Rajah & Tann (“R&T”) and the National University of Singapore’s School of Computing (“NUS Computing”) have collaborated on a seven-course programme to equip lawyers with the skills to harness disruptive technologies shaping the future of law.
The courses included design thinking, financial technology, application programming interface, robotic process automation, business analytics and blockchain.
“We are preparing the next generation of lawyers,” said Rajesh Sreenivasan, Head of R&T’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications Practice.
“This intensive and substantive training is a major step above courses where lawyers learn basic coding.
“We want our lawyers to rethink legal workflows and to use technology to enable change. This will allow our lawyers to re-engineer legal work and ultimately transform and digitalise practice workflows and client deliverables.”
This is the first time NUS has curated courses for a law firm. Ng Sey Ming, Partner of R&T and a member of the firm’s Exco Technology Sub-Committee said R&T provided inputs for NUS and the result is a suite of courses with practical applications.
“After the training, our legal engineering and innovation team will work with our lawyers to actualise the design and process changes,” said Mr Ng.
A total of 22 R&T participants from the firm’s Technology Interest Group completed the training and attended a virtual graduation ceremony today presided by Mr Patrick Ang, Managing Partner of R&T, Prof Keith Carter, Associate Professor at NUS Computing and Programme Director, NUS FinTech Lab at NUS, and Dr Chan Mun Kitt, Senior Director of Advanced Computing for Executives at NUS.
Assoc Prof Carter said: “No field is exempted from the advancements of technology. Clients operate in a 24×7, virtual, digital world and they expect the same from the legal profession.
“During the programme, the lawyers learned how humans and AI work together and how fintech is the connector that will improve the workflow for maximum efficiency.”
NUS said they are not ruling out future expansion of the programme to other law firms.
Mr Ng of R&T said the same course could also be used as part of the onboarding process of new lawyers joining R&T. The latest move by R&T to ensure that its lawyers are proficient in the use of technology is in line with a call from Chief Justice Sudaresh Menon, who in a 2019 speech, urged law firms to make such training “a priority” and not see it as an “optional extra.”
