Singapore at the forefront of digital modernisation

By Charlie Harrel, International Development Director for Opus 2 International. This article is part two of a three-part series examining the emergence of electronic courtrooms internationally. The first installment focused on the UK. Now, we set our sights on Asia.

Legal professionals in the West interested in the evolution of digital litigation may already be aware of recent initiatives in the UK to manage courtroom evidence electronically. Or perhaps they may be following new developments with the Case Management/Electronic Case Files (CM/ECF) program—which began to roll out in US federal courts nationally in 2002 and is currently transitioning to a “Next Generation” version with new functionality. Maybe they are tracking the rather uneven adoption in the US of electronic filing in state courts. But how many judges and attorneys in the US or the UK are aware that Singapore has modernized its court system with a mandate for “the world’s first nationwide paperless litigation”? 

Singapore Establishes the Template for Change

This innovation started with an Electronic Filing System (EFS) as a pilot in 1997 and was solidified when EFS became mandatory for all parties in 2000. Since then, Singapore has replaced EFS with a more ambitious industry and nationwide system for electronic courtrooms called eLitigation—which requires no installation of software on local computers, replaces many PDFs with dynamic electronic court forms and provides parties with full electronic access to case documents as long as the case remains active.

Admittedly, implementing an electronic and virtually paperless court system on a national scale is probably more practical in a relatively small city-state like Singapore. But the achievements of EFS and eLitigation are nevertheless impressive. This is real progress, and more innovation is in the works (see below).

Building on the success of EFS, the Singapore Academy of Law, the promotion and development agency for the country’s legal industry, subsequently issued a “Roadmap” for the implementation of legal technology. The Academy envisioned digital “war rooms” for each side in a dispute to “facilitate communication and correspondence between the litigant and his lawyer,” where “all documents and relevant material” related to a case would be available in real time at various stages of preparation. Discoverable documents would be accessible to both sides, and the war room concept would also extend to cases where groups of individuals are involved, including all members of a legal team, directors of a company, and third parties and co-defendants and their respective lawyers. The Academy envisioned a transitional period in which “files, bundles, computers and electronic presentation tools co-exist symbiotically; until such time as technology reaches the stage where the process can truly be paperless, and users are comfortable doing so.” But the ultimate objective extends well beyond the reduction or elimination of paper. The Academy envisioned a much more efficient, end-to-end litigation process with electronic communication and automation at every step, and the opportunity to perform substantive legal work and collaborate with colleagues and clients in real time, even during proceedings. “The courtroom is not merely a place where a lawyer presents his prepared case, but is also a place where he is constantly refining his case as the hearing proceeds.”

In the years since the Academy’s “Roadmap” was issued, Singapore’s legal community has come together to embrace a shared commitment to ongoing technological transformation in the delivery of legal services, a commitment exemplified by a formal partnership between the government and the private sector. Both President Thio Shen Yi of the Law Society of Singapore—the country’s representative body of lawyers—and the Senior Minister of State for Law, Indranee Rajah, have delivered speeches in recent months affirming the importance of technology as a means of increasing “productivity and innovative delivery of legal services” in the country, and citing a government-funded, two-year collaboration between the Ministry of Law and the Law Society to help small and medium-sized firms “overcome barriers [and] adopt value adding technology and best business practices.” 

As it happens, at least two significant international arbitrations at Singapore’s Maxwell Chambers, Asia’s premier venue for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and the world’s first integrated dispute resolution complex, have recently made use of sophisticated case management/legal collaboration technology that fully embodies the Academy’s “war room” concept, enabling electronic document services and presentation of evidence (with live hyperlinking), as well as real-time court reporting. The cloud-based technology is currently used in the US to enhance case analysis and to facilitate 24/7 collaboration between members of geographically dispersed legal teams as they prepare for trial—but it has turned out to also be eminently adaptable for use in hearings and trials. Basically, the technology establishes an online workspace where key discovery documents, testimony (including audio, video and transcripts), exhibits, research, collective insight, attorney work product and just about any other litigation-related materials can all be securely accessed, annotated, linked and shared electronically by a group of authorized users.

This same technology was also used in a 2014 Supreme Court case, an intellectual property dispute between Global Yellow Pages (GYP) and its rival Promedia Directories. Wang Yingyu, the director of the Via Law Corporation, which represented GYP, said that her team was “impressed” by the technology, and found it could reduce printing from a projected 252,000 sheets of paper at a cost of $40,000 down to a mere 2,500 to 3,000 pages. She noted the technology could be “useful” for pre-trial preparation as well. The technology will also be deployed in another Supreme Court case that is currently scheduled for March 2016.

One of the most striking aspects of the Singapore system is its emergence in a country in which 80 percent of the approximately 800 firms nationwide have fewer than five lawyers, which suggests that it’s not always the most expensive, high-volume legal matters and the largest firms that are motivating the push for transformative technology.

In Singapore’s case, the adoption of EFS, eLitigation and new tools meant to modernize trial and court practice—as well the apparent consensus shared by legal professionals and government ministers with respect to the benefits of ongoing evaluation and implementation of technology in the courtroom and beyond—reflects a forward-looking mentality that is part of a larger ambition within the country’s legal community to solidify its position as “a regional dispute resolution center—whether for litigation or arbitration.”  They appear to be well on their way.

Brunei Aims to Follow Suit

Another bright spot in Asia is Brunei, whose new Judiciary Case Management System (JCMS) launched in March 2015. Brunei has taken a cue from Singapore and made strides to modernize its courts system with JCMS, an electronic network that connects courtrooms nationwide. While JCMS is younger and currently less evolved than Singapore’s eLitigation system, it is a significant initiative that reflects a determination on the part of Brunei’s judiciary to establish a uniform, nationwide system to modernize the courts, reduce or eliminate the use of paper documents and streamline court-related processes. Proponents are confident that the system is “set to transform what is a predominantly paper-based process into an electronic court environment, making access to cases and court data more effective and efficient.”

Lessons Learned

What these two Asian nations are proving is that the technology required for paperless courtrooms and online legal collaboration is already with us. Having taken note of the significant advances in online tools for managing depositions and the full range of activities associated with trialpreparation, Singapore and Brunei are now paving the way for more comprehensive deployment of the same tools in the courtroom.

But How Have These Tiny Jurisdictions Managed to Accomplish What Legal Systems in Much Larger Countries Only Dream About?

First, they had the vision and the collective will to create a more sophisticated, efficient and cost-effective legal system that would span law firms, legal departments and courtrooms nationwide. They also had the courage to pursue this vision, even as they understood it would necessitate sweeping changes in how law firms and legal practitioners approach the practice of law. They also adopted and implemented technology that would incrementally modernize the entire legal process—from e-filing to case management and analysis to legal collaboration, and now to the management of the entire litigation process in the courtroom.

Finally, the initiatives have benefited from the buy-in of professionals across the industry in the private and public sectors, making it possible to impose changes in a deliberate and stepwise manner, and setting the stage for faster implementation, more uniform deployment and minimal fragmentation across different components of the legal system.

This article originally appeared in Legaltech News magazine. Charlie Harrel is the International Development Director at Opus 2 Magnum. Prior to joining Opus 2 International in 2013, Charlie consulted leading law firms, in-house legal teams and independent service providers on using new technologies to drive commercial efficiency and improve client service. He also spent four and a half years at Olswang LLP, where he trained and qualified as a commercial litigator.