Lee family feud: Lee Suet Fern’s legal misconduct case goes to appellate court
- The daughter-in-law of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is appealing a verdict that found her guilty of improper conduct in directly handing the patriarch’s will
- The case – seen as a key issue in the family’s bitter public quarrel – is being heard by the Court of Three Judges, the country’s highest disciplinary body for lawyers
The Court of Three Judges, led by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, was convened to hear an appeal lodged by Lee Suet Fern, the wife of Lee Kuan Yew’s youngest child Lee Hsien Yang, following a disciplinary tribunal’s decision in February that she was guilty of improper conduct in directly handling the final version of the elder statesman’s will.
That verdict made Lee Suet Fern, the former head of one of the country’s biggest law firms, liable for a fine, suspension or disbarment.
At the centre of the case are allegations that she managed every aspect of the will’s drafting, and failed to advise Lee Kuan Yew to seek legal counsel from a third party to avoid a conflict of interest – given that her husband was a beneficiary of the will.
Lee Suet Fern maintains Lee Kuan Yew was never her client, and that she had instead been instructed by him as his daughter-in-law.
In the court session, held via Zoom on Thursday, Lee Suet Fern’s lawyers Walter Woon and Kenneth Tan emphasised this argument to the Court of Three Judges, the highest appellate body for disciplinary matters involving lawyers.
Woon, a former attorney general, said his client had only played an “administrative role” in the process.