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Law and computation: A conversation

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On 2nd December 2024

In Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation

Reading time: 10 minutes

Written by: Meng Weng Wong and Marc Lauritsen

This conversation between a computer scientist and a lawyer/technologist – about evolving collaborations across their several disciplines – was triggered by interactions at the SubTech’conference in Singapore in July 2022. Together with Alexis Chun they recently published Using Domain-Specific Languages in Legal Applications in The Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Law.

Meng Weng Wong, principal investigator at Singapore Management University’s Centre for Computational Law, is a computer scientist (CS Penn ’97) and co-founder of Legalese, a deep-tech startup that applies computer science to law. Meng previously designed Internet email infrastructure (RFC4408) and co-founded two high-tech startups and a startup accelerator, JFDI.Asia. He’s been appointed to research fellowships at Harvard’s Berkman–Klein Center for Internet & Society, Stanford University’s CodeX for Legal Informatics, and Ca’Foscari University.

Marc Lauritsen, president of Capstone Practice Systems, is a Massachusetts lawyer and educator with an extensive background in practice, teaching, management, and research. He helps people work more effectively through knowledge systems. He has taught at five law schools, done pathbreaking work on document drafting and decision support systems, and run several software companies. Marc is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, past co-chair of the American Bar Association’s eLawyering Task Force, and the author of The Lawyer’s Guide to Working Smarter with Knowledge Tools.

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Andrea Christine Suki: Law Reform Paper on Criminal Liability and Generative Artificial Intelligence

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On 20th November 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 19 minutes

Written by Andrea Christine Suki | Edited by Josh Lee Kok Thong

LawTech.Asia is proud to collaborate with the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law’s LAW4060 AI Law, Policy and Ethics class. This collaborative special series is a collection featuring selected essays from students of the class. For the class’ final assessment, students were asked to choose from a range of practice-focused topics, such as writing a law reform paper on an AI-related topic, analysing jurisdictional approaches to AI regulation, or discussing whether such a thing as “AI law” existed. The collaboration is aimed at encouraging law students to analyse issues using the analytical frames taught in class, and apply them in practical scenarios combining law and policy.

This piece, written by Andrea Christine Suki, examines whether criminal law should evolve or adapt to mitigate a range of harms posed by generative AI, and seeks to provide recommendations where the existing criminal framework is found to be possibly inadequate.

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Computational Law: Past, Present, and Future

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On 22nd June 2024

In Automation, Events, Legal Hackers, Legal Innovation, Legal Research, Smart Contracts

Reading time: 5 minutes

Written by: Alexis Sudrajat and Alexis N. Chun

The inaugural Computational Law Conference (“CLAWCON“) ran from 12 to 14 July 2023. Hosted in the Singapore Management University (“SMU“), the event saw speakers and attendees from private, public, regulatory, and academic organisations, some of whom had flown in from all over the world. They had come together to discuss the issues surrounding computational law from a multi- and interdisciplinary perspective. It was organised by SMU’s Centre for Computational Law (“CCLAW“), Singapore’s first and only research centre focused on applied research in the intersection between law and technology.[1]

Two distinguished speakers, Professor Lee Pey Woan, Dean of Yong Pung How School of Law (“YPHSL“), and Mr Yeong Zee Kin, Chief Executive of Singapore Academy of Law (“SAL“), delivered the opening keynote addresses of CLAWCON 2023. This article summarises both of these keynote speeches.

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An Interview with Professor David B. Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession, Harvard Law School

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On 20th August 2023

In Access to Justice, Artificial Intelligence, Interviews, Law Firms, Lawyers, Legal Innovation, People, Policy

Reading time: 9 minutes

Written by Josh Lee Kok Thong

On 3 and 4 August 2023, the Singapore Academy of Law (“SAL”), in conjunction with the Singapore Management University (“SMU”), organized a conference titled “The Next Frontier in Lawyering: From ESG to GPT”. The conference provided participants with an overview of latest trends in the legal industry, and how these trends posed opportunities and challenges for lawyers and legal professionals. Held at the SMU Yong Pung How School of Law (“SMUYPHSOL”), the conference saw hundreds of attendees learn from global and local legal industry leaders about cutting-edge developments in the legal industry.

One of these global leaders and giants was Professor David B. Wilkins. As Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, Professor Wilkins is a prominent thought leader and speaker on the future of the legal profession, disruptive innovation, and legal industry leadership. He has written over 80 articles on the legal profession in leading scholarly journals and the popular press, and teaches several courses at Harvard Law School such as The Legal Profession, and Challenges of a General Counsel. 

At the conference, Professor Wilkins delivered a keynote address titled “From “Law’s Empire” to “Integrated Solutions”: How Globalization, Technology, and Organizational Change Are Opening “New Frontiers” for Lawyers, Clients and Society”. His address covered how law is becoming a more collaborative enterprise (with other knowledge domains) in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. While law would remain a domain driven by human capital, Professor Wilkins also urged lawyers to learn how to work with and understand technology. At the conference, Professor Wilkins also moderated a discussion on “Technology and the Legal Profession”, which explored how new technologies are transforming how lawyers work and interact with clients. 

Following his keynote address, LawTech.Asia (“LTA”) had the valuable opportunity of chatting with Professor Wilkins on his views on the opportunities and impact of technology on the legal industry, the training of future lawyers, how Singapore could strengthen its legal innovation ecosystem, and how legal technology could be better oriented to serve the underserved and under-represented in society. The interview, which is set out below, has only been edited for readability and brevity. 

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Victoria Phua: Attributing electronic personhood only for strong AI? 

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On 30th June 2023

In Artificial Intelligence, Policy, Regulations

Reading time: 16 minutes

Written by Victoria Rui-Qi Phua | Edited by Josh Lee Kok Thong

We’re all law and tech scholars now, says every law and tech sceptic. That is only half-right. Law and technology is about law, but it is also about technology. This is not obvious in many so-called law and technology pieces which tend to focus exclusively on the law. No doubt this draws on what Judge Easterbrook famously said about three decades ago, to paraphrase: “lawyers will never fully understand tech so we might as well not try”.

In open defiance of this narrative, LawTech.Asia is proud to announce a collaboration with the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law’s LAW4032 Law and Technology class. This collaborative special series is a collection featuring selected essays from students of the class. Ranging across a broad range of technology law and policy topics, the collaboration is aimed at encouraging law students to think about where the law is and what it should be vis-a-vis technology.

This piece, written by Victoria Phua, puts forward an argument for attributing electronic personhood status for “strong AI”. According to her, algorithms trained by machine learning are increasingly performing or assisting with tasks previously exclusive to humans. As these systems provide decision making rather than mere support, the emergence of strong AI has raised new legal and ethical issues, which cannot be satisfactorily addressed by existing solutions. The ‘Mere Tools’ approach regards algorithms as ‘mere tools’ but does not address active contracting mechanisms. The ‘Agency’ approach treats AI systems as electronic agents but fails to deal with legal personality and consent issues in agency. The ‘Legal Person’ approach goes further to treat AI systems as legal persons but has drawn criticism for having no morality nor intent. To address the legal personality in strong AI, Victoria proposes to extend the fiction and concession theories of corporate personality to create a ‘quasi-person’ or ‘electronic person’. This is more satisfactory as it allows for a fairer allocation of risks and responsibilities among contracting parties. It also holds autonomous systems liable for their actions, thereby encouraging innovation. Further, it facilitates the allocation of damages. Last, it embodies the core philosophy of human-centricity.

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