page_title: Walter Woon
section_title: Return to academia
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Woon / Career / Return to academia
caption_attribution_description: English: The Eu Tong Sen Building (left), Block B (right), and Upper Quadrangle of the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.
context_page_description: Walter Woon Cheong Ming SC is a Singaporean lawyer, academic, diplomat and politician. He is currently professor of law at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law and the Dean of the Singapore Institute of Legal Education. His expertise is in company law and securities regulation. Educated at NUS and St. John's College, Cambridge, he joined the teaching staff of the NUS Faculty of Law in 1981 and later served as Sub-Dean and Vice-Dean. He was Legal Adviser to the President of Singapore and Council of Presidential Advisors from 1995 to 1997, and was appointed as professor of law in 1999.
  Woon was a Nominated Member of Parliament between 1992 and 1996. He became the first Member of Parliament since 1965 to have a Private Member's Bill become a public law in Singapore – the Maintenance of Parents Act, which was passed in 1995. Between 1997 and 2006, Woon served in a number of diplomatic capacities, including Ambassador to Germany with an accreditation to Greece, and Ambassador to Belgium with concurrent accreditation to the European Union, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the Holy See.
context_section_description: Woon returned to academia at NUS, and was appointed the first Dean of the Singapore Institute of Legal Education (SILE), a company incorporated by the Singapore Academy of Law on 18 January 2010 to manage the postgraduate practical training of graduates from local and overseas universities seeking admission to the Singapore Bar, training contracts, and continuing legal education for practising lawyers. He has denied any intention to enter politics – "Why would I leave one hot seat to jump into another hot seat? I've said for years that I would want to go back to my natural habitat eventually. Why wouldn't anyone believe me?" – although when asked if he had forever ruled out a political career, he said: "Forever is a long time but definitely not now." Subsequently, he reiterated in a Today interview: "I am not a politician and I am not interested in politics and have no desire to go into politics. I do not know why people do not believe me when I say so. I have said it a thousand times but people do not seem to believe me."
  Woon is currently Chairman of the Singapore International Law Society (since 2006), Judge Advocate General (since 2007), and President of the Goethe Institute Singapore (since 2010). In 2015, Woon joined RHTLaw TaylorWessing LLP, one of the few largest law firms in Singapore, as its non-executive Chairman and Senior Consultant.
  In September 2017, Woon wrote a piece in The Straits Times illuminating how the office of the Attorney-General carries out its prosecutorial function, and suggesting that this could be separated from its other role as legal advisor to the Government.
caption: The National University of Singapore Faculty of Law at the University's Bukit Timah Campus, which Woon rejoined full-time in 2010
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