The frustration of the GEPF and ‘divorce debt’

I wish to congratulate Clement Marumoagae on his article ‘“Divorce Debt” created by the Government Employees Pension Fund’ (2016 (May) DR 24), which is clearly well-researched and in my view legally sound. It reflects the frustration of many Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) members who have to share their pension benefit with a former spouse.

As long as the GEPF does not remove/amend r 14.10.9 of the GEPF rules, or until it is found to be unconstitutional (which I submit it is), I suggest that practitioners acting on behalf of GEPF members insert a clause in a settlement agreement dealing with the pension interest, which reads as follows:

‘In terms of Section 7(8) of the Divorce Act, 70 of 1979 (as amended) the Government Employees Pension Fund is ordered to pay the plaintiff’s/defendant’s portion of the plaintiff’s/defendant’s pension interest directly from the plaintiff’s/defendant’s pension benefit and not from any other source or fund.’

If the GEPF then refuses to comply with such an order and proceeds to create a ‘divorce debt’ an application must be brought against it for a specific order to comply with the divorce order, failing which it will then be in contempt of the order.

Colleagues are invited to put forward possible alternative suggestions to solve the problem with the GEPF.

 Neels Campher, attorney, Pretoria

See the latest article written by Clement Marumoagae ‘Entitlement to pension interest on divorce – a reply’ on p 30 of this issue.

– Editor

The harsh reality of obtaining articles of clerkship

In the first year of the LLB degree, everyone is excited. I am going to be the next Harvey Spector, the next Mike Ross (from the television law series ‘Suits’). So I study hard. The sleepless nights, the hours spent perusing case law, legal texts, going through emotionally and physically draining examinations. Finally, four years, or for some five years later, I finally have my LLB degree, I am ready. My career is finally going to begin.

So what next?

I have applied to 15 firms, all of which require experience. Oh wait, I do not have any, I just completed five years of full-time studying at a university. Okay, so I am unsuccessful in all my applications for articles of clerkship. I am discouraged. I do not stop though.

So what next?

I want to better myself so that I can be an eligible candidate for my articles of clerkship. So I enrol into a law school for Practical Legal Training (PLT). I go through another six months of solid training and examinations. Finally, I have reduced my articles by one year. Surely I can find articles now.

So I apply again. This time I personally hand out my CV. I approach another ten firms. Finally I obtain an interview. I arrive for my interview telling myself that I can do this. I have the necessary skills to serve my articles. I get interviewed by a director of the firm. He says he is very impressed with me. However, it is procedure to interview other candidates and should I not hear from them I should consider my application unsuccessful. I leave with hope and await his response. An hour goes by after my interview and my head is filled with all kinds of thoughts, maybe I should not have said that, I should have said this instead. The torture does not end there. This goes on for the next hour, the next day, the next week, the following week and then it hits me, I was unsuccessful. I blame myself, I feel worthless and I am disappointed in myself.

So what next?

I do not despair. I go through this process a few times, months on end. Each time losing a little more of myself. Every time I apply I hope I get a good response. Sometimes, no response.

So what next?

How do I move forward in my career without serving my articles? I cannot. I do not give up because I know that I did not spend five years of my life for it to go in vain.

And then it hits me.

It is not my fault. I have done everything in my power to secure articles. I have two degrees (BSocSci and LLB), I have worked hard, I have sacrificed the partying that others my age were doing, I have sacrificed family time, I passed with good results, even tried to better myself by attending my PLT. It is not my fault. I have the potential.

Yes, hundreds even thousands of law graduates have the same problem I do. We are stuck in our careers because of the demand of securing articles of clerkship. How is it our fault? It is not.

And so the struggle and the harsh journey of obtaining articles of clerkship goes on. I will not give up on my career. I just need an opportunity.

Dhilshad Hoosen, student seeking articles, Johannesburg

LSSA and LexisNexis Survey

I believe the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) has made an error of judgement in allowing itself to be complicit in the LSSA/LexisNexis survey entitled ‘Attorneys’ profession in South Africa: 2016 Review – Help us plan to serve the profession better – and stand a chance to win’ and circulated by the LSSA to attorneys at the end of May that is supposed to be of such great assistance in providing apparently useful insights into the current legal profession in South Africa.

It slowly becomes clear that this so-called ‘survey’ has not been designed as the LSSA claims to ‘contribute to the knowledge pool and assist the LSSA in making more informed decisions relating to the attorneys’ profession and the environment in which practitioners are practising today’.

It does not provide an opportunity to help the LSSA ‘plan to serve the profession better’, but rather to help LexisNexis maximise the profits it already makes out of the legal profession.

Oh no, the survey is not to be completed for the elevated reasons professed by the LSSA. Instead, members of the profession are urged to complete the survey because those who complete it might win a prize. Who gives the prize? Why, LexisNexis of course.

This is an unhealthy collaboration between the national representatives of our legal profession and one of the most lucrative commercial providers of legal products to that profession. The potentially venal aspects of this collaboration and its ability to compromise the standing of the flagship of our law societies should, in my view, disturb us all.

Once one begins to respond to the questions of the survey (which is bound to produce distorted results because one is often not permitted to provide more than one response to reflect one’s actual position) one slowly begins to realise that the LSSA is being used to lend its (and, therefore, our) name to a market survey of LexisNexis to find out how to pitch their research products to the legal profession and to assess more accurately what price the market will bear for such products. Take, for example, the question as to how much one would be prepared to pay for a legal research service.

This has nothing to do with elevating the legal profession and everything to do with elevating LexisNexis’ profits made out of the profession.

There is nothing wrong with a market survey to assess the need for a legal product, as well as the effective market price that should be charged for it.

But then, let LexisNexis initiate and organise it themselves, so that we know what we are about and not have to sift through hypocrisy put out by our own professional leaders before we realise what is going on.

To those who head our national law society: methinks you have succumbed to a prevalent contemporary South African disease – loss of ethical compass.

Because of the alarming implications of the subject of this letter, this letter was sent to the LSSA and I am copying it to the editor of our professional journal with the plea that she publish it in order to provide a clarion call to our members as to the real nature of this seemingly noble, but actually highly questionable, survey.

Roland Darroll, attorney, Cape Town

Response from the Law Society of South Africa

We appreciate the concerns expressed by Roland Darroll. The ‘Attorneys’ Profession in South Africa 2016 Review’ survey was a joint initiative between the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) and LexisNexis. It is imperative for the LSSA to build its pool of business intelligence on the profession in order to provide context to a number of initiatives that it is involved in, including the Task Team on Briefing Patterns in the Profession, the committee looking into challenges faced by women in the profession and various other aspects of legal practice. The cost of surveys by independent research companies has become prohibitive for the LSSA. LexisNexis invited the LSSA to participate in a joint survey, building on its 2014 survey of small practices. There were no cost implications for the LSSA as LexisNexis carried the costs of the survey on the basis that the LSSA would include the questions it wanted answered and LexisNexis included some questions from its side. The survey was designed and will be analysed by a professional survey company. This was approved by the LSSA.

We are confident that the results of the survey will be useful to us, as well as of interest to practitioners as a snapshot of the attorneys’ profession in 2016. We would like to thank all practitioners who completed the survey and will publish the results in a forthcoming issue of De Rebus.

Nic Swart, Chief Executive Officer,
Law Society of South Africa

These letters were first published in De Rebus in 2016 (Aug) DR 4.