LawTech.Asia

CLOC Global Institute – major announcements expected

On 10th November 2020

In Events, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 2 minutes

Written by Josh Lee

LawTech.Asia is proud to be an official media partner of the CLOC Global Institute, an online event that focuses on outstanding educational content for legal operations and the business of law. It will see esteemed speakers like Adam Becker, CLOC Vice-President and Anushree Bagrodia, Vice-President at Mastercard, speaking on such topics as growing the influence of legal operations, planning for 2021, and using legal operations to increase diversity and inclusivity.

LawTech.Asia has also been receiving exclusive updates from CLOC, and we understand that as a body and a movement, CLOC intends to shift its focus from in-house professionals to embrace its identity as a global community focused on redefining the business of law. “The wording was intentional,” CLOC President Mary O’Carroll says. “It is more than just in-house legal departments and teams. It is about transformation”.

While more details are expected at CLOC Global Institute, which will be happening in a few short hours, we understand that CLOC intends to leverage scale to solve problems collectively. This means shifting CLOC’s global and long-term strategy, and scaling up its organisational infrastructure, to gather voices perspectives and resources to answer global questions, and to allow individuals to find support, resources and networks to find answers to the global disruptive challenges facing us. Ostensibly, this means bringing in new entrants, new technology firms and new law firms onto the CLOC table.

When asked about how CLOC intended to facilitate conversations between groups of stakeholders who often talk at cross-purposes or, by dint of culture, find it challenging to build understanding, Mary was hopeful: “We must first start with opening the conversation, and we are here to learn through that expansion. It has always been in our DNA to take risks and try. The important thing is not be an echo chamber, and to build conversations that can be rich and engaging. There may be difficulties in communicating, but I believe that creates a learning and teachable opportunity that CLOC is uniquely positioned to bring.”

Greater collaboration is always helpful and appreciated, but the devil, as always, lies in the detail. LawTech.Asia will be here to provide more clarity as CLOC makes a more detailed announcement at the 2020 edition of CLOC Global Institute.

Smart contracts and blockchain-based crowdsourced arbitration: A primer

By Josh Lee

On 3rd November 2020

In Access to Justice, Blockchain, Contracts, Dispute Resolution, Legal Innovation, Online Dispute Resolution, Regulations, Smart Contracts

Reading time: 11 minutes

Written by Tomoe Suzuki (Associate Author) | Mentored by Amelia Chew | Reviewed by Paul Neo

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.

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 by Tomoe Suzuki, reviewed by industry reviewer Paul Neo (Chief Operating Officer, Singapore Academy of Law), marks the third thought piece in this series. It examines the rise of blockchain-based crowdsourced arbitration platforms.

Introduction

An earlier piece on “A brief analysis of the legal validity of smart contracts in Singapore” (“A Brief Analysis”) by Louis Lau on LawTech.Asia has explored the issues surrounding the adoption of smart contacts in terms of validity. This piece seeks to build on the aforementioned piece and add on to readers’ understanding of issues that arise in the implementation of these contracts and solutions that have arisen.

In particular, this article will compare various dispute resolution methods such as court-based litigation, mediation, arbitration (administered by arbitral institutions) to blockchain-based crowdsourced arbitration platforms (“BCAPs”) that have emerged in recent years. This piece will also provide a relatively abstract overview of how BCAPs work, the use cases they may be suited for, and highlight some of the challenges faced in increasing the adoption of smart contracts and BCAPs.

How to Choose the Right Contract Management Software for You

By Josh Lee

On 29th October 2020

In Automation, Contracts, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 6 minutes

Written by Alison Wilkinson

Contracts are an essential part of any legal office. If your law practice drafts contracts, conducts due diligence or does compliance work on behalf of your clients, you likely process hundreds, if not thousands, of contracts per year.

If they lack contract management software, many legal offices will instead store their contracts on secured shared drives like Google or Sharepoint. Using a secured shared drive is a step up from storing contracts in filing cabinets, but it’s inefficient. Contracts remain hard to access by multiple people, and it’s cumbersome to assign management and authorship duties.

With inefficiencies and management issues come errors. The International Association for Contract and Commercial Management estimates that the average company loses more than 9 percent of its revenue annually due to contract-related issues. Further, firms can lose up to 40 percent of the value of a given deal due to inefficient contracting, according to an estimate by the professional services firm KPMG.

Contract management software helps eliminate value leaks and inefficiencies by providing centralized, organized access to all your firm’s contracts. The software can give your group the tools it needs to share contracts among coworkers securely, assign and manage assignments, analyze key terms, review contracts quickly and accurately, streamline and process results and keep track of important deadlines. It also frees up time for attorneys to do more strategic, high-value work and allows them to update contracts more regularly.

Staying in the loop about Lupl

By Josh Lee

On 26th October 2020

In Interviews, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation, People

Reading time: 5 minutes

Written by Lenon Ong and Elizaveta Shesterneva | Edited by Utsav Rakshit, Ong Chin Ngee and Josh Lee

An introduction to Lupl

In the last decade, the world has seen an explosion of legal technology products. However, hopes that these products would spur a new era of significantly increased productivity for law firms have not panned out. Across legal industries, the adoption of these product leaves much to be desired.

The problem, as discovered by the founders of Lupl, lies in the digital fragmentation of these legal technology products.

Enhancing the development of legal technology in the region with new leading initiatives from the Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association

By Josh Lee

On 3rd October 2020

In Access to Justice, Events, Legal Innovation, Policy

Reading time: 5 minutes

ALITA marks first anniversary

The Asia-Pacific Legal Innovation and Technology Association (ALITA) has marked its first anniversary with a slew of initiatives to further promote the development and implementation of legal tech in the region. These initiatives were announced at the final day of TechLaw.Fest 2020 and include:

State of Legal Innovation in Asia-Pacific (SOLIA) Report 2020: The SOLIA Report was first published in 2019 at Stanford University’s Future Law Conference, and then at TechLaw.Fest 2019. Building on these successes, the SOLIA 2020 Report contains several substantive improvements. These include covering new jurisdictions like Brazil, Indonesia and New Zealand, featuring updates from four regional law firms (Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Rajah & Tann and White & Case), and covering the impact that COVID-19 has brought to this sector. Much like a kaleidoscope, the SOLIA 2020 Report was made possible by contributors across APAC, and published in conjunction with the Singapore Management University School of Law, whose academic expertise was instrumental in putting the Report together. The Report may be accessed at https://bit.ly/solia2020.