Love.Law.Robots. by Ang Hou Fu

tech

Feature image

In 2021, I discovered something exciting — an application of machine learning that was both mind-blowing and practical.

The premise was simple. Type a description of the code you want in your editor, and GitHub Copilot will generate the code. It was terrific, and many people, including myself, were excited to use it.

🚀 I just got access to @github Copilot and it's super amazing!!! This is going to save me so much time!! Check out the short video below! #GitHubCopilot I think I'll spend more time writing function descriptions now than the code itself :D pic.twitter.com/HKXJVtGffm

— abhishek (@abhi1thakur) June 30, 2021

The idea that you can prompt a machine to generate code for you is obviously interesting for contract lawyers. I believe we are getting closer every day. I am waiting for my early access to Spellbook.

As a poorly trained and very busy programmer, it feels like I am a target of Github Copilot. The costs was also not so ridiculous. (Spellbook Legal costs $89 a month compared to Copilot's $10 a month) Even so, I haven't tried it for over a year. I wasn’t comfortable enough with the idea and I wasn’t sure how to express it.

Now I can. I recently came across a website proposing to investigate Github Copilot. The main author is Matthew Butterick. He’s the author of Typography for Lawyers and this site proudly uses the Equity typeface.

GitHub Copilot investigation · Joseph Saveri Law Firm & Matthew ButterickGitHub Copilot investigation

In short, the training of GitHub Copilot on open source repositories it hosts probably raises questions on whether such use complies with its copyright licenses. Is it fair use to use publicly accessible code for computational analysis? You might recall that Singapore recently passed an amendment to the Copyright Act providing an exception for computational data analysis. If GitHub Copilot is right that it is fair use, any code anywhere is game to be consumed by the learning machine.

Of course, the idea that it might be illegal hasn’t exactly stopped me from trying.

The key objection to GitHub Copilot is that it is not open source. By packaging the world’s open-source code in an AI model, and spitting it out to its user with no context, a user only interacts with Github Copilot. It is, in essence, a coding walled garden.

Copi­lot intro­duces what we might call a more self­ish inter­face to open-source soft­ware: just give me what I want! With Copi­lot, open-source users never have to know who made their soft­ware. They never have to inter­act with a com­mu­nity. They never have to con­tribute.

For someone who wants to learn to code, this enticing idea is probably a double-edged sword. You could probably swim around using prompts with your AI pair programmer, but without any context, you are not learning much. If I wanted to know how something works, I would like to run it, read its code and interact with its community. I am a member of a group of people with shared goals, not someone who just wants to consume other people’s work.

Matthew Butterick might end up with enough material to sue Microsoft, and the legal issues raised will be interesting for the open-source community. For now, though, I am going to stick to programming the hard way.

#OpenSource #Programming #GitHubCopilot #DataMining #Copyright #MachineLearning #News #Newsletter #tech #TechnologyLaw

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

One can have a variety of opinions about the pandemic but I will insist on this one. It made everyone treat online not as a cute sideshow, but as an essential part of working life.

While stuck at home, I made it a point to attend any conference or talk online that seemed adjacent to my interests. I attended talks on machine learning and AI. I even learnt a bit of linguistics.

One of the more life-changing seminars I attended was the first Bucerius Legal Tech Essentials in 2020. In short, I highly recommend it for someone who doesn't have much time but needs to dive deep and swim wide in this field. They lived up to their taglines: “ Curated. Intense. Remote.

You swim wide because they cover a wide gamut of speakers, from academics, thought leaders and entrepreneurs with their own LegalTech companies.

You dive deep mainly because the speakers are talking about their expertise (this isn't a panel show). I recalled that many speakers took questions, so you can engage with them.

The only bad thing was that since all the speakers were based on both sides of the Atlantic, the timing was horrendous for the other side of the world. I remember falling asleep in front of my desk, trying to figure out the Six Sigma rule around 1 in the morning.

Nevertheless, I didn't think I was the only person from South East Asia attending the talks. During the customary roll call of various attendees at the start of each session, you would get a taste of how global interest in LegalTech was.

People in Singapore would also get a taste of Bucerius Legal Tech Essentials when Prof Daniel Katz, one of the “hosts” of Legal Tech Essentials, gave a lecture in 2021 at SMU, Singapore. It was a whirlwind of 500 slides in 60 minutes. Note that there are no certifications or brownie points for attending or interacting. These people stayed up late for the LegalTech.

It seems that being in Singapore has borne other fruit. 2022's Legal Tech Essentials would feature timings more convenient for this part of the world. This means 8:30 pm here... which I reckon is a marked improvement over 1 am.

Legal Tech Essentials 2022Curated, Intense, Remote.You can sign up for updates at their site.

So if you're interested in the field but don't know where to start, I strongly recommend this. I didn't enjoy it as much in 2021 since I found most topics less effective a second time. Maybe I will give this another try.

At the end of 2021, I repeatedly feared that online seminars would be buried and in-person conferences would be back in vogue. I'm glad that Legal Tech Essentials is back and still remote. It was a light in a very dark time of the pandemic, but now I hope it will still light a few light bulbs to anyone interested in Legal and Technology.

#Newsletter #LegalTech #Lawyers #News #tech #TechnologyLaw #Training #Presentation

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

A recent disciplinary case in Singapore, [Law Society of Singapore v Mohammed Lutfi bin Hussin](https://www.elitigation.sg/gd/s/2022SGHC182) , highlights a common pitfall in legal practice. A lawyer failed to witness the signing of conveyancing documents personally but attested to doing so. Few people may pay attention to a routine conveyancing transaction. Still, this time, the transaction was tainted by fraud: a mortgagor had submitted false documents to a mortgagee to obtain a higher loan. The lawyer’s license was suspended for three years for claiming to have witnessed the signing when he didn’t.

