellbeing argument: "If we do not nurture our lawyers, we will be unable to deliver good legal services and we will become less competitive." The sustainability of the profession, he said, is "of national importance" — a frame that law society and bar association governance bodies elsewhere may find useful in making the case to managing partners for structural investment in wellbeing.