EVENTS
Zhong Lun Law Firm Attends the World Law Group 2019 Asia Regional Conference——Artificial Intelligence and Law
Zhong Lun Law Firm Attends the World Law Group 2019 Asia Regional Conference——Artificial Intelligence and Law
Between March 8th and 9th, 2019, our partner Frank JIANG and non-equity partner Jing XIE, both as delegates of Zhong Lun Law Firm, attended the World Law Group (referred to as “WLG") 2019 Asia Regional Conference (referred to as “Conference") held in Seoul, South Korea. Hosted by Bae, Kim & Lee LLC, Korea, the Conference brought together Asian industry leaders to timely focus on the development of artificial intelligence (referred to as “AI") from the perspective of law.
The legal practitioners from more than ten countries or regions attended the Conference, apart from Mainland China, Hong Kong Special Administration Region and Taiwan District, which also include Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippines. The Conference discussion involved a lively exchange of views on various topics, including legal issues related to AI, inter-firm cooperation and collaboration under the WLG framework, and recent legal and business developments in various jurisdictions. Our partner Frank JIANG and non-equity partner Jing XIE, as delegates of Zhong Lun, actively participated in the discussion and gave informative speeches on cross-regional inter-firm collaboration and recent developments of China's policies on foreign direct investment and overseas direct investment, respectively.
Picture 1: Group Photo of Delegates Attending the Conference
World Law Group
Founded in 1988, the WLG is one of the oldest and largest global networks of 58 independent business law firms with 18,000 high-level legal professionals, covering 85 countries and over 360 commercial centers worldwide, the members of whom are top national law firms and industry leaders in their domestic/local markets recognized by Chambers and other industry arbiters and have consistently been complimented by clients and peers as “top tier" across a comprehensive range of practice and industry areas. The WLG maintains a stringent new-member selection process for overall high quality by admitting sole member firm in each new jurisdiction and Zhong Lun Law Firm, as one of the largest comprehensive law firms in China, is the only Chinese member of WLG.
Panel Discussion - AI and Law
In the Conference, extended discussion emphasized various issues concerning AI, including its prospects and development paths, current stage, legal challenges arising out of AI and its future possible legislative framework. When it came to the application of AI in the legal profession, discussion was extended to the recognition of the independent legal status of AI/machine, the liabilities related to AI (for instance, is it a product liability), the language issue for the global application of AI software, data privacy and security and the passage of expensive fees of AI software to clients. In particular, the issue of training of young lawyers in response to the universal application of AI in the future was raised by our delegate, Jing XIE, and it aroused deep resonance and heated discussion among the legal practitioners present the Conference. AI would take over labor-intensive works of a law firm, such as legal search, due diligence and translations, which are usually the basic exercises for young lawyers to go through to establish their foundation. With the development of AI and increasing application of AI in the legal profession, young lawyers may just skip the basic exercises and directly be exposed to more complicated and complex works such as transaction structuring and legal opinion preparation. This, in the future, could be a challenge for the training of young lawyers brought about by AI.
Picture 2: Speech addressed regards to AI
Panel Discussion– Cross-regional Law Firm Collaboration and Updates of Legal and Business Developments
The panel session was concluded with panelists