Lawyers should ensure that chambering students under their charge are given proper guidance during their mandatory nine-month training period, said the National Young Lawyers Committee today.

Senior lawyers have to ensure that their pupils are given proper instructions for work assignments, adequate exposure to different areas of legal practice, reasonable allowance during the chambering period, and assistance in securing lawyers to move the pupils' calls.

Committee deputy-chairperson Richard TS Wee said reports that pupils have been left to their own disposal without proper guidance from their masters was unfortunate.

He was commenting on a July 7 The Star report concerning the plight of chambering students, in which Ipoh High Court judge VT Singham 'slammed' the declining support offered by senior lawyers' to pupils.

Law graduate Asrul Sani Mohd Anwar was said to have been made to go on a wild goose chase for two weeks before a senior lawyer agreed to move his call and robe him. Twenty senior lawyers had previously declined Asrul's request.

"We feel that such an incident is unfortunate, and we are imploring that masters give their pupils better training," said Wee when met at the Bar Council building in Kuala Lumpur.

Wee said the young lawyers committee is also in charge of the welfare and training of pupils in chambers, and was thus prepared to assist when matters are brought to their attention at the respective State Bars.