Category: Legal Innovation Page 4 of 21

Invitation: HKU LITE Lab Access-to-Justice Virtual Student Showcase 2021

On 20th April 2021

In Access to Justice, Automation, Events, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 2 minutes

Written by Josh Lee Kok Thong

LawTech.Asia is proud to be a partner of the HKU LITE Lab’s Access-to-Justice Lawtech Virtual Student Showcase.

To be held on 21 April 2021 at 6pm HKT, the University of Hong Kong’s (“HKU“) Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship Lab (“LITE Lab“) cordially invites industry players and students to learn more about what it is doing to better serve under-resourced impactful organisations in Hong Kong, including co-designing and creating proof-of-concepts in collaboration with Hong Kong NGOs to improve access to justice (“A2J“).

In past years, the LITE Lab@HKU student team EC Bank addressing employment compensation were the Georgetown University Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational 2020 winners, and have since set up Litex as a natural language processing (“NLP“) lawtech startup. LITE Lab’s inaugural A2J lawtech virtual student showcase, with an esteemed panel of invited judges, will decide which of this year’s undergraduate student teams will represent HKU with their projects co-designed with impactful NGOs Equal Justice, Justice Centre and SoCO to assist victims of human trafficking, refugees/ asylum seekers and low income housing tenants utilising document automation, search engines and computer vision.

The A2J Lawtech Student Virtual Showcase will also feature other LITE Lab@HKU supported student initiatives, including A2J lawtech projects created both within and outside the LITE Lab course curriculum that assist with issues such as social and environmental impact measurement, unrepresented litigants, divorce court forms and wills.

The event counts organisations such as Asian Charity Services, PILNet, Pro Bono Hong Kong, the Asia Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association (“ALITA“) and Legal Hackers Hong Kong as its supporting organisations, and welcomes participants to join in on 21 April 2021 (Wednesday) via Zoom as it seeks to grow the A2J Lawtech community in Hong Kong and beyond.

Interested participants should register using the button below.

The Use, Issues and Policies of Legal Technology for Lawyers and In-House Counsel

By Josh Lee

On 21st February 2021

In Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Contracts, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, Interviews, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 19 minutes

Written by Johanna Lim Ziyun (Associate Author) | Mentored by Nisha Rajoo | Reviewed by Edmund Koh

LawTech.Asia is proud to have commenced the third run of its popular Associate Author (2020) 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 respected industry mentor.

In 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, written by Johanna Lim and reviewed by industry reviewer Edmund Koh (China Telecom Asia Pacific), marks the third thought piece in this series. It scans the landscape of lawyers and technology, and sets out steps that lawyers should take to meet a future technologically-driven paradigm.

Lawyers and Technology

By Josh Lee

On 18th January 2021

In Access to Justice, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 7 minutes

Written by Thomas Lee (Associate Author) | Mentored by Ong Chin Ngee | Reviewed by Rakesh Kirpalani

In 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, written by Thomas Lee and reviewed by industry reviewer Rakesh Kirpalani (Drew & Napier and DrewTech), marks the second thought piece in this series. It scans the landscape of lawyers and technology, and sets out steps that lawyers should take to meet a future technologically-driven paradigm.

The Use of Chatbots as a Way to Create a Two-Step Approach to Providing Legal Services: Case Study: LRD Colloquium Vol. 1 (2020/06)

By Josh Lee

On 15th January 2021

In Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Policy

Reading time: 16 minutes

Written by Elizaveta Shesterneva^*

Editor’s note: This article was first published by the Law Society of Singapore as part of its Legal Research and Development Colloquium 2020. It has been re-published with the permission of the Law Society of Singapore and the article’s authors. Slight adaptations and reformatting changes have been made for readability.

ABSTRACT

Chatbots have already been deployed by law firms and Legal Technology (‘LegalTech’) start-ups to perform some law-related activities as a way to provide better assistance to clients. The widespread use of chatbots may further deepen existing issues relating to the scope of legal functions chatbots undertake, the unauthorised practice of law and the competitiveness in the legalsector. This paper examines the aforementioned issues and suggests a two-step approach to providing legal services which incorporate the use of chatbots with help from qualified attorneys. The goal of the suggested two-step approach is an attempt at a peaceful collaboration between technology and legal professionals, where the use of chatbots do not threaten the ‘status-quo’ of qualified persons, but rather, encourages further innovation in the legal profession.

The Evolution of Legal Ethics with the Advent of Legal Technology: LRD Colloquium Vol. 1 (2020/06)

By Josh Lee

On 23rd December 2020

In Access to Justice, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 18 minutes

Written by Jennifer Lim Wei Zhen^* and Lee Ji En^**

ABSTRACT

The advent of new technologies has presented (i) legal technological tools which assist lawyers in dispensing legal services (e.g. Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’)-powered eDiscovery, contract review and legal research tools); and (ii) technologies which shaped the type of legal services lawyers offer or adopt (e.g. smart contracts, online and decentralised dispute resolution).

This paper explores the scope and extent of ethical duties that should be imposed on practitioners in terms of (i) the duty to advise clients on new technologies that would facilitate the best running of their cases; (ii) the duty to advise clients on considering the existence of these new legal services and adopting them in their work products; and (iii) the duty to ensure that the tools used comply with the necessary ethical and professional standards.