We are proud to be recognised by the Singapore Academy of Law as an official media partner for TechLaw.Fest 2020!
TechLaw.Fest 2020 (held from 28 September to 2 October 2020) is a signature convention in Singapore that will be the focal point for leading thinkers, leaders and pioneers in law and technology.
After a competitive bidding process, LawTech.Asia is proud to announce that we have been selected to be a Consultant for The Commonwealth’s Governance and Peace Directorate!
Over the last two months, the LawTech.Asia team has been hard at work preparing a Report for the Commonwealth in the area of legal innovation – which is now completed! While we are not able to disclose the precise topic or contents of the Report for confidentiality reasons, we are most grateful for this opportunity, and proud that it reflects the trust and confidence serious players have in the LawTech.Asia brand.
Kudos to the team for pulling this off amidst this challenging period. Here’s looking to greater heights ahead!
By Lenon Ong, Sanjana Ayagari, Elizaveta Shesterneva | Edited by Josh Lee
As part of our strategic media partnership with the Singapore Academy of Law, LawTech.Asia once again has the privilege of being appointed as media partner for TechLaw.Fest 2020. As the programme line-up for TechLaw.Fest 2020 begins to take shape, LawTech.Asia brings our readers back to TechLaw.Fest 2019 to provide a timely recap on all that happened, as we look forward to what is shaping up to be a momentous and memorable TechLaw.Fest 2020.
In its second year in this form as a large-scale conference, TechLaw.Fest 2019 was held on 5 and 6 September 2019, and saw over 1,500 legal professionals, technologists, entrepreneurs and regulators converge to engage in critical conversations about the future of technology law and of the legal industry.
Given the numerous conferences, exhibitions, pitches, launches and meetings all happening over 48 hours of adrenaline and excitement, this article aims to share some of the key themes and memorable moments that emerged across both days of Singapore’s (and arguably Asia’s) signature law and technology conference.
Written by Jennifer Lim and Irene Ng | Edited by Josh Lee
Authors’ Note:This article is a follow-up to LawTech.Asia’s earlier article on remote working, which can be found here.
Introduction
The recent global pandemic centering around Covid-19 has foisted large-scale digitalisation upon the legal industry. It has pressed firms, courts and clients to adopt remote working, practically forcing all lawyers to virtually turn “in-house” (pardon the pun) overnight as law firms react to government regulations by implementing “work-from-home” measures.
The legal industry should not shy away from embracing technology, and should in fact use this as an opportunity to rethink its models for operating and delivering services.. In this regard, the Singapore Courts have taken digital transformation in their stride, enabling hearings, pre-trial conferences, and even commissioning to be conducted via video-conferencing. Courts in the region, such as Malaysia and Australia, have also adopted similar modes of digital transformation and formulated their own Standard Operating Procedures and handbooks.
As a follow-up to LawTech.Asia’s earlier article on remote working (which focused on business continuity plans for law firms in general), this article seeks to focus on introducing practical strategies to optimise one’s use of video-conferencing tools. This article first examines strategies for optimising our workflow in the context of video-conferencing, before doing a comparison of certain common technologies.
Much ink has been spilt about how COVID-19 has changed and disrupted the legal industry. A search on Google turns up numerous articles on how COVID-19 has done overnight what no law or policy could: forced lawyers to adopt a fully-digital mode of doing business, changing court practices (to the extent that even being called to the Bar is now a digital occasion), and forced law schools to turn to AI invigilators to deter cheating in stay-home exams. Perhaps the clearest sign of the times is to hear practicing lawyers confide that for once, they get to spend more than 7 hours of their day at home.