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The tables below rank law firms and in-house legal teams for the FT Innovative Lawyers Apac awards.

Technology:

Rank Law firm Description Originality Leadership Impact Total
STANDOUT Gilbert + Tobin Developed "dd<i>", a process management and review tool that allows due diligence to be completed by deal teams in one platform with links to documents in an external data room. Tailored checklists of questions for the type of document being reviewed and a library of legal tags help junior lawyers learn best practice. The tool auto-generates reports, reduces error and saves time. 7 9 8 24
HIGHLY COMMENDED MinterEllison Expanded DefinitionChecker, a drafting add-on in Microsoft Word, to introduce natural language processing. When lawyers highlight a clause in their draft, the software will display similar clauses. The tool also picks up mistakes such as misspelled names and non-business days, reducing error and saving hours of manual review. Commended: Gareth Jolly 7 8 7 22
HIGHLY COMMENDED Pinsent Masons Advising Asia’s Got Talent semi-finalists on option contracts for client Sony Music, the firm leveraged collaboration platform HighQ to improve efficiency and reduce fees. A user-friendly interface allows contestants to book video advisory sessions, review and sign contracts, watch instructional videos subtitled in their native language and check the status of their contracts. Note: HighQ is a sponsor of the Innovative Lawyers awards 5 8 8 21
COMMENDED Allen & Overy Using Legatics, a tool that helps lawyers complete the conditions precedent required to close transactions, the firm managed one of the largest technology-assisted completions in Asia with the financing of the region's first liquefied natural gas-to-power project, Jawa-1, helping to meet 681 conditions. Expanding the functionality of the platform to include A & O guidance notes, the firm estimates six-digit savings on its fee with a 20 per cent cut in lawyer hours and a 70 per cent cut in administrative time. 6 7 7 20
COMMENDED Gan, Lee & Tan Developed two tools to help small businesses. An online legal health assessment, hosted on its website, covers nine areas of law in 60 questions, compiling information into a report by the firm's lawyers. Rachel, a chatbot using IBM Watson Assistant, triages common questions. 6 8 5 19

Technology (In-house):

Rank Company Description Originality Leadership Impact Total
STANDOUT L'Oréal The Australia and New Zealand small in-house team of three lawyers adapted a range of self-service applications offered by legal tech company Plexus to automate routine tasks such drafting promotional terms and conditions as well as influencer, employment and customer agreements. The apps have dramatically reduced the completion time, cost and error rate of routine work and were used by the business more than 2,000 times in 2018. Three more are due to launch this year. 7 8 8 23
HIGHLY COMMENDED Uber Used new technologies to manage workflows, including a bot that highlights problematic terms in marketing materials before they are escalated to legal, as well as a contract requests portal. Lawyers worked with Uber's product development team to repurpose an outward-facing customer service system as a gateway for incoming legal requests, helping them to triage work, collect metrics and manage resources more effectively. 7 8 7 22
HIGHLY COMMENDED DBS Bank The team developed and implemented process automation to streamline anti-money laundering investigations, as well as an artificial intelligence tool for identifying suspicious transactions. The tools have reduced the number of false positives reported in the detection of money laundering. 6 8 7 21
COMMENDED ICICI Bank The time and cost of dispute resolution in India remains a challenge for business. In partnership with Humlab, Vayam and other technology companies, the in-house team helped to establish an e-arbitration platform that aggregates online and offline mediation processes across the country, due to launch this year. 7 6 7 20
COMMENDED Schroder Investment Management (Singapore) The Schroders team created a bot to automate the process for a common fund regulation form, 2A, required whenever there is an update to a fund registered with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The bot automatically populates the form with hundreds of data points and saves more than 400 human hours per year. 7 7 6 20

Explore the Innovative Lawyers Asia-Pacific rankings 2019

Overall

  • FT Most Innovative Law Firms
  • Rule of Law and Access to Justice
  • Most Innovative In-house legal teams
  • Collaboration

Business of Law

  • Data, Knowledge and Intelligence
  • Managing and Developing Talent
  • Innovation in Diversity and Inclusion
  • New Business and Service Delivery Models
  • New Products and Services
  • Strategy and Changing Behaviours
  • Technology

Legal Expertise

  • Accessing New Markets and Capital
  • Enabling Business Growth and Transformation
  • Managing Complexity and Scale
  • Litigation and Disputes
  • Creating a New Standard
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