There’s an uncharacteristic lack of remorse on the lawyer’s part compared to other disciplinary cases. Here’s how he described his practice, which seems rather ordinary at first glance:

This was a routine purchase of the Property by [a buyer] financed by a loan taken from a bank. The transaction could be carried out without my seeing [the Buyer]. My staff are fully capable of dealing with routine transactions such as [the Buyer’s] purchase of the Property. If anything out of the ordinary crops up, they will inform me and I will then see [the Buyer] and sort out whatever problem has arisen. There were no issues at all relating to [the Buyer’s] purchase and for that reason, I did not have to see him.

In contrast, here’s what the Court of 3 Judges (in charge of lawyer discipline) thought of that:

[The lawyer] had put in place a “system” pursuant to which he entrusted his non-legally trained staff to carry out conveyancing transactions, including witnessing the execution of conveyancing documents, so that he did not have to meet his own clients, unless he deemed it necessary. Under this “system”, he presupposed that everything was in order until and unless his staff flagged any issues. In relation to [the Buyer’s] conveyancing transaction, nothing out of the ordinary was brought to his attention. He therefore assumed that all was in order and never met [the Buyer], notwithstanding the fact that the latter had engaged him as his conveyancing solicitor.

It’s important to note that witnessing someone sign a document isn’t likely to have stopped the fraudulent transaction. The nub of the issue was that the lawyer had claimed to do something he did not. The Court recognized that some might call this “technical dishonesty”.

But what’s the point of witnessing someone sign a document? The main idea is that it prevents fraud. Anyone can put anyone’s signature anywhere. The lawyer ensures the signor’s identity, understands the document, and there are no signs of duress or misunderstanding.

Who wants to do an E-Will?COVID-19 offers an opportunity to relook at one of the oldest instruments in law — wills. Is it enough to make them an electronic transaction?Love.Law.Robots.HoufuA similar problem persists in the area of wills and testaments.

Post-pandemic, though, alternatives are apparent but with questionable legality. If a lawyer witnesses a signing through Zoom, does it count? If e-Signature can be used, what value does being in person add? Banks don’t use lawyers to prevent fraud all the time too. Document submission, such as income and particulars, can now be received directly through the relevant government agency and authenticated fairly securely by the applicant. The wonders of SingPass!

The question is, would the lawyer have escaped sanction if there was actually a “system” in place? The Court describes this as a “non-system” because the lawyer had abdicated his responsibilities to non-legally trained staff. But what if the lawyer had implemented a system to train his staff on when to escalate, use checklists, verify the work, and carry out audits? Would that be enough? Or is the point that no matter what, the lawyer must be physically present?

We aren’t going to find out because everyone understands that witnessing a signing has to be personal. Furthermore, this is a strict requirement promulgated by legislation, so it’s non-negotiable.

These issues are essential because conveyancing is a prime example of volume work in the legal profession. If a lawyer has to be physically present at every stage of the transaction, this would slow down the process and make it expensive. The practice would be harder to justify in the face of more efficient and cost-effective solutions. More people would believe its objective is to maintain a monopoly for lawyers. Even lawyers may be hard-pressed to find efficient ways to do business and inadvertently find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

For now, legal innovators trying to automate manual processes or implement a “system” would have to be careful if they involved any attestation. It’s the law; you can’t change it, and breaking it would get you in hot soup, no matter how dissatisfied you would be.

The Importance of Being AuthorisedA recent case shows that practising law as an unauthorised person can have serious effects. What does this hold for other people who may be interested in alternative legal services?Love.Law.Robots.HoufuAn earlier post explored another common pitfall.

#Law #Lawyers #E-signature #Employee #LawSociety #Singapore #SupremeCourtSingapore #tech

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

Presentations are a crucial part of your professional life. In my line of work, presentations function as introducers, reports, training, proposals, summaries and explainers. Sometimes, presentations are watched in person or through web conferencing. Other times, they appear on websites for browsing or e-learning.

To do the job, many people will start PowerPoint, plunk in many words in bullet points and let their “showmanship” do the rest.

Your old ways of doing PowerPoint are no longer enough

Montreal Design ClubPhoto by charlesdeluvio / Unsplash

Since the pandemic and remote work changed the ways we work today, the demands on presentation have also changed drastically:

  • A “presenter” may no longer be present. You might not even be visible through a Zoom Window. Some presentations are watched in a video. Some people may even view your presentation on “mute” or by continuously scrolling to the “interesting” points.
  • Your audience consumes content differently these days. If I wanted to read a wall of bullet points like this one), I would rather read an article. Worse, if the content doesn’t engage, I lose the audience. You also want the audience to come back to you too.
  • Some studies claim that an audience’s attention span is about 20 minutes. Context matters. You might be forced to sit through the entire presentation like at a conference, but your attention still has to be maintained. Viewing it from home or somewhere else, you must get to the point quickly.

As a lawyer, I seem to have endless things to say. Figuring out how to say it? That’s the tricky part. Your personality and style contribute to your best presentations. Reading a block of bullet points on a template PowerPoint presentation wouldn’t bring that out. You would need opportunity, practice and feedback—all the time.

If you want to look at new ways of doing things, I wrote this post for you.

You can express more on your slide.

I found that the easiest way to improve your presentation is to abandon bullet points. The first step towards approaching any slide is to think about its purpose:

  • Am I making a list?
  • Am I describing a process?
  • Am I highlighting a point which I want the audience to know?
  • And so on.

Once you know what you want, it becomes evident that bullet points aren’t the only way to achieve them. A process can be described with arrows, steps or even a map. A list can be made of post-its, boxes and maybe even articles (for example, a list of news items can be illustrated with “newspaper clippings”). Such design elements will help an audience, no matter how far they are from you, to get the point.

Since presentations aren’t my core area of work, I don’t find myself being able to come up with a design quickly. A quick reference could be helpful.

In the end, I found The Better Deck Deck by Nolan Haims. Essentially they are a bunch of flashcards showing deck ideas. This is not an essay about how to make great presentations, just a collection of examples which condenses excellent ideas and how to execute them.

The Better Deck Deck: 52 Alternatives to Bullet Points | Nolan Haims CreativeThis deck of cards gives you 52 proven design alternatives to the dreaded bullet point layout and over 150 professionally designed examples of slides using these techniques to spark your creativity and improve your next presentation.Nolan Haims CreativeShop

Before I embark on any presentation project, I flip through these cards to get those creative juices flowing. If you do lots of presentations, I recommend it!

