Category: Legal Innovation Page 16 of 21

#LexTech18 Quick Chats: Eddie Law, eLawyer

On 30th August 2018

In Artificial Intelligence, Events, Interviews, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 5 minutes

Interview by Samuel Lim | Edited by Amelia Chew

Organised by Malaysian legal tech startup CanLaw, LexTech Conference 2018 is an APAC-wide regional legal technology conference taking place from 25 to 26 October 2018 in Kuala Lumpur that aims to drive legal tech adoption in the region and strengthen the regional legal tech community. In the lead-up to LexTech Conference 2018, the LawTech.Asia team will be bringing to you regular interviews and shout-outs covering prominent individuals who are involved in the conference.

LawTech.Asia spoke with Eddie Law, Founder and CEO of eLawyer.com.my (“eLawyer”), about the state of the legal industry in Malaysia. Eddie is a lawyer turned legal recruiter who started his career in private practice before working as an in-house counsel.

Broadly, how would you characterise the legal tech scene in Malaysia? Are Malaysian law firms embracing machine language, artificial intelligence and cloud-based services?

I think that the adoption of legal technology in Malaysia is still in its infancy. Most law firms and in-house legal departments continue to do things the traditional way. Currently, I notice that there are very few Malaysian law firms that have embraced machine learning and AI. Similarly, cloud-based services most of the times are only used for the sharing and storage of documents.

Announcement of Collaboration: Resolve Disputes Online x LawTech.Asia

By Josh Lee

On 13th August 2018

In Access to Justice, Dispute Resolution, Legal Innovation, Legal Research, Online Dispute Resolution

Reading time: 2 minutesWhat is technology? What can it be? What can we shape it to be?

While we aren’t entirely sure – yet – of what technology is and what it can be, what we know about technology is that it is a force. It knows no boundaries. We also know that it is ever-changing: the dreams of yesterday become the technologies of today, while the technologies of today become the antiques of tomorrow.

Let’s face it too – we all know lawyers secretly can’t get enough of technology.

In this spirit, Resolve Disputes Online (RDO) and LawTech.Asia are proud to announce a special collaboration to answer these questions and share our vision – our vision in which technology can revolutionise the practice of law, and where the law can regulate new technologies for the betterment of society. We also look forward to uncovering for our readers, and ourselves, a little more about what technology is, and its impact on the legal industry.

For both our readers, this means that RDO and LawTech.Asia will be co-writing and co-publishing articles relating to law and technology. Some of the possible topics we intend to explore include:

Online Dispute Resolution (ODR)
Access to Justice
The role of Blockchain in law
AI and the courts
Justice on the go

We can’t wait to get started.

This collaboration had its roots in Singapore (over coffee and kaya toast). As much as RDO is a legal tech company focusing on online dispute resolution – an area LawTech.Asia also covers, we realised that both our teams embraced the philosophy that technology can impact all parts of the legal industry. Advancements in one area of legal technology could easily generate lessons applicable to dispute resolution and ODR. After all, some say ODR is simply the adoption of technology in dispute resolution.

Through our contributions, we hope to foster and create a spirit of togetherness amongst societies, and to leave an indelible impact in the quest to provide a sneak peek into access to justice through ODR.

Look out for us.

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This collaboration is proudly spearheaded by Ms Maryam Salehijam, Head of Content and Blogs, RDO, Mr Aditya Shivkumar, Co-founder, RDO, and Mr Josh Lee and Ms Jennifer Lim, Writers and Editors of LawTech.Asia.

LawTech.Asia Quick Chats: Sebastian Ko, Hong Kong’s A2J Hackathon

By Amelia Chew

On 29th July 2018

In Access to Justice, Events, Interviews, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 5 minutesInterview by Jennifer Lim Wei Zhen & Amelia Chew

In this edition of LawTech.Asia’s Quick Chats series, we bring some updates from the region: Hong Kong. We spoke with Mr Sebastian Ko, concerning the recently concluded Innotech Access to Justice Hackathon (“A2J Hackathon”) in Hong Kong. Sebastian was convenor of the A2J Hackathon, and is also a Member of the Law Society of Hong Kong’s Innotech Committee.

The A2J Hackathon took place from 7-8 April 2018, and featured 25 solutions ranging from chatbots to matching platforms to document assemblers.

There were other legaltech hackathons that took place in Hong Kong earlier this year, such as the LegalTech and RegTech Hackathon that was part of the Global Legal Hackathon. How did the A2J Hackathon differentiate itself?

With over 120 participants and over 60 mentors, guests and supporters, the A2J Hackathon should be the largest legaltech hackathon in HK so far. It’s other differentiating point is that it was the first hackathon in Asia to be led and organised by a professional regulator, and the first “law and tech” hackathon to focus specifically on enhancing the public’s access to justice.

Joint Call For Papers Law x Technology: Transforming the face of the Law

By Amelia Chew

On 22nd July 2018

In Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Blockchain, Contracts, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, Dispute Resolution, E-Discovery, Law Firms, Legal Innovation, Legal Research, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 2 minutesTechnology disrupts for the better of those prepared. Legal practice is hardly impervious to the implications that technology brings. The advent of blockchain and machine learning technologies is an opportunity, and a potential cost if not pursued. Conversely, the use of technology is equally subject to legal regimes and institutions. Developing a sensitivity to the mutual interaction of the two forces is of utmost urgency as governments and peoples search for a firm footing.

The Singapore Law Review (“SLR”), Asia’s oldest student-run legal publication, and LawTech.Asia, Southeast Asia’s foremost law and technology review, are collaborating on a special issue of the Singapore Law Review journal and LawTech.Asia online publication on the theme “Law x Technology: Transforming the face of the Law”.

TechLaw.Fest 2018 – Meeting Where It Matters

By Josh Lee

On 27th June 2018

In Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Dispute Resolution, Events, Internet Governance, Interviews, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Legal Research, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 7 minutesWritten by Josh Lee | Edited by Amelia Chew

LawTech.Asia had the privilege of being a media partner for TechLaw.Fest 2018. The inaugural TechLaw.Fest, held from 4 to 6 April 2018, saw the convergence of more than 1,000 legal professionals, technologists, entrepreneurs and regulators to participate in critical conversations about the future of the legal community. This article shares some of the common themes that emerged across the three days of TechLaw.Fest, highlighting the state of legal technology in Singapore and situating its development in Southeast Asia and the world.

Keynote address by Mr Brad Smith (President and Chief Legal Officer, Microsoft) at the Law of Tech Conference, TechLaw.Fest 2018 (Photo credit: Singapore Academy of Law)

The state of law and technology in Singapore

In recent years, there has been a growing buzz around law and technology in Singapore. In his opening address at the Law of Tech Conference, Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation initiative Dr Vivian Balakrishnan highlighted seven major technology trends making a global impact today:

Declining marginal cost of replicating, storing and transmitting information;
Declining marginal cost of computing;
Accelerated clock speed of technology;
Wide deployment of sensors leading to an explosion of data;
Increasing capacity to analyse data;
Disruption caused by robotics; and
Progress in artificial intelligence.

Minister Balakrishnan observed that these technological trends “interact and catalyse virtual cycles, feeding and accelerating one another”. The interaction and reinforcement of these trends have political and socio-economic ramifications, such as the creation of echo chambers and filter bubbles that threaten to disrupt the fabric of society.