By Wong Kim Hoh, Senior Writer

AS ALWAYS on a Tuesday night, Ms Helen Chia, 39, is at the South East Community Development Council dispensing free legal advice at the Community Legal Clinic, run by the pro-bono arm of the Law Society.

The Clifford Law partner's first client is cabby C. H. Tan. His ex-wife is causing him sleepless nights and has been tardy with maintenance payments for their five-year-old daughter - preferring to spend her money on holidays and shopping.

'I don't know where she has moved, she refuses to even let me know where she works,' Mr Tan, 33, says.

Over the next half hour, Ms Chia vets his documents and talks him through his options.

'Your court order doesn't say when she has to pay. It also doesn't say it has to be paid into your account. It is very easy for her to work around it,' she tells him.

She advises him to engage a lawyer to lay out clearer conditions and to take up a court order.

Ms Chia can command consultation rates of between $350 and $500 per hour, depending on the complexity of the case. But the law graduate from the University of Wolverhampton in Britain has been offering free legal advice at the clinics at least one night a week ever since they started in August 2007.

She began volunteering nine years ago and used to take part in pro-bono legal clinics offered by the People's Association and The Singapore Association of Women Lawyers.

Open four nights a week from 7.30pm to 10pm, the Community Legal Clinics are designed to help poor and middle-class people gain access to justice.

Ms Chia attends to between 10 and 12 clients each session with problems ranging from domestic violence to accident claims.

She reports that the downturn has caused a big spike in applicants and that many come in seeking advice on employment and matrimonial issues. Indeed, figures from The Law Society show that more than 300 applicants registered for the clinics this February, and last month, compared to an average of 250 each month for last year.

The bleak times, she says, have also seen the better-heeled coming in for free legal advice.

'I don't know how many cases I've had of people trying to recoup money, from friends, contractors or business partners. I've even had a couple of people coming to ask how they could recover bad debts from 10 years ago,' says Ms Chia, who is married to an accountant and expecting her first child in September.

Besides the legal clinics, she also waives her fees and takes on two or three criminal cases each year under the Criminal Legal Aid Scheme. She is currently defending a man accused of theft.

She readily admits that the legal clinics eat into her work and her social life.

'You have to dump everything at work and go. You can't make social plans. But it's a commitment and I have to make time for it. I just have to put in extra hours at work the next day,' she says.

Ms Chia - whose father is a retired civil servant, and mother a bank clerk - says pro-bono work makes her calling as a lawyer real. 'Everyone starts their practice saying that law is a calling. As the years go by, we sometimes lose focus and become more concerned with bonuses, pay rises and partnerships,' says the bubbly legal eagle, whose younger brother works in the banking industry.

'Pro-bono work brings the law back to the calling, and keeps the passion alive,' she says, adding that all six partners in her law firm volunteer at the legal clinics.

Ms Chia - who also sits on The Law Awareness Committee, a body dedicated to educating members of the public about their legal rights and obligations - says legal clinics are a great boon for those from low-income families, who either do not know their legal rights or cannot afford a legal solution to their woes.

The cases which really move her are those involving the elderly.

'I had this retired couple in their 70s who were totally neglected by their daughter. They were so angry that they came to me and asked how they could go about leaving their three-room HDB flat to charity.

'They kept coming back whenever I was on. Because they had become a friend and had no money, I decided to do a will for them, pro bono,' says Ms Chia who visits them regularly bearing groceries.

Sometimes, she feels that she is not just tackling legal problems, but social ones too.

'One elderly lady came to me and told me she had nothing. Her son persuaded her to sell the flat and put the proceeds in a joint account. When she tried to withdraw money from the account, she found that everything had been taken out. It's serious financial abuse of the elderly.'

From a legal standpoint, there was nothing the elderly woman could do given that her son was nowhere to be found. But Ms Chia comforted the woman, sent her to a Meet-The-People session and also arranged for her to see her MP.

She intends to continue doing pro-bono work after she has had her baby.

'Many lawyers have acquired the reputation of being people who turn on the clock and tell their clients: 'You don't talk, I talk'.'

The Community Legal Clinics, she says, prove otherwise.

Those interested in signing up for free legal advice can call 6536-0650.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.