Drew & Napier chairman Jimmy Yim SC and Legis Point founder Samuel Chacko were among seven lawyers elected to the Law Society of Singapore’s council.
The 22 October ballot filled seven of the council’s 15 elected positions for two-year terms beginning in 2027. Each category reflected professional seniority: senior candidates had at least 15 years’ standing, middle candidates had between five and under 15 years, and juniors had under five.
Rival campaign groups contested all three categories, with no group securing a sweep; Yim’s two running mates were unsuccessful, while Dentons Rodyk senior partner Debby Lim was elected alongside Chacko from his five-person team.
Drew & Napier chairman Yim topped the senior category with 1,296 votes, returning to the council after a roughly two-decade absence. Legis Point director Chacko, a former Law Society of Singapore vice-president, retained his seat with 976. RCLT Law’s Remy Choo Zheng Xi, standing independently, was re-elected with 849, while Lim secured the fourth seat with 719.
The highest-polling unsuccessful senior candidate, Joseph Liow, lost his seat by nine votes; as a current executive committee member, he received 710 votes. Nine candidates contested the four seats.
In the middle category, incumbent Thaddaeus Tan received 678 votes, narrowly defeating executive committee member Phoon Wuei, who polled 663, by 15. Chacko’s running mate Bryan Tan received 533 votes in the three-candidate contest for one seat.
WongPartnership associates Foo Hsien Weng and Siddartha Bodi won the two junior seats with 906 and 665 votes respectively. The highest-polling unsuccessful candidate, Sylvester Tan, received 239 votes, and running mate Sherwyn Lee received 236; both campaigned with Chacko.
Yim campaigned alongside Achievers founder Mohamed Yakub and Kay Pang, founder of Kay Pang Law Practice, who received 544 and 594 votes, respectively. Local news media reported that the trio visited more than 100 firms during an unusually visible campaign centred on governance, transparency and support for members.
Yim’s campaign covered all aspects of Singapore’s legal market, from domestic legal matters to HBD-centred practices, retention of younger lawyers, the impact of AI and work-life balance issues, through a series of walkabouts.
Welcoming his election on LinkedIn, Yim wrote: “The campaign may be over, but the work of renewal has only just begun.”
He said members deserve to know how decisions affecting them are made, adding: “While we can rightly take pride in our international outreach, strong financial position and institutional achievements, these successes must ultimately translate into tangible benefits for the lawyers we serve.”
In response, the society’s current vice-president, Dinesh Dhillon of Allen & Gledhill, said publicly that he looked forward to working with Yim on the council.
Chacko thanked the society’s 6,500-plus members who voted and pledged to work across the council. “I intend to do my part to heal them,” writing about divisions within the profession and identifying shared priorities including rebuilding trust, supporting smaller practices, responsible AI use and professional wellbeing. He and Lim would pursue common objectives with council colleagues, he said.
The ballot followed an intense period of public scrutiny at the society, including an ongoing police investigation into matters raised in a previous Law Society audit committee report, a redacted version of which was discussed at a Special General Meeting. Police had earlier requested the distribution of the full report be withheld while investigations continued.
The new council must select a president, two vice-presidents and a treasurer by January 2027. Last year, Chacko lost the internal presidential contest to Dhillon, whose appointment to the council as a nominated member by Edwin Tong SC, as Law Minister, prompted objections from members over the independence of the Bar in the city-state.
Singapore is due to host the 2027 IBA annual conference, while Dhillon co-chairs the IBA’s Asia-Pacific regional forum.
Dhillon later stepped aside as vice-president and Tan Cheng Han SC assumed the presidency after members backed a resolution requiring the president to be an elected councillor, which Dhillon welcomed as a solution resolving concerns.
The elections follow previous controversies which led to the resignation of one of Chako and Dhillon’s predecessors as vice-president, and the untimely death of the late Adrian Tan from cancer while serving in office.
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