Author: Josh Lee Page 12 of 20

Legal Tech-ing Our Way to Justice

On 10th May 2020

In Access to Justice, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Dispute Resolution, E-Discovery, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Legal Research, Online Dispute Resolution

Reading time: 10 minutes

Written by Jasmine Ng (Associate Author) | Mentored by Andrew Wong | Reviewed by Yap Jia Qing

LawTech.Asia is proud to conclude the second run of its Associate Author (Winter 2019) Programme. The aim of the Associate Authorship Programme is to develop the knowledge and exposure of student writers in the domains of law and technology, while providing them with mentorship from LawTech.Asia’s writers and tailored guidance from a well-respected industry mentor.

As part of a partnership with the National University of Singapore’s alt+law and Singapore Management University’s Legal Innovation and Technology Club, five students were selected as Associate Authors. This piece by Jasmine Ng, reviewed by industry reviewer Yap Jia Qing (Founder, Emerging Tech Policy Forum), marks the first thought piece for this season. It examines how legal technology can be better used in Singapore to improve access to justice.

Introduction

From the ubiquitous presence of virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri, to the achievements of Google’s DeepMind technologies on facial recognition and machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and other data-based technology are a growing part of everyone’s lives. Technological advancement has also made a huge impact on the legal industry. In his speech at the Opening of the Legal Year 2019,^[1] Singapore’s Chief Justice, Sundaresh Menon CJ, recognised technology as a key driving force of the seismic changes to the legal industry’s operating environment.

With this changing landscape in mind, the Singapore Judiciary has taken steps to maintain Singapore’s position as a progressive, adaptive and forward-looking judiciary.^[2] Digitalisation is now a key pillar of Singapore’s legal system transformation efforts, which is in line with the Digital Government Blueprint in support of the Smart Nation initiative.^[3]These developments are to be welcomed, as they tackle concerns about access to justice (which have been increasing in the wake of rising inequality). With this context in mind, I will analyse how technology is being used in our legal industry, and how the benefits of legal technology can be better harnessed to improve access to justice.

Out-of-office: Preparing your firm for a remote-working future

By Josh Lee

On 13th February 2020

In Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Legal Technology Manual

Reading time: 8 minutes

Written by Josh Lee | Edited by Jennifer Lim, Andrew Wong

Introduction

The outbreak of the CoViD19 epidemic has had a chilling effect on many. The virus’ continuous spread after the Lunar New Year holidays meant it continued to make its presence felt even as businesses re-opened for work.

Anticipating a worsening of the global health situation, businesses are beginning to prepare themselves for an extended period during which business operations could be impacted. “Business continuity” has become a widely-mentioned theme, with many organisations beginning to implement drawer plans to reduce physical interaction. These plans could include telecommuting and working through remote-workplace tools. For example, the Hong Kong government asked some of its staff to work from home to reduce human-to-human contact. MNCs like DBS, Rio Tinto and UOB have also activated work-from-home plans.

In the legal industry, while established and technology-focused law firms with the necessary infrastructure may be able to make the switch relatively seamlessly, other firms may find it more challenging to do so. This is in particular so for firms that have yet to see a disruption to business of the scale similar to that seen during the SARS or swine flu epidemics.

Notwithstanding the doom and gloom, it remains prudent to take a long view of the present situation, and to see the silver lining in the clouds. While it may appear at first blush to be troublesome to begin implementing business continuity plans, the present generation of telecommuting and remote-workplace tools are more than capable of sustaining businesses for extended periods of time. In fact, the present situation might prove to be just the encouragement for more firms to begin switching permanently to a nimbler, telecommuting-based structure, with communication driven primarily by remote-workplace tools. Indeed, this is the first (and critical) step to the implementation of “virtual law firms” – law firms that work nearly-entirely remotely without the need for a dedicated office space.

Focusing on remote-working, this article covers the following points:

The benefits of a remote workforce;
The telecommuting tools needed to enable and maintain a remote-working environment; and
Other considerations needed to ensure a successful transition into permanent telecommuting.

Postponement of LawTech.Asia’s Birthday Bash

By Josh Lee

On 9th February 2020

In Uncategorized

Reading time: < 1 minute

Dear Partner, Reader, Friend,

We would like to sincerely thank you for your unwavering support for LawTech.Asia and for our upcoming Birthday Bash. In light of the present national health situation in Singapore, however, we regret to inform you that we will be postponing the Bash temporarily, and we apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause.

We have not made this decision easily. We arrived at it primarily with the health and wellbeing of all our guests, speakers, participants and friends in mind. We also considered this in light of the recent raising of the public health alert status, as well as latest advisories from the Ministry of Health to avoid large group and communal activities.

Our team is currently assessing when next to hold the Bash — hopefully in a few months, when the present health situation eases up. On this note, we would like to express once again our heartfelt thanks for the immense support that has been shown to us. It means a lot, and makes us resolved to ensure that when we hold this with-community, for-community Bash again, it will be even bigger and better.

We end with this note — that just as our community must stand together to advance legal innovation, we too, must stand together against this common test. We believe that we can, we will, and that our community will be all the more stronger for it.

And we look forward to seeing you again when that day comes. In the meantime, thank you for your continued support of LawTech.Asia and please continue to stay tuned for more posts and updates on LawTech.Asia.

With Asia, for Asia,
LawTech.Asia

To Our Partners: LawTech.Asia’s 3rd Anniversary Birthday Bash

By Josh Lee

On 28th January 2020

In Events, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 2 minutes

[Editors’ Note: Please note that LawTech.Asia’s Birthday Bash has been temporarily postponed given the present public health situation in Singapore. Please continue to refer back to LawTech.Asia’s website for updates.]

The Epistemic Challenges Facing the Regulation of AI

By Josh Lee

On 30th December 2019

In Artificial Intelligence, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 8 minutes

Written by Tristan Koh and Josh Lee

The regulation of artificial intelligence (“AI”) has been a hot topic in recent years. This may stem from increased societal awareness of: (a) the possibilities that AI may deliver across various domains; and (b) the risks that the implementation of AI may cause (e.g., the risk of bias, discrimination, and the loss of human autonomy). These risks, in particular, have led renowned thought leaders to claims that AI technologies are “vastly more risky than North Korea” and could be the “worst event in the history of our civilisation”.

A key challenge facing any policymaker creating regulations for AI (or, for that matter, any new technology), however, is the epistemic (i.e., knowledge-based) challenge – policymakers must have domain knowledge in order to be able to sufficiently appreciate the scope, size, degree and impact of any regulation, and be able to propose solutions that are effective and pragmatic.^[1] In fact, it has been recognised in some governments that subject-matter expertise is lacking when policies or regulations are being crafted.^[2] To effectively regulate the development and use of AI, it is clear that policymakers and regulators will need to possess a deep understanding of AI technology and its technical underpinnings.

While a full exposition of AI technology in this short article would not be possible, this article sets out some of the key technical features that policymakers and regulators should consider in the regulation of AI. In particular, this piece focuses on neural networks, a key element in modern AI systems.