Tag: Singapore Academy of Law

Hacking Through the Gordian Knot – The LIT Hackathon 2019

On 15th March 2019

In Access to Justice, Automation, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Legal Research

Reading time: 9 minutes

Written by Josh Lee | Edited by Jennifer Lim Wei Zhen, Wan Ding Yao

Introduction

It is a classic Gordian Knot. A legal industry that is highly risk-averse, and heavily reliant on precedents and traditional ways of work. Lawyers who are too occupied with work to generate innovative ideas, let alone implement them. Technology that is believed to be too inaccessible and alien to a profession that is beginning to struggle with disruption. All these, with the backdrop of rising costs, inefficiencies (and long hours), and barriers to access to justice.

The legal industry’s solution to this? The hackathon.

Legal Hackers APAC Summit 2018 – A Summary

By Josh Lee

On 8th January 2019

In Access to Justice, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Dispute Resolution, E-Discovery, Events, Lawyers, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation, Legal Technology in Singapore, Policy, Regulations, Smart Contracts

Reading time: 7 minutes

Written by Cai Xiaohan | Edited by Josh Lee

From 16-17 November 2018, LawTech.Asia co-organised the Legal Hackers APAC Summit together with SG Legal Hackers and the Singapore Academy of Law. This saw over twenty Legal Hackers chapter organizers from at least ten different countries in the Asia-Pacific region converge in Singapore to discuss the latest developments in law, technology and innovation in the APAC region.

*The APAC Legal Hackers Summit 2018 welcome page. (Image credit: Legal Hackers Singapore)*

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.

LawTech.Asia: Media Partner for TechLaw.Fest 2018!

By Josh Lee

On 20th February 2018

In Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Contracts, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, Dispute Resolution, Events, Internet Governance, Interviews, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, People, Regulations

Reading time: 2 minutes

We are proud to be recognised an official media partner for TechLaw.Fest 2018!

Organised by the Singapore Academy of Law, the inaugural TechLaw.Fest 2018 (held from 4 to 6 April 2018) is a convention that will be the focal point of leading thinkers in technology law and legal technology.

Key highlights of TechLaw.Fest 2018 include:

A main conference themed “Smart Regulations for a Digital Economy”, which will dive deep into novel regulatory approaches tested to help societies and businesses navigate the world of rapid technology growth and the accompanying legal issues.
Over 50 prominent speakers, who will speak about and lead panel discussions on smart regulations and technologies and the impact of technology on legal practice.
Sessions, panels, dialogues, exhibitions, hackathons, masterclasses and workshops on all things law and technology (and in-between), with a target audience of 3,000 visitors and 500 delegates comprising of lawyers, policymakers, technologists and business vendors.

From now to April 2016, the LawTech.Asia team will bring you regular interviews and shout-outs covering prominent speakers and the topics they will be speaking at TechLaw.Fest. These speakers include key leaders from:

Intelllex
Law Society of Singapore
Microsoft Singapore
ROSS Intelligence
Singapore Management University
Uber Asia Pacific
And more!

LawTech.Asia readers will also receive special perks, including a promo code that gives you a discount off full-price passes for TechLaw.Fest. To stay updated, please like the LawTech.Asia Facebook page and join the Legal Hackers SG Facebook group.

We’re raring to have you join us in exploring the constantly-moving intersection of law and technology. Check back on our site regularly to ensure that you get the latest coverage, updates and news about TechLaw.Fest 2018!

We also wish to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a happy and prosperous Lunar New Year!

The LawTech.Asia Team

The Future of Law Conference 2017: Charting the Converging Paths of Law and Technology

By Amelia Chew

On 7th November 2017

In Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Events, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 4 minutesWritten by Amelia Chew & Jerrold Soh

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Singapore Law Blog. We would like to thank Singapore Law Blog for graciously allowing us to reproduce this article on this site for our readers.

Jointly organised by the Centre for Cross-Border Commercial Law in Asia at the Singapore Management University (SMU) School of Law and Osborne Clarke, the inaugural Future of Law Conference that took place from 26 to 27 October 2017 brought together leading academics and practitioners from around the world to tackle issues at the intersection of law and technology. This article provides but a snippet of the insights discussed at the conference.

The Relationship Between Humans & Artificial Intelligence

In his opening keynote speech, Professor Ian Kerr (University of Ottawa) spoke about the ethical and legal concerns surrounding delegating previously exclusively-human decisions to machines. Given that we are only at the stage of artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) at the moment, the concern is less about a dystopian future where robots may potentially overthrow humans and more about how we can manage the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and humans. As an increase in machine autonomy correlates with a decrease in human control, it is crucial to establish safeguards to deal with a situation where a machine demonstrates emergent behaviour.