This market report is brought to you by The Malaysian Lawyer, co-founded by Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel.
This is Part 2 of our special market report on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the various MCOs on the Malaysian legal industry. Before reading on, you should read Part 1, where we addressed the financial issues (paycuts, volume of legal work, and revenues), remote working, and technology.
In this second part, we report on the impact of the pandemic on office/work culture, how law firms addressed employee mental health issues, and examine how the industry could have done better in dealing with the various challenges, and what the future holds. Again, these findings are not our own conclusions, but are a collection of the views of several lawyers who very kindly took the time to share their experiences with us. Some have asked to remain anonymous.
This market report is brought to you by The Malaysian Lawyer, co-founded by Lee Shih and Marcus van Geyzel.
If asked to think back to March 2020, when Malaysia first went into “lockdown” or a “Movement Control Order” (MCO), Malaysians may feel like the period of time that has passed has been the equivalent of several lifetimes. Or that it now seems to have gone quickly, and certainly doesn’t seem like it was 18 months ago. Or perhaps that it simultaneously feels like both a very long time and a very short time ago, in that time-bending perspective-warping haze that the pandemic seems to have permanently brought into our lives.
For the Malaysian legal industry, much has happened. If we cast our minds back to those early-MCO days, there was a scramble for lawyers to figure out how to operate outside of the office, without access to printed documents and files.
To be honest, some lawyers still haven’t quite figured it out, but there has been much progress overall. Compelled by the judiciary, lawyers shuffled out of the Stone Age and into conducting video trials online. The National and State Bars successfully convened their AGMs online (after a huge COVID scare from the in-person KL Bar AGM). Law firms rolled out pay-cuts, and freezed hiring, increments, and bonuses. As work dried up in some areas, many lawyers pivoted into new practice areas. Call ceremonies also moved online. Aspiring lawyers had to deal with huge delays to CLP exams and results.
2020 has been the year of COVID-19. The pandemic has affected every aspect of life in almost every corner of the globe. Apart from the devastating impact on health and lives, and the effect on economies everywhere which may take years to recover from, COVID-19 has changed the way we work. Malaysia’s Movement Control Order (“MCO”) meant that from 18 March, most businesses had to cease on-site operations. Many other countries also enforced similar restrictions.
As a result of restrictions, people the world over have had to get used to working from home. While the concept of remote working isn’t new (it may come as a surprise to many that Tim Ferriss’ classic “The 4-Hour Workweek” was published 13 years ago), before these restrictions most industries had resisted the shift to working away from the office. The COVID-19 restrictions have forced even the staunchest luddites to adopt remote working.
We sought the views of the following four individuals with links to the legal industry across Asia-Pacific to hear about their work-from-home experiences:
Crystal Wong, a partner in the Energy, Infrastructure & Projects and International Arbitration Practice Group at LHAG.
Loh Siew Cheang’s Corporate Powers Accountability (Third Edition) is a must-have for corporate litigators and corporate lawyers
Introduction
A master craftsman would have essential tools for his trade. Likewise, a corporate litigator would have with him the essential text of Dato’ Loh Siew Cheang’s Corporate Powers Accountability.
Loh’s seminal text saw its second edition published in 2002. Sixteen years later, I looked forward to reading a copy of the third edition which was published in May 2018. I received a review copy of the book thanks to LexisNexis’ collaboration with The Malaysian Lawyer. I am extremely grateful to the publishers for extending me a copy of this book and the book will immediately find its place on my bookshelf.
This article is contributed by LexisNexis Malaysia. LexisNexis is a leading global provider of business information solutions to professionals in legal, corporate, government, academics, tax, accounting and many more.
To find out more on LexisNexis Practical Guidance, visit here.
In a report published by the International Labour Organisation in 2017 titled Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour & Forced Marriage, it was estimated that in 2016 there were 5 victims of modern slavery in every 1,000 people. Further, the Global Slavery Index found that, in 2016, approximately two-thirds of the 45.8 million people in modern slavery are in the Asia-Pacific region. Examples of modern slavery include forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking.
In collaboration with the British High Commission, where Her Excellency Victoria Treadell, British High Commissioner to Malaysia gave the opening remarks, the United Nations Global Compact Network Malaysia held an all-day pre-forum workshop on Slave Free Trade last March 15th in Kuala Lumpur, where various speakers from different organisations discussed the vital role businesses play in ending slavery.
The panel of speakers was notable leaders from various NGOs and CSOs, including Dato’ Aishah Bidin from the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), Dr. Nisar Ahmad from Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, and Ms. Aegile Fernandez from local human rights and non-profit organisation Tenaganita.
LexisNexis’ Hannah Lim — Head of Rule of Law and Emerging Markets, SEA — spoke as a panelist about the ways in which even companies not directly involved in supply chains can still join the fight against modern slavery.
Image 1: H.E. Victoria Treadell, British High Commissioner to Malaysia giving the opening remarks. Image 2: Panelists flanked by UN Global Compact Malaysia officials (from second left to right) Ms Aegile Fernandez from TENAGANITA, Dr, Nisar Ahmad from USM, Dato’ Aisha Bidin of SUHAKAM, Ms Hannah Lim from LexisNexis. Image 3: Dato’ Aisha Bidin speaking on the need for following international benchmark and standards, as Hannah Lim looks on.
Post-workshop, we canvassed Hannah’s opinion on various issues on modern slavery and what can be done to tackle it.
The LexTech Conference 2017 — Malaysia’s first legal tech conference, which aimed to raise awareness on legal tech and to promote technology adoption — was held on 4-5 November 2017. Among the legal tech experts and innovators, lawyers, general counsel, and other interested parties who assembled from all over Asia, was our own intrepid reporter Janice Tan Ying. She prepared this report on what she managed to glimpse of the future of law. You can read our other coverage via the #LexTech17 tag.
‘Blockchain’, ‘Smart Contract’, ‘NewLaw’. Dubbed the ‘uberisation’ of legal services — is this just fleeting hype, or are these new legal tech trends here to stay? If it is the latter, will it disrupt the livelihoods of legal practitioners, or enable lawyers to enhance their practice? While these buzzwords may sound like gobbledygook (read: tech jargon) to the everyday lawyer, talk about impending ‘disruption’ in the legal industry is rife.
According to Malaysian Bar President George Varughese, “legal technology is still somewhat an enigma in this region”. He said this during his welcoming address at #LexTech17 — the inaugural LexTech Conference 2017 which took place on 4-5 November 2017 in Cyberjaya. He also added — “Some of us know it well and welcome it with an embrace but many of us are threatened by its penetration and understandably so. It’s disruptive, it’s innovative and it’s necessary.”
Malaysian Bar President George Varughese delivering the conference welcoming address | Photo credit: CanLaw Asia
Jointly organised by CanLaw Asia and Brickfields Asia College (BAC), the two-day conference saw the region’s leading legal practitioners and legal tech innovators come together to share their ideas and solutions on legal innovation. Topics that were discussed throughout the expert panel and breakout sessions on both days centred around four issues: The role of regulators and accelerators in legal innovation, blockchain and smart contracts, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in legal research, and how legal practitioners can future-proof their practice.
The following are four key themes from the conference:
