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From rethinking billable hours and workplace culture to strengthening mentorship and responsible AI adoption, he outlined concrete steps to build a profession where young lawyers can thrive for the long term.
Following the kick-off of Hackathon for a Better World (H4BW) 2026, Human Resources Online attended the Legal Profession Symposium 2026 on 29 July (Wednesday), where legal professionals and industry leaders gathered to discuss how Singapore's legal profession can become more sustainable, resilient and future-ready.
Jointly organised by DBS, Singapore Courts (SG Courts), and Singapore Academy of Law (SAL), H4BW is said to be Singapore's first "slow-burn" hackathon dedicated to social impact. Since its launch in 2020, the initiative has brought together members of the community to develop practical solutions to pressing societal issues, ranging from access to justice and online harm to scams and mental wellbeing.
The event also marked the next chapter in an ongoing conversation about the future of legal practice, with opening addresses by The Honourable Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Chief Justice-Designate Sushil Nair, both of whom emphasised that ensuring the profession's long-term sustainability will require collective action across the legal ecosystem.
From understanding the problem to implementing solutions
Opening the symposium, Chief Justice Sundaresh reflected on the profession's progress over the past few years, noting that conversations about sustainability have evolved from identifying challenges to developing practical responses.
He traced this journey back to the formation of the Ethics and Professional Standards Committee in 2023, which initially sought to reaffirm the legal profession's ethical foundations. Over time, however, its work expanded to examine whether lawyers could realistically uphold these standards without healthy and sustainable working environments.
Subsequent surveys, consultations and direct engagement with lawyers across different stages of their careers reinforced a consistent message. While young lawyers understood the ethical expectations placed upon them, many cited excessive workloads, workplace harassment and unethical behaviour as significant barriers to long-term success. In contrast, balanced workloads, supportive leadership and reasonable workload were identified as key enablers of sustainable legal careers.
Chief Justice Sundaresh said the profession has since moved beyond acknowledging these issues. The establishment of the Future of the Legal Profession Committee (FLPC) reflects a shift towards developing practical interventions that can be implemented across the legal ecosystem.
Five interconnected pressures shaping the profession's future
According to Chief Justice Sundaresh, sustainability is not driven by a single issue but by a combination of interconnected pressures that affect lawyers throughout their careers.
The first is the intensity of legal work.
While he stressed that legal practice will always be demanding and professional standards should not be lowered, he noted that technology has fundamentally changed how work is experienced today. Digital connectivity means lawyers are often expected to remain constantly available, making it increasingly difficult to disconnect, recover and sustain high performance over time.
The second pressure relates to how lawyers are measured and rewarded.
Chief Justice Sundaresh observed that young lawyers frequently identify billable hour targets as a major source of stress, particularly when they are expected to generate clients or build profitable practices early in their careers despite having limited control over work allocation or fee recovery.
He suggested the profession should reconsider whether existing incentive structures adequately recognise qualities such as sound judgement, ethical conduct and efficient legal work, while also questioning whether traditional hourly billing models remain fit for purpose in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.
The third challenge centres on workplace culture.
Chief Justice Sundaresh acknowledged that demanding work can remain meaningful when lawyers operate in environments built on trust, respect and collegiality. However, bullying, intimidation, abusive communication and a lack of psychological safety can quickly turn manageable pressure into an unsustainable experience.
While recognising that disagreements and demanding deadlines are an inevitable part of legal practice, he drew a clear distinction between professional expectations and unacceptable behaviour.
"Abusive emails, humiliation, and persistent disrespect towards colleagues have no place in our profession," he said.
Leadership, mentorship and AI require a collective response
Beyond workload and workplace culture, Chief Justice Sundaresh identified leadership, mentorship and professional development as another area requiring urgent attention.
He noted that young lawyers develop not only through technical assignments, but also by observing experienced practitioners, receiving constructive feedback and progressively taking on greater responsibility under proper supervision. However, findings from previous surveys showed that only around one in 10 young lawyers had participated in a structured mentorship programme.
Rather than assuming senior lawyers naturally become effective managers, he said organisations should intentionally equip leaders with the skills to supervise, mentor and develop talent.
"But the reality is that technical excellence as a lawyer does not automatically produce managerial or mentoring ability," he said, adding that developing people should be recognised as a central responsibility of professional leadership.
The fifth challenge concerns changing expectations across generations.
Chief Justice Sundaresh observed that while earlier generations often accepted long hours and personal sacrifice as part of the profession, younger lawyers increasingly place greater importance on flexibility, meaningful work and healthy boundaries. At the same time, today's lawyers face pressures that previous generations did not, including constant digital connectivity and a less certain pathway to partnership.
