NYLC report - Seminar on Tablets & Touch Screens: Transforming Practice Through Technology

NYLC Top-Up Series | Seminar on Tablets & Touch Screens: Transforming Practice Through Technology (28 Oct 2013)    

Contributed by Vishnu Jeevapragasan, Officer, National Young Lawyers Committee and photos by Satha Selvan Subramaniam, Senior Administrative Assistants, Bar Council

The Bar Council National Young Lawyers Committee (“NYLC”) organised its first NYLC Top-Up Series seminar on 28 Oct 2013.  The NYLC Top-Up Series is a series of seminars, workshops and talks catered specifically for young lawyers.

The two-hour session, entitled “Tablets & Touchscreens: Transforming Practice Through Technology” was held at the Raja Aziz Addruse Auditorium and  attended by 31 participants consisting of Members of the Bar, pupils in chambers, private sector employees and staff of law firms. 

The seminar was conducted by Jason Kay and Foong Cheng Leong.  Both speakers have managed to successfully integrate current technology into their respective practice.

Jason Kay was the head of the Malacca Legal Aid Centre in 2010 and 2011, and is currently a member of the Bar Council National Legal Aid Committee.  He has published two articles on utilising technology alongside legal practice, namely, Using the iPad in Your Legal Practice (Re: Lex, September 2012) and How Technology Can Help Your Legal Practice (Praxis, Oct-Dec 2012).

Foong Cheng Leong is the Chairperson of the KL Bar Information Technology Committee. He runs a paperless and virtual office utilising numerous apps.

The main goal of the seminar was to allow the participants to learn and implement technological solutions to their practice as well as day to day operations.  During the seminar, Jason Kay educated the participants on free apps in the current market that would simplify their current daily rituals, which amongst other things included taking notes, storing and distributing business cards, navigating, storing documents, converting file types viewing and referencing files and much more.  He also provided simple and concise instructions on how to utilise these apps in a way that can genuinely make an impact on the amount of waiting time a litigator may have in a day.  

Foong Cheng Leong, among other things, demonstrated how participants could go through court judgments in various jurisdictions ranging from Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, Malaysia and much more.  He also showed participants how they may obtain these judgments for free, obtain translations for free and browse and search through judgments.  He also shared his experience in creating a virtual library — an impressive and fairly comprehensive e-library of over 9,000 cases on over a hundred topics.

Participants were thoroughly engaged in the seminar and echoed that enthusiasm in the question-and-answer session.  There was a lot of banter and curiosity and many of them came out refreshed and admitted that this seminar would make a tremendous amount of difference in their practice.  Some participants requested that more of such seminars be conducted to cater towards conveyancing practitioners or more senior Members of the Bar.