Future Law Innovation Programme: Lawtech and the Development of Legal Education in Singapore
Future Law Innovation Programme
Lawtech and the Development of Legal Education in Singapore
2 February 2024
Singapore’s push for the accelerated adoption of technology, as part of the transformation of its legal sector to support the digitalisation of its economy, began over 6 years ago. Integral to this effort was the Singapore Academy of Law’s Future Law Innovation Programme (FLIP) which was an industry-wide initiative to help law firms innovate new business models and catalyse the establishment of a national legal tech ecosystem. FLIP’s 2-year pilot ended just as the COVID pandemic started in 2020. Since then, new developments – like generative AI – have emerged amidst renewed efforts to help the legal profession look beyond the “BAU”. As education is a key intervention, this talk delves into the current thinking within SAL concerning continuing legal education and the training of lawyers in the age of pervasive AI.
About the Speaker
Paul Neo is the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL) – the promotion and development agency for Singapore’s legal sector, and the Competent Authority for the Apostille Convention in Singapore. Paul is the Founder of the Future Law Innovation Programme (FLIP), Singapore’s national initiative to establish a legal tech ecosystem and to help the legal community innovate new models for the delivery of legal services in the future economy. Prior to joining SAL, Paul served as CEO of the executive education subsidiary of Singapore’s Labour Movement – the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC)’s LearningHub. Paul was also a Management Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, where he undertook strategic consulting in the financial services, public sector and corporate development practice areas. An engineer by training, Paul began his career as a military engineer on a Singapore Armed Forces Scholarship. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Master of Engineering and was awarded the MIT Graduate Fellowship Award. Paul also holds a Master of Engineering in Sensors and Smart Structures Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, a Master of Science in Materials Science and Engineering from the National University of Singapore and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the Singapore University of Social Sciences. Paul is an Advocate & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore, and an accredited mediator at the Singapore Mediation Centre and the Singapore International Mediation Institute.
Discussant
Professor Ernest Lim, Vice Dean (Faculty Development), Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore
Chair: Dr Emily Lee, Director, Asian Institute of International Financial Law, Faculty of Law, HKU
Enquiries: Flora Leung at aiiflhku@hku.hk