I refer to the letter Owners of large legal firms the main culprits

The writer must be commended for highlighting the sorry state in which most legal assistants find themselves in, especially in a profession which is constantly vigilant about human rights and justice.

The future for many law graduates who have great aspirations and hopes to venture into legal practice whilst cherishing fundamental values of rights and justice frequently ends up in an exploitative and demeaning working environment.

Firstly, many of these legal assistants who join a legal firm have to sign a renewable contract for employment. This device literally places the legal assistant at the mercy of the employer.

During the duration of the contract, the legal assistant would not know whether he/she would still be in employment at the end of the contract. There are situations where right up to the eleventh hour, the legal assistant would have no clue whatsoever whether the legal firm would renew his/her contract.

Placed in this predicament, the legal assistant would always be fearful whether he/she is meeting the boss’ very often inhuman expectations of how late he/she has stayed back to deal with the mound of files, whether he/she meets her salary formula by achieving the targeted billings/ collections.

The lawyer who throughout his/her studies is imbued with the principles of justice and rights is now thrown into the harsh reality of being a contract worker on the ‘shop floor’, run on the principles of Taylorism; far removed from the maxims of justice that they learnt as aspiring lawyers.

How many parents gloat with pride on their child becoming a lawyer but only to find that they end up as coolies for other lawyers?

For a good number of these legal assistants, it is not unusual to work till 8pm, 11pm, and 2am and even overnight for which some thoughtful employer may even provide a shower room for this purpose. The legal assistant would also come back to work on weekends and public holidays for this purpose, sacrificing their personal lives for the profits of the employer.

The threat of losing his/her job under the contract system compels the legal assistant to work under this pressure and keep watch over the billings. When the legal firm cut costs, in order to maintain profits, the legal assistants inundated with a huge quantity of work would find that the employer would not take on more staff to ease their burden.

Very often one would find that after a few years, these lawyers would be eased out and replaced by cheaper lawyers.

In law, these purported renewable contracts given to lawyers is a sham. The legal assistant is not appointed for a particular task like a site engineer or architect who is appointed for a particular duration for as long as the project exists.

There has to be security of tenure in employment – that is a fundamental right of a legal assistant. These so-called renewable contracts given to legal assistants are known as fixed-term contracts and contracts of this sort are in violation of the constitution and flagrantly breaches a person’s fundamental right to employment.

Despite the legal assistant giving most of his/her life to his/her employer during employment, the employer could without giving much notice decide not to renew the contract. This will leave the legal assistant in the lurch as he/she could be supporting a family and dealing with a mountain of bills.

This untold injustice is very rarely spoken of openly, thus these lawyers generally suffer in silence and endure these exploitations just like victims of domestic abuse.

The irony of this is that the council of which these legal assistants are members of, whilst taking up the cudgels of justice and human rights, fails to address the plight of its own members nor does it afford them any protection.