Singapore Chief Justice Maps Court's Tech Future

The New Singapore Courts Tower

We follow the Judiciary of Singapore closely here at the Court Technology Bulletin.  Being a small country, they can take bold steps in their technology portfolio.  On January 6, 2020 Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon made his annual Opening of the Legal Year address which highlighted many tech programs.

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Some of the key points from the address were:
Collaborating with the Singapore Academy of Law to provide co-working space in the new State Courts Towers facility known as CLICKS.  CLICKS stand for “Collaborative Law, Innovative Co-creation and Knowledge Sharing”.  It “aims to promote pro bono work while driving legal innovation and entrepreneurship”.

And according to this article from the Straits Times newspaper: “The State Courts Towers will also boast technological features such as a live transcribing system developed by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) that is said to increase efficiency of court proceedings and reduce legal costs.”

Chief Justice Menon also repeated his call from last year for the law firms to step up their technology adoption as “focus groups acknowledge that our law firms have generally been less robust in embracing technological solutions”.  And that cost along with “lack of familiarity with technology” were factors.  But as suspected, “younger lawyers do not share this difficulty”.  The Chief Justice also welcomed the Law Society’s efforts “to encourage the adoption of technology in the profession”.

He also noted “the news that the Singapore Management University School of Law has recently been awarded a major grant for research into computational law. It intends to establish a Centre for Computational Law and Legal Technology to conduct this research and to develop cutting-edge digital and data solutions for legal practice.”

And more, Chief Justice Menon discussed online courts/online dispute resolution systems including what I think is most interesting, is an "Outcome Simulator".  He said: “This will allow the parties to identify potential award ranges for personal injuries, thus facilitating early settlement”.

Last, and my favorite announcement, (see my earlier CTB article) the “Authentic Court Orders System will obviate the need for parties to obtain “certified true copies” when asked to produce court orders to foreign courts or government agencies.” To see the system online go to https://www.supremecourt.gov.sg/services/court-services/authentic-court-orders

There are other announcements in the speech including an interesting discussion of the Future of Legal Services. 

Here is the link to his full speech in PDF:  https://www.supremecourt.gov.sg/docs/default-source/module-document/speech/oly-2020---speech-by-cj-(checked-against-delivery).pdf

And here is the graphic that summarizes their initiatives:  https://www.supremecourt.gov.sg/images/default-source/module/speech/oly-2020-infographic.jpg