Lee Suet Fern, daughter-in-law of Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew and a partner at Morgan Lewis & Bockius, has rejected the findings of a disciplinary tribunal that found her guilty of professional misconduct over her involvement in the preparation of the late Lee’s will.

Responding to the tribunal’s verdict, the Law Society of Singapore, which filed the case against Suet Fern, announced it would apply for a show-cause hearing before the Court of Three Judges, the highest disciplinary body dealing with lawyers' misconduct.

However, Suet Fern hit back through a statement on the Facebook page of her husband, Lee Hsien Yang. "I disagree with the disciplinary tribunal's report and will fight this strongly when it is heard in open court. I urge the public to look at these and come to their own independent conclusions,” she said.

At the hearing, Suet Fern was represented by former Attorney-General Walter Woon SC and Kenneth Tan SC, who were supported by Abraham Vergis and Asiyah Arif of Providence Law Asia.

According to media reports, charges of professional misconduct against Suet Fern were brought by the Law Society of Singapore after the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) made a complaint. On Feb. 13 last year, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon appointed the disciplinary tribunal to hear and investigate the matter.

The lawsuit centres on the preparation and execution of Lee Kuan Yew’s seventh and final will dated December 2013. The tribunal found that Suet Fern and her husband made Lee Kuan Yew sign the will urgently, without the presence of his lawyer Kwa Kim Li. 

Media reports added that Suet Fern’s conduct was in direct contravention of rules expressly prohibiting a lawyer from preparing a will when a family member of the lawyer is going to get a significant gift under the will. Defending herself, Suet Fern argued that there was no conflict of interest as she was merely assisting in a family matter at the request of her husband and not acting as a lawyer in the preparation of the final will.

The tribunal added that Suet Fern had also misled Lee Kuan Yew on the terms in the final will. According to media reports, the final will had a clause on the demolition of his house at 38 Oxley Road, which was included in previous wills, but removed subsequently.

The 38 Oxley Road house was the residence of Lee Kuan Yew from the 1940s until his death in 2015. He had expressed his wish to have the house demolished after his death or kept as a closed residence for his family. 

The house became the heart of a public spat among the Lee siblings in 2017. During this time Suet Fern, then then managing partner of Morgan Lewis Stamford, stepped down from her post.

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