SmartArt isn’t stupid once you tear it apart.

If you believe bullet points are not the right direction, fret not; Microsoft PowerPoint agrees with you too.

In recent years, Microsoft PowerPoint has been improving on a function named “SmartArt”. It is an excellent tool for converting your bullet points into anything else. Today, they have galleries of ideas for you to choose from, including 3D.

I’m just kidding. Please don’t choose a 3D SmartArt! I beg you!

Unfortunately, it’s too much of a good thing. SmartArt, as well as the fancier “Design Ideas”, doesn’t teach you which design is best for you, leading to stock templates and bullet points in various shapes and sizes. These days, I can tell which slides were designed by PowerPoint, not you.

Furthermore, because PowerPoint tightly merges design and content, it isn’t easy to customize SmartArt in any profound way. This includes translating any ideas you have from the reference guide in the previous tip to PowerPoint.

The key to making SmartArt do what you want is to convert it to shapes. Once your SmartArt loses its form, you can arrange and align your shapes in any way you please.

This is my current workflow: sketch the contours of my design in SmartArt, then refine it by converting it to shapes and working on them.

This opens many possibilities and speeds up your presentation production by quickly creating basic shapes and designs.

Don’t be a Presenter, Be a Coder: SlideDev

Everybody loves PowerPoint because it is WYSIWYG — what you see is what you get. It’s easy to understand the tools, and there’s comfort in getting what you want right from the development stage. Most alternatives to PowerPoint like Google Slides and Apple Keynote also rely heavily on WYSIWYG.

WYSIWYG is excellent for novice users, but it’s easy to outgrow them.

The first problem with PowerPoint is that it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the number of options. We had seen one of them already when we tried to create an ugly and unreadable 3D SmartArt. You can also wreck your presentation with different fonts and sizes and unprofessional-looking work.

If you’ve always wanted to approach a different approach, try Slidev.

SlideDev employs many features familiar to Coders — Markdown syntax, installation using npm and hosting on a website. You also get to write your presentation on your IDE, version control using git and include anything a website can do, such as embeds and CSS animations.

I can’t use Slidev at work because nobody knows how to read a markdown file, so don’t throw away your PowerPoint yet.

However, having tried it, I appreciated being able to condense the essential parts of making a presentation. Suppose you aren’t a coder but are very familiar with presentations. In that case, I recommend trying Slidev to get a taste of what it is like to code and increase your familiarity with web technologies.

Conclusion

I hope this post helped you with some new places to explore how to make your next presentation. During the pandemic, I searched high and low for ways to improve my presentations, and these are some of the things I found. Did you find something worth sharing? Feel free to let me know!

Would I still use Excel for Contract Management?Many people would like to use Excel to manage their contract data. After two years of operating such a system, would I still recommend it?Love.Law.Robots.HoufuAnother one of my Microsoft Office posts.

#tech #MicrosoftOffice #MicrosoftPowerPoint #Ideas #Slidev #Presentation #Books #Programming #Training

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

I have been mulling over developing an extensive online database of free legal materials in the flavour of OpenLawNZ or an LII for the longest time. Free access to such materials is one problem to solve, but I'm also hoping to compile a dataset to develop AI solutions. I have tried and demonstrated this with PDPC's data previously, and I am itching to expand the project sustainably.

However, being a lawyer, I am concerned about the legal implications of scraping government websites. Would using these materials be a breach of copyright law? In other countries, people accept that the public should generally be allowed to use such public materials. However, I am not very sure of this here.

The text steps highlightedPhoto by Clayton Robbins / Unsplash

I was thus genuinely excited about the amendments to the Copyright Act in Singapore this year. According to the press release, they will be operational in November, so they will be here soon.

Copyright Bill – Singapore Statutes OnlineSingapore Statutes Online is provided by the Legislation Division of the Singapore Attorney-General’s ChambersSingapore Statutes OnlineThe Copyright Bill is expected to be operationalised in November 2021.

[ Update 21 November 2021: The bill has, for the most part, been operationalised.]

Two amendments are particularly relevant in my context:

Using publicly disclosed materials from the government is allowed

In sections 280 to 282 of the Bill, it is now OK to copy or communicate public materials to facilitate more convenient viewing or hearing of the material. It should be noted that this is limited to copying and communicating it. Presumably, this means that I can share the materials I collected on my website as a collection.

Computational data analysis is allowed.

The amendments expressly say that using a computer to extract data from a work is now permitted. This is great! At some level, the extraction of the material is to perform some analysis or computation on it — searching or summarising a decision etc. I think some limits are reasonable, such as not communicating the material itself or using it for any other purpose.

However, one condition stands out for me — I need “lawful access” to the material in the first place. The first illustration to explain this is circumventing paywalls, which isn’t directly relevant to me. The second illustration explains that obtaining the materials through a breach of the terms of use of a database is not “lawful access”.

That’s a bit iffy. As you will see in the section surveying terms, a website’s terms are not always clear about whether access is lawful or not. The “terms of use” of a website are usually given very little thought by its developers or implemented in a maximal way that is at once off-putting and misleading. Does trying to beat a captcha mean I did not get lawful access? Sure, it’s a barrier to thwart robots, but what does it mean? If a human helps a robot, would it still be lawful?

A recent journal article points to “fair use” as the way forward

I was amazed to find an article in the SAL Journal titled “Copying Right in Copyright Law” by Prof David Tan and Mr Thomas Lee, which focused on the issue that was bothering me. The article focuses on data mining and predictive analytics, and it substantially concerns robots and scrapers.

Singapore Academy of Law Journale-First MenuLink to the journal article on E-First at SAL Journals Online.

On the new exception for computational data analysis, the article argues that the two illustrations I mentioned earlier were “inadequate and there is significant ambiguity of what lawful access means in many situations”. Furthermore, because the illustrations were not illuminating, it might create a situation where justified uses are prohibited. With much sadness, I agree.