He stressed that generational differences should not be viewed as younger lawyers seeking an easier profession, but rather as changing expectations of what sustainable professional commitment entails. He added that stereotyping either generation could deepen misunderstandings and disengagement within the profession.
Left unaddressed, these pressures can lead to chronic stress, burnout, and anxiety. More importantly, Chief Justice Sundaresh warned that lawyers may begin questioning not only whether to leave their firms, but whether to leave the profession altogether. Given the growing number of alternative career opportunities available to law graduates today, retaining talent has become an issue that affects the profession as a whole rather than individual organisations alone.
He emphasised that ensuring sustainability is therefore not simply an employment issue, but one that underpins the rule of law itself.
Turning ideas into action
Having spent several years understanding the profession's challenges, the Chief Justice said the focus has now shifted towards implementation.
To support this next phase, the FLPC has identified several workstreams aimed at addressing systemic issues across the profession.
Among them is a Business and Leadership Skills workstream to strengthen leadership capabilities and people management, alongside a Bridging Legal Education and Industry initiative designed to improve collaboration between law schools, legal education providers and employers. A third Sustainability and Wellbeing workstream will examine how legal work is structured and supervised while promoting healthier workplace cultures and more respectful professional relationships.
To measure whether these reforms lead to meaningful improvements, a Legal Profession Observatory, jointly established by the SAL and Singapore Management University, will collect data and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions over time.
Chief Justice Sundaresh also stressed that law firms will play a central role in shaping the daily experiences of lawyers.
He encouraged firms to review how work is allocated, how performance targets are set, how feedback is delivered and how development opportunities are distributed. At the same time, he said the Judiciary would continue reviewing court procedures and timelines that may create unnecessary pressure while maintaining the efficient administration of justice.
Leadership transition, but continued commitment
In the second opening address, Chief Justice-Designate Sushil Nair reaffirmed that the profession's sustainability agenda would continue despite the upcoming leadership transition.
Speaking from his own experience in the senior management of a large law firm, he acknowledged that talent retention remains a persistent challenge, particularly given the demanding nature of legal practice.
While recognising that high-quality legal services inevitably require high standards, he said firm leaders have a responsibility to better understand the pressures facing younger lawyers.
Harassment and bullying, he stressed, are "an unacceptable red line", while firms should also establish systems that help leaders identify when lawyers are carrying unsustainable workloads before problems escalate.
Chief Justice-Designate Sushil highlighted the progress already made through initiatives such as the Sustainability Principles, the Mindful Business Movement and leadership programmes developed by the SAL. However, he emphasised that these efforts represent only the foundation for broader, long-term change.
He also reaffirmed that the future of the legal profession remains a shared priority of both the Chief Justice and the Minister for Law.
"The sustainability of the legal profession is therefore of national importance," he said, adding that strong leadership is critical to retaining talent and maintaining Singapore's competitiveness as a legal services hub.
Drawing on his own experience, he observed that teams operating under intense pressure can still retain talent when they are supported by effective leaders who invest in mentoring and developing junior lawyers.
As he put it, "people join organisations but leave bosses", highlighting the influence leaders have on shaping workplace experiences and career decisions.
Looking ahead, Chief Justice-Designate Sushil said the profession has reached an important juncture after several years of surveys, consultations and dialogue.
Importantly, he noted that younger lawyers no longer want to simply share feedback. They want to play an active role in shaping solutions.
This thinking informed the design of H4BW 2026, which attracted almost 40 teams to tackle three key challenge statements:
- harnessing AI in legal practice,
- strengthening cross-border capabilities, and
- redesigning workplaces to support sustainable legal careers.
The ideas generated during the hackathon have since been synthesised by volunteer lawyers and formed the basis for discussions at the symposium.
Concluding his address, Chief Justice-Designate Sushil called on the profession to move beyond discussion and into implementation.
"We must translate insight into action, and action into meaningful improvement," he said, urging stakeholders to continue testing, evaluating and refining the approach.
Unlike conventional hackathons that take place over a day or a weekend, H4BW follows a two-month "learn-as-you-hack" model. Participants were given time to build, test, and refine their ideas while balancing their professional or academic commitments. In recognition of its impact, DBS' partnership with SG Courts on H4BW received the Public Sector Transformation Star Partner Award in 2025.
Bringing the two-month H4BW 2026 journey to a close, the symposium celebrated teams that developed practical solutions to help shape a more adaptive and future-ready legal profession. Participants worked alongside DBS design thinking mentors to build, test and refine their ideas before four teams were recognised for their contributions:
- Most feasible
- Most innovative
- Most life-changing
- Most human-centred
Image / HRO
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