BABSEA CLE Registers in Singapore!
by Marie Lamy, BABSEA CLE Team Singapore

10 November 2011 marked the birth of Bridges Across Borders South East Asia Community Legal Education (BABSEA CLE) Singapore Ltd. The idea of opening a branch in Singapore had been conceived the previous February. I am currently working in Singapore as a public policy researcher and I volunteered to coordinate the registration process . Over a period of six months, a team of former BABSEA CLE interns and current legal practitioners: Charis Tan, Yuet Min Foo and myself, along with Kevin Morley – who sits on the BABSEA CLE Board of Directors – worked hard to coordinate the registration of our social justice, legal education NGO in the Little Red Dot island.

Singapore is a dynamic regional hub for Southeast Asia — an obvious centre for spreading BASBEA CLE legal education initiatives. Singapore hosts some of the best universities and law schools in the region – notably the Singapore Management University (SMU) and the National University of Singapore (NUS). Furthermore, Singapore is home to numerous quality law firms with legal professionals who are willing to work with us to improve social justice in the region. — notable examples are the leading Australian firm of Freehills and Drew & Napier, both of whom already work with and support BABSEA CLE’s work. BABSEA CLE Singapore is also looking forward to the possibility of signing Memorandums Of Understanding with the NUS Law School and the Singapore Management University School of Law to expand BASBEACLE’s network

A New Regional Center
BABSEA CLE’s Singapore base may eventually act as a regional office and coordination centre for clinical legal education in the region. BABSEA CLE Singapore brings us closer to Singapore-based lawyers and law students who wish to further their knowledge of legal and social justice issues in Southeast Asia . And these lawyers and law students represent a potentially important pool of volunteers for BABSEA CLE’s activities throughout the region.

The establishment of BABSEA CLE Singapore would not have been possible without the kind help of Joanne Khoo, Susan Tan and their team at Drew & Napier LLC in Singapore. Drew & Napier has an important pro-bono service through which it offered assistance in our registration process. We thank them for their hard work and support.

The Board of Directors for BABSEA CLE Singapore are Bruce Lasky, Charis Tan, Yuet Min Foo, and Mahdev Mohan, Assistant Professor of Law at the SMU. We are looking forward to planning the upcoming CLE one day-roundtable with SMU’s Asian Peace-Building & Rule of Law Program and the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education to be held in March 2012.

BABSEA CLE Singapore promises to be a great step forward for our organisation and we are excited to see it grow and supplement a wider network for the promotion of social justice in Southeast Asia.