More interestingly, based on some mathematics and a survey, the authors argue that an open-ended general fair use defence for data mining is the best way forward. As opposed to a rule-based exception, such a defence can adapt to changes better. Stakeholders (including owners) also prefer it because it appeals to their understanding of the economic basis of data mining.

You can quibble with the survey methodology and the mathematics (which I think is very brave for a law journal article). I guess it served its purpose in showing the opinion of stakeholders in the law and the cost analysis very well. I don’t suspect it will be cited in a court judgement soon, but hopefully, it sways someone influential.

We could use a more developer-friendly approach.

Photo by Mimi Thian / Unsplash

There was a time when web scraping was dangerous for a website. In those times, websites can be inundated with requests by automated robots, leading them to crash. Since then, web infrastructure has improved, and techniques to defeat malicious actors have been developed. The great days of “slashdotting” a website has not been heard of for a while. We’ve mostly migrated to more resilient infrastructure, and any serious website on the internet understands the value of having such infrastructure.

In any case, it is possible to scrape responsibly. Scrapy, for example, allows you to queue requests regularly or identify yourself as a robot or scraper, respecting robots.txt. If I agreed not to degrade a website’s performance, which seems quite reasonable, shouldn’t I be allowed to use it?

Being more developer-friendly would also help government agencies find more uses for their works. For now, most legal resources appear to cater exclusively for lawyers. Lawyers will, of course, find them most valuable because it’s part of their job. However, others may also need such resources because they can’t afford lawyers or have a different perspective on how information can be helpful. It’s not easy catering to a broader or other audience. If a government agency doesn’t have the resources to make something more useful, shouldn’t someone else have a go? Everyone benefits.

Surveying the terms of use of government websites

RTK survey in quarryPhoto by Valeria Fursa / Unsplash

Since “lawful access” and, by extension, “terms of use” of a website will be important in considering the computational data analysis exceptions, I decided to survey the terms of use of various government agencies. After locating their treatment of the intellectual property rights of their materials, I gauge my appetite to extract them.

In all, I identified three broad categories of terms.

Totally Progressive: Singapore Statutes Online 👍👍👍

Source: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Help/FAQ#FAQ_8 (Accessed 20 October 2021)

Things I like:

  • They expressly mention the use of “automated means”. It looks like they were prepared for robots!
  • Conditions appear reasonable. There’s a window for extraction and guidelines to help properly cite and identify the extracted materials.

Things I don’t like:

  • The Singapore Statutes Online website is painful to extract from and doesn’t feature any API.

Comments:

  • Knowing what they expect scrapers to do gives me confidence in further exploring this resource.
  • Maybe the key reason these terms of use are excellent is that it applies to a specific resource. If a resource owner wants to make things developer-friendly, they should consider their collections and specify their terms of use.

Totally Bonkers: Personal Data Protection Commission 😖😖😖

Source: https://www.pdpc.gov.sg/Terms-and-Conditions (Accessed 20 October 2021)

Things I like:

  • They expressly mention the use of “robots” and “spiders”. It looks like they were prepared!

Things I don’t like:

  • It doesn’t allow you to use a “manual process” to monitor its Contents. You can’t visit our website to see if we have any updates!
  • What is an automatic device? Like a feed reader? (Fun fact: The PDPC obliterated their news feed in the latest update to their website. The best way to keep track of their activities is to follow their LinkedIn)
  • PDPC suggests that you get written permission but doesn’t tell you what circumstances they will give you such permission.
  • I have no idea what an unreasonable or disproportionately large load is. It looks like I have to crash the server to find out! (Just kidding, I will not do that, OK.)

Comments:

  • I have no idea what happened to the PDPC, such that it had to impose such unreasonable conditions on this activity (I hope I am not involved in any way 😇). It might be possible that someone with little knowledge went a long way.
  • At around paragraph 6, there is a somewhat complex set of terms allowing a visitor to share and use the contents of the PDPC website for non-commercial purposes. This, however, still does not gel with this paragraph 20, and the confusion is not user or developer-friendly, to say the least.
  • You can’t contract out fair use or the computational data analysis exception, so forget it.
  • I’m a bit miffed when I encounter such terms. Let’s hope their technical infrastructure is as well thought out as their terms of use. (I’m being ironic.)

Totally Clueless: Strata Titles Board 🎈🎈🎈

Materials, including source code, pages, documents and online graphics, audio and video in The Website are protected by law. The intellectual property rights in the materials is owned by or licensed to us. All rights reserved. (Government of Singapore © 2006).
Apart from any fair dealings for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted in law, no part of The Website may be reproduced or reused for any commercial purposes whatsoever without our prior written permission.

Source: https://www.stratatb.gov.sg/terms-of-use.html# (Accessed 20 October 2021)

Things I like:

  • Mentions fair dealing as permitted by law. However, they have to update to “fair use” or “permitted use” once the new Copyright Act is effective.

Things I don’t like:

  • Not sure why it says “Government of Singapore ©️ 2006”. Maybe they copied this terms of use statement in 2006 and never updated it since?
  • You can use the information for “commercial purposes” if you get written permission. It doesn’t tell you in what circumstances they will give you such permission. (This is less upsetting than PDPC’s terms.)
  • It doesn’t mention robots, spiders or “automatic devices”.

Comments:

  • It’s less upsetting than a bonkers terms of use, but it doesn’t give me confidence or an idea of what to expect.
  • The owner probably has no idea what data mining, predictive analytics etc., are. They need to buy the new “Law and Technology” book.

Conclusion

One might be surprised to find that terms of using a website, even when supposedly managed by lawyers, feature unclear, problematic, misleading, and unreasonable terms. As I mentioned, very little thought goes into drafting such terms most of the time. However, they provide obstacles to others who may want to explore new uses of a website or resource. Hopefully, more owners will proactively clean up their sites once the new Copyright Act becomes effective. In the meantime, this area provides lots of risks for a developer.

#Law #tech #Copyright #DataScience #Government #WebScraping #scrapy #Singapore #PersonalDataProtectionCommission #StrataTitlesBoard #DataMining

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

It turns out that doing three things on the same day is a disaster. On top of listening to this year's TechLawFest, I also took on a Microsoft PowerApps course together with my regular job. Who has the time to attend these multi-day events? Thankfully, many of the events are recorded, so you can still take part in them unless you are hungry for continuing education points.

TechLaw.Fest 2021TechLaw.Fest 2021TechLaw.Fest 2021

As such, hopefully, this post will help you get into the festival's key themes. Even if you can't fork out 30++ hours of your daily schedule going through all the content (including all that recorded waiting time for people to log on), you're going to sound smart with a list like this.

Thing 1: Lots to discuss in the Technology of Law

My favourite parts of the conference are the panel presentations:

This title was far too misleading — you're not going to hear so much about blockchain and whatever, but about what skills and knowledge lawyers today need to succeed in their field.

I liked this panel presentation a lot because of the battling viewpoints. It focuses on service delivery, too, i.e. whether to develop in-house or to outsource. The depth of the presentation will be beneficial if you have never really considered what it takes to implement technology changes in an organisation.

Finally, I was disappointed that the keynote speech did not focus very much on the leadership of firms (that isn't saying that the industry leaders in the Ministry, SAL, etc., are very focused on the issues). So I was glad that they created a space to discuss leaders in a panel. As a Singaporean, I was thrilled that at least one law firm in Singapore gets it. (Then again, Rajah & Tann is at the vanguard of all this.)

In a previous post, I did sound sceptical about the focus of the program, but there is something to take home for everyone. Now I need to find more time to watch all the sessions!

Love.Law.Robots. — 16 August 2021Welcome to another edition of this bi-monthly members-only newsletter. It features mini-articles curated just for members and little personal reflections.Love.Law.Robots.HoufuI previewed the festival a month earlier here. (Free subscription required)

Sometime in October 2020, the Ministry of Law announced a 10-year technology and innovation roadmap, and one of the more concrete plans was a “legal technology platform”. If you want to be sceptical, a platform can mean anything and everything at the same time. A curated list of resources? A one-size-fits-all shtick? Do I have to give up everything to be on this system?

As this appears primarily for law firms, I haven't tuned in to this regularly. So, Wednesday was the first time I had a more concrete idea of this platform. In one word — Lupl. Artificial Lawyer recently wrote about it as well.

So, the gist is that you can bring your service onto the platform and use them in an integrated manner. You would then unite information silos from other technology platforms onto a single platform, looking at matters instead of disparate strands of communication.

UntitledSource: Lupl (https://www.lupl.com/how-it-works)

I initially thought the idea was lame. I couldn't understand how being able to view everything on one platform helps anyone. (There is already a platform that lawyers use all the time — it's called a laptop.) However, the conference has reduced my scepticism a lot. Seeing some screenshots, I think the unifying concept is “Tasks”, so it is more value-added rather than a supercharged Zapier.

For law firms in Singapore, the game-changer will be integrating with government services, especially eLitigation, ACRA and other government searches. Astute readers might be upset. Shouldn't the Ministry develop APIs to allow access to these government services instead of creating or working exclusively with a proprietary platform? Hopefully, public APIs become a collateral benefit of the platform, rather than the Ministry putting the cart before the horse.

The parties who are likely to benefit the most from this platform are small law firms. If I have the same dream as the Ministry, law firms with no legal technology (Microsoft Outlook and Word don't count) will “tech-celerate” substantially by getting the whole package on this platform.

However, for small firms, evaluating the costs of this platform may be tricky. The platform's competition isn't other platforms or products but the status quo. As I understand it, charges will be based on interactions with the platform. Small law firms wouldn't have a clear idea on a quantitative basis how much they interact with technology and can't compare the costs and benefits of being on the platform. Many would have to jump in on a leap of faith. Many more wouldn't be bothered because they can't demonstrate the usefulness in their small businesses with thin margins. Hopefully, the Ministry will provide support to make this work.

Thing 3: Selling skills will be very challenging for the innovative lawyer

Business timePhoto by Marten Bjork / Unsplash

The usual paradigm for hiring lawyers is PQE (years of experience) and the areas of law in which you have expertise. These metrics are still crucial when you are hired for your substantive knowledge. However, things get somewhat dicey once you move past these traditional metrics.

It's all well and good to be well-versed in the legal issues of stuff like cryptocurrency, blockchain and artificial intelligence. The reality is that while technology law will be alive to lawyers on the cutting edge, the pie isn't big enough to hire so many cutting-edge lawyers. Not everyone wants to live on the bleeding edge, either.

As one of the speakers on the panel noted, having an e-commerce platform isn't only a TMT or IP issue. Issues like foreign investment, international trade law and contract law have a place. It isn't easy to imagine which area of law to focus on when you are a student. Indeed, there are subjects in law school I wished I had studied on, and others I never touch these days.

Furthermore, every lawyer should focus on his lawyering skills, not his tech skills. I have not heard of someone willing to hire a lawyer because of his coding skills. If I wanted a coder, I'd hire a coder! The competitive edge of a lawyer (even against robots) is always going to be lawyering.

Do coders need to learn to law?A course in the Singapore Management University aims to deliver the best of both.Love.Law.Robots.HoufuIf you're a coder who wants to law, you have options. (Free subscription required to read)

While I know software development and networking as an interesting person, I never use this in my day-to-day work. In any case, writing code for production is quite different from doing it for fun. So even if I know my way around the code, I would rely on a software developer for my software. Your first instinct is to get the tools required (software, people or consultants) to resolve your problems rather than build these tools yourself.

So there are specific skills that are important in a new technological age — managing a project, managing a team of lawyers and (gasp) non-lawyers, and process thinking and design. Above all, even when thinking about new technologies like blockchain, you will need imagination, curiosity, and entrepreneurial spirit. Technology and projects aren't always going to work in your favour — you will need resilience too.

How does one include “imagination” or “resilience” in his CV? When lawyers have been judged all their lives by their experience, recognising other skills and experiences that set them apart will be the real challenge in this new age. If the industry truly appreciates these skills, it will require them when they look for hires. That's when we can reasonably expect law students to do this technology thing.

Conclusion

I adore TechLawFest and am always trying to increase my participation every year. It wasn't easy to be involved when I was practising as you are always doing your day job. I'm thankful we will still have these events, and maybe next year, we will be there in person!

Enjoyed this post? You can read more about law and technology on Love.Law.Robots. and continuing to support my work by subscribing today. I post at least once a week and subscribers get a free members only newsletter. Thank you!

Subscribe to Love.Law.Robots. today!

#tech #TechLawFest #TechnologyLaw #LegalTech #Singapore #Law

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

A string of high profile acquittals seemed to have shaken the public confidence in Singapore's criminal justice system. First, Parti Liyani's case obtained a parliamentary hearing on what is essentially its fairness. (I wrote about this earlier in the blog) Now, an acquittal of a doctor in a molest case highlights the pain the accused goes through to clear his name. Is there something wrong with the system?

A Focus on Prosecutors

Recently, an Op-Ed from a law professor was published arguing that we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think it offers good insights on the early part of the criminal justice system because of the following reasons:

  • It gives a data-based illustration of how much work a public prosecutor in Singapore does — a prosecutor evaluates nearly 1.3 new cases a day. (Probably worse, because as he mentioned, prosecutors work in teams today).
  • A deeper study into process improvement is warranted. This is also true because criminal law (and the law generally) has become increasingly complex. Furthermore, the Attorney General's Chambers has already gone on a hiring spree, so putting more bodies on the line might have diminishing returns.
  • The ability to pay more attention to a case means that prosecutors have more time to think about whether a case should really move forward. I think that's reasonable.

The best thing about the article is that it highlights the prime importance of prosecutors in the system. Most criminal law students in Singapore quickly learn about the crime control model employed in Singapore. In this model, the accused's rights are less important, and we rely on the police and prosecutor to get the case right to proceed to punish offenders efficiently.

Here’s how Singapore can strengthen its legal processes in light of high-profile acquittalsRecently, Dr Yeo Sow Nam was acquitted of four charges of outrage of modesty, because the “victim” admitted in court that she lied about the allegations against Dr Yeo.TODAYonline

With heavier and complicated workloads and increased public scrutiny, this might indicate that the system needs help.

No Representation without Defence Counsel?

The article then suggests that defence counsel should get involved earlier in the process to make representations. A representation is essentially a letter to the prosecutor highlighting the facts and arguments in favour of the defence. When done correctly. It discourages prosecutors from bringing a case. Since you don't want to write rubbish to the prosecutor in charge of your case, defence counsel is highly recommended to pursue this.

Having early access to defence counsel can be unrealistic because only the savviest litigants will get defence counsel once they have an inkling that they will be charged (this category of people includes doctors and multinational companies). Furthermore, having defence counsel early might impede police investigations, so the authorities will not make this change lightly.

Many more people will take the plea bargain and try to get on with their lives instead of hiring some defence counsel and giving it a fight either using trial or representations. You never get to hear these stories because they have chosen to bear the consequences without considering whether the system got it right for them. If you cared about the fairness of the system, then this would not be comforting.

A New Perspective with Technology

At this point, I wondered what alternatives are available. It was not obvious to me for a long time, but this is a similar problem that DoNotPay was created to solve. In its earliest version, DoNotPay wrote letters to appeal against a parking fine by fashioning a better appeal. A more recent example features CourtFormsOnline.org preparing eviction letters for tenants to make use of the eviction moratorium.

Digital Curb Cuts: Towards an Inclusive Open Forms EcosystemIn this paper we focus on digital curb cuts created during the pandemic: improvements designed to increase accessibility that benefit people beyond the populatiSee all articles by Quinten SteenhuisThis paper deserves far more space on this blog.

The main idea is to provide an online form that asks an accused questions to find potential points which can assist his case and process these reasons into a representation to be sent to a prosecutor. A criminal defence attorney would probably be beneficial in deciding what points should be included in specific cases. Otherwise, you would be repurposing content found in textbooks like Sentencing Principles in Singapore. (Note that the expert system will also have to consider factors going into conviction too.)

There might be problems with such an approach:

  • Defence counsel does lend an air of professionalism to a representation; if an accused sends a letter (whether it's automated using our solution or not), there are significant risks prosecutors would ignore it.
  • Unlike the traffic fine appeals and eviction moratoriums, determining the success rates of such letters is more difficult. At this stage, the prosecutor's powers are highly discretionary. Did the letter work if the prosecutor reduced the charges? Or if the prosecutor offered a plea bargain? If it's hard to sell this product like this. If people feel that it ain't effective, they are not going to use it.
  • I am not sure Singaporeans would pay $15 a month to access these forms (this is DoNotPay's subscription model). Then again, I paid nearly $800 a year for MediShield, so what's the difference, right?

Conclusion

This is an idea that popped up in my head. It would be interesting to hear if it might work. Feel free to let me know your thoughts!

#Law #Singapore #tech

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

Speaking has always been a big part of being a lawyer. You use your voice to make submissions in the highest courts of the land. Even in client meetings, you are also using your voice to persuade. Hell, when I write my emails, I imagine saying what I am writing to make sure it is in my voice.

So, thinking about how a synthesized voice can be useful is going to be controversial. You might think that a computer's voice is soulless and not interesting enough to hold on its own against a lawyer. However, with advances led by smart assistants like Google Home and Siri, Text to Speech (TTS) is certainly worth exploring.

Why use robots?

Talking is really convenient, as you would open your mouth and start talking (though some babies will disagree). However, working from home shows how difficult it can be to record and transmit good quality sound. Feedback and distortions are just some problems people regularly face using basic equipment to have online meetings. It's frustrating.

If you think this is an issue that is resolved by having better equipment, it can get expensive very easily. You might notice that several people are involved in producing your favourite podcast. You are going to need all sorts of equipment, like microphones and DAC mixers. Hire Engineers? What does a mixer do, actually?

Furthermore, human performance can be subject to various imperfections. The pitch or tone is not right here. Sometimes you lose concentration or get interrupted in the middle of your speech. All this means you may have to record something several times and hopefully get the delivery you are happy with. If you aren't confident about your English or would like to say something in another language, getting a computer to voice will help overcome it.

So a synthesized voice can be cheap, fast and consistent. If the quality is good enough, you can focus on the script. For me, I am interested in improving the quality of my online training. Explaining stuff doesn't need Leonard Cohen quality delivery. It's probably far less distracting anyway.

Experiments with TTS

I will take two major Text to Speech (TTS) solutions for a spin — Google Cloud and Mozilla's TTS (open source). The Python code used to write these experiments are contained in my Github.

houfu/TTS-experimentsContribute to houfu/TTS-experiments development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHubhoufu

Google Cloud

It's quite easy to try Google Cloud's TTS. A demo allows you to set the text and then convert it with a click of a button. If you want to know how it sounds, try it!

Text-to-Speech: Lifelike Speech Synthesis | Google CloudTurn text into natural-sounding speech in 220+ voices across 40+ languages and variants with an API powered by Google’s machine learning technology.Google Cloud

To generate audio files, you're going to need a Google Cloud account and some programming knowledge. However, it's pretty straightforward, and I mostly copied from the quickstart. You can hear the first two paragraphs of this blog post here.

Here's my personal view of Google Cloud's TTS:

  • It ain't free. Pricing for premium voices is free only for the first 1 million characters. After that, it's a hefty USD16 for every 1 million characters. Do note that the first two paragraphs of the blog have 629 characters. If you are converting text, it's hard to bust that limit.
  • The voices sound nice, in my opinion. However, if you are listening to it for a long time, it might be not easy.
  • Developer experience is great, and as you can see, converting lines of text to speech is straightforward.

Mozilla's TTS

Using Mozilla's TTS, you get much closer to the machine-training aspects of the text to speech. This includes training your own model, that is, if you have roughly 24 hours of recordings of your voice to spare.

mozilla/TTS:robot: :speech_balloon: Deep learning for Text to Speech (Discussion forum: https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/tts) – mozilla/TTSGitHubmozilla

However, for this experiment, we don't need that as we will use pre-trained models. Using python's built-in subprocess module, we can run the command line command that comes with the package. This generates wave files. You can hear the first two paragraphs of this blog post here.

Here's my personal view of Mozilla's TTS:

  • It's open-source, and I am partial to open source.
  • It also teaches you to how to train a machine using your voice. So, this is a possibility.
  • It sounds terrible, but that's because the audio feels a bit more varied than Google's. So... some parts sound louder, making other parts sound softer. There is also quite a lot of noise, which may be due to the recording quality of the source data. I did normalise the loudness for this sample.
  • Leaving those two points aside, it sounds more interesting to me. The variation feels a tad more natural to me.
  • There aren't characters to choose from (male, female etc.), so this may not be practical.
  • Considering I was not doing much more than running a command line, it was OK. Notably, choosing a pre-trained model was confusing at first, and I had to experiment a lot. Also, based on what you choose, the model might take a bit of time and computing power to produce audio. It took roughly about 15 minutes, and my laptop was wheezing throughout.

Conclusion

If you thought robots would replace lawyers in court, this isn't the post to persuade you. However, thinking further, I think some usage cases are certainly worth trying, such as online training courses. In this regard, Google Cloud is production-ready so that you can get the most presentable solutions. Mozilla TTS is open source and definitely far more interesting but needs more time to develop. Do you think there are other ways to use TTS?

#tech #NaturalLanguageProcessing #OpenSource #Programming

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

COVID-19 brought home a few trends most would not bother with otherwise. Remote working instead of showing up at an office and passing four budgets in as many months — it’s time to question deeply-held assumptions.

One deeply-held assumption which we might not be able to shake off is the archaic and highly formal process of getting wills done. The Wills Act is considerably vintage, dating earlier than the mid-nineteenth century. As such, it contains interesting oddities such as “a blank space shall intervene between the concluding word of the will and the signature”. You can do this by simply pressing “Enter” after you finish writing your will.

What do these restrictions mean in today’s context?

The main obstacle placed by the Wills Act is that two witnesses are required to witness your signing. You can type and save your will on your computer as much as you like, but it cannot be valid until it is witnessed physically.

The physical requirement of witnessing also makes the validity of e-signatures dubious. The Electronic Transactions Act excludes the creation and execution of wills explicitly. Your will therefore must have a physical manifestation, and someone has to use a pen (or other inking devices) to sign it.

Why is there resistance to change?

It’s not as if no one is trying here. Most people would like to attribute this to “tradition”. However, I also believe that this is perhaps the area where witnesses to a signature does have an impact on disputes. Wills can be challenged for various arbitrary reasons; claiming that [the testator was not thinking straight is one of the easiest](GHOST_URL__/settling-scores-through-your-will-it-doesnt-end-well/). When done correctly, your witnesses can provide that evidence.

The remote nature of e-wills and e-signature provides new avenues for attacks on the validity of your will. Somebody else clicked to sign in your place. How do you know someone is under undue influence when you are looking at them through your webcam?

I am not saying that these problems are insurmountable, even today. However, a process that works wells already exists right now. People who care about their will are willing to go to a law firm and pay for it. If a better solution is out there, it has to be significantly better than the current one.

… But this area is certainly looking at it.

Having a process that works does not mean it is perfect. In fact, there has been much movement in this area:

It’s not clear whether the paid services are making money on their own. The “referral” aspect of the business seems obvious in cases like OCBC, so I suspect most services come together with some other (financial planning) product.

Of course, given the legal background, all these services can only draft a will. Execution is either a separate service (usually involving law firms) or DIY.

And there is room for improvement.

I tried the OCBC service and had the opportunity to view the results of WillMaker. From what I can tell, all these options employ an expert system to generate a will. The problem with the expert system is that the service is only as good as the questions asked.

I previously drafted wills as a charitable service. My primary audience then probably substantially overlaps with someone willing to use the OCBC service. If you would like to generate your own will and your assets are uncomplicated, the current services should fulfil your needs 60-80% of the time. The services are thus very substantial and useful. If you have a lot of odd requests and complicated assets, you must go to a law firm to sort out the ends.

The real problem is that most people who want to make a will don’t have any idea what they are doing. I don’t mean this in a legal sense like trying to dispose of your CPF by will. At this point, they are exploring their options or looking for an expert to challenge their conclusions. A will generator that merely does what the user wants may not be enough. The user wants to know whether the will they have in mind is the one they want.

A will that doesn’t inspire confidence in its user isn’t going to go very far. After going through the form filling exercise, users confront the formal requirements of will execution. They get worried about whether they are doing the right thing. Then they realise that they do need a law firm.

In the end, if you are going to go to some law firm anyway, the need to do an E-Will or e-signature vanishes.

Conclusion

This post might sound bleak for people looking for a change. However, look positively, and it is obvious that there is a need that hasn’t been fulfilled yet. Perhaps charging for an expert system is not likely to draw enough people to experiment with their options. The point is that there should be a system that is demonstratively better than what we have now. Only then will there be an impetus to remove the formalistic limitations of wills.

So who wants to do an E-Will?

#Law #tech #E-signature #ElectronicTransactionsAct #LegalTech #Singapore #Wills #WillsAct

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

Feature image

How do I get on this legal technology wave? Where do I even start? A “contract management system” or a “document management system” (“CMS”) is a good place. Business operations are not affected, but the legal department can get their hands dirty and show results for it.

If you would like a CMS, then the next question is how actually to do it? If you have the budget and the resources, getting a neat and fancy tech solution is excellent. If you're strapped for cash and need to be creative, a solution may be hiding in your computer.

For this little victory, I present to you the most powerful application in the Microsoft Office family — Microsoft Excel. It’s a spreadsheet program that does well with numbers and formulas, but since it started added fonts and cell shading (apparently it was the pioneer), some people have used for other purposes. This includes our CMS.

Microsoft Office PROTIP : Instead of using Word to lay out complicated information, try using Excel instead. A massive table with multiple rows and columns, or trying to fit too much data on one page. Put all the information in one worksheet and print it to fit the sheet on one page. Done! (You might want to question yourself why you are trying to present something so complicated though.)

Hey, wait a second! Isn’t Microsoft Excel a spreadsheet program? If we are compiling a table of information, shouldn’t we be using a database program? Like Microsoft Access? Wrong tool for the job, right?!

Excel can be used for your Contract Management System

I have got nothing against database programs. Heck, my first programming project when I was a teenager was to create a database application detailing the lives of my hamsters. Reports, Forms, queries — I am quite okay with all that. However, there are several reasons why I would still use Excel.

  • Everyone has Excel: If you already work in an environment with Microsoft Office, everyone has Excel. There is no need to install anything new. Compared to a fancy dandy web app (no guarantees about user interface either) or even Microsoft Access, more people are likely to accept using Excel compared to other applications.
  • Anyone can use Excel : Excel is a battle-hardened program that people of different skill levels have used. You will find that more people are able to access and use your CMS. This is important if you are not going to be the one inputting information into the system. You can actually tell your intern to get in there and just do it. Access (and probably other programs) do have a learning curve, and you will have to teach every new user.
  • Excel has underrated features which are very useful for a CMS : Excel is over 30 years old, but it has been improving all this time. There are two features I would highlight:
  1. Formatting as Table unlocks sorting, filtering by phrases and other dandy stuff. You can even filter and sort by colour. I use these features to filter say the contracts that are expiring in the current quarter. I also can filter information such as the place where the contract is formed or the contracting party.
  2. Pivot Tables also help to organise data in a way to gain new insights. For example, I can find out quickly which jurisdictions my counterparties are from.
  • Hyperlinks: Some organisations may store their soft copy contracts in file servers, and it becomes easy to provide access to such soft copies through hyperlinks quickly. For a listing of General Terms and Conditions which Business uses and Legal has reviewed, you can also embed an object in your Excel file together with Legal and business’s comments. This way, everyone knows which GTC we have reviewed.

You can adopt this Excel CMS Format

Here is a blank format of an Excel Contract Management System you can download. You can modify or adapt it in any way you deem fit.

CMS Format CMS Format.xlsx 15 KB download-circle

Here are a few highlights of the form:

  • The format is divided into a few sections — Meta, Counterparty, Contract Term and Subject.
  • In the Meta section, you can adapt to suit your organisation’s needs and quirks. For example, we need every contract approved by a form, and we link the form here. There is also a link to a soft copy Word-editable version of the contract if it is available.
  • In the Counterparty section, this is information relating to your contract parties (not yourself obviously). You can also have Yes-No (or unsure) columns to filter.
  • The Contract Term and Subject sections refer to important information what you would like to review quickly using the sorting and filtering functions.

Some Limitations in your Excel Contract Management System

The Excel CMS presents a rough and ready format you can use to get your contract management system tooled up quickly. The filter and sorting has immediate benefits even in contract review, since now I can have access to other similar or related contracts across the company to see what are the standards.

However, the system has many limitations:

  • The table is mighty wide and might not fit very well on one piece of paper. It makes data entry difficult, although I find that Excel’s data form does alleviate some of the problem.
  • Summarising data (for example, I want to know all the contracts with Company X, but I do not need to see who the Person in Charge was) is nearly impossible. You can hack it out by freezing or hiding cells, but this is not a long term solution.
  • Data input can be quite tedious. That’s a lot of columns which are prone to arbitrary data input or mistakes. Not to mention that it can be very time-consuming.

However, once you can demonstrate practical benefits and a workflow, stepping up to a real made for the purpose document or contract management system is easier to climb.

Would I still use Excel for Contract Management?Many people would like to use Excel to manage their contract data. After two years of operating such a system, would I still recommend it?Love.Law.Robots.HoufuHere's my follow up to this post – two years after using this system. (Free subscription required)

Conclusion

This little victory challenges the idea that you have to leap into a system someone made for that purpose to get tech on your side. Using tools that your organisation already has and paid for, this is a straightforward hack. For the win!

#tech #MicrosoftOffice #LegalTech #ContractManagementSystem #Updated

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu