Document automation vendor Clarilis is to open an office in Singapore with a hire from leading Singapore law firm Oon & Bazul.
Oon & Bazul’s general manager and head of business development, Malik Anwar, has joined as director of Clarilis’ Asian operations. The UK-headquartered company says that South East Asia, and Singapore in particular, is a key jurisdiction in the roll-out of its platform internationally.
Clarilis was one of eight legal technology vendors selected last year to join the Department for International Trade’s first ever legal tech mission to Singapore. The mission was designed to coincide with the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH) in November, with various activities planned including presentations by Singapore’s globally acclaimed Future Law Innovation Programme (FLIP). The eight vendors were given the opportunity to showcase their technology at an event hosted by the British High Commission, with the aim of promoting legal tech that adds value to the legal industry.
Clarilis counts both corporate legal departments and leading private legal practices amongst its customer base – including Addleshaw Goddard, Baker McKenzie, GoCompare, Gowling WLG, Herbert Smith Freehills, National Grid, Slaughter and May, TLT and Travers Smith.
Anwar said in an announcement out today (11 February): “It’s an exciting time to be joining Clarilis as they extend their global reach to Asia. Clarilis has quickly established itself as the market leading platform and managed service within the UK and the platform is already used by a number of firms in multiple jurisdictions worldwide. It is no secret that the Singapore government is committed to creating a first-class Smart Nation by harnessing and leveraging technology, networks and data to create solutions and innovations across the country. Clarillis South East Asia is poised to leverage and contribute to this growth in Singapore and SEA.”
James Quinn, CEO and co-founder of Clarilis, added: “It’s great to welcome Malik on board to lead our Singapore office and South East Asian expansion. Malik has a strong background in business development and has worked with a wide variety of businesses across the region, in particular working with global organisations to test bed and commercialise their technologies in Singapore. His appointment comes at an interesting time for the SEA market, where there’s a strong focus on legal technology that can drive efficiencies in the delivery of legal services.
We can expect to see more vendors making the move to Singapore in light of the huge government support for legal tech initiatives, including a $3.68m scheme to help Singapore law practices adopt technology launched last year by the Ministry of Law (MinLaw), the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc), Enterprise Singapore and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
Under the new Tech-celerate for Law programme, Singapore law practices can get funding support of up to 70% of the first-year cost of adopting baseline and advanced technology solutions ranging from practice management systems and document management systems, to online legal research, document assembly and ediscovery software and solutions.
Applications are still open but close on 1 May 2020 – SLPs can apply via the Law Society at lpi@lawsoc.org.sg