LETTER | The Limited Liability Partnership Act 2012 came into effect six years ago in Dec 2012. The legal profession is among three professions that are allowed to form limited liability partnerships. However, the Legal Profession Act 1976 (LPA) apparently needed to be amended to avail the LLP to lawyers. This has not been done.

Limited liability partnership (LLP) for lawyers has become a norm in many established jurisdictions such as UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. Lawyers there commonly practice as limited liability partnerships. Their liability in practice is limited to the assets of the LLP and they do not bear personal liability beyond that. This is unlike the conventional partnership, which is the only mode of practice available for law firm partnership in Malaysia, where partners take unlimited liability. If and when the LLP is implemented, the position will change and liability will be limited to the assets of the firm.

Today, many lawyers in Malaysia still practice as sole proprietors. Many corporate entities, including banks and insurers, will not engage these sole proprietors as they want firms to be in partnership in order to be on their panels. One of the biggest barriers to forming partnerships is the fear of one having to take liability for others. This is a bread-and-butter issue for all lawyers in Malaysia.

Sadly, lawyers have been unable to benefit from the LPA Act 2012 for the past six years. The required amendments have been drafted and are ready to be tabled before Parliament. In fact, they were supposed to be tabled during the last parliamentary session in March.

Lawyers have been eagerly expecting to have new Attorney-General Tommy Thomas table the amendments before Parliament during the upcoming July session. However, he seems to prefer a revamped LPA to be drafted. This news, coming from an ex-fellow lawyer, has shocked me and many other lawyers.

Revamping the LPA will take a long time. Further delay of the LLP’s implementation is not tolerable as lawyers have already waited six years.

Attorney-General Tommy Thomas should have the amendments tabled and implemented first, and then venture into the time-consuming job of revamping the LPA.

ARUN KASI is an advocate and solicitor, arbitrator and adjudicator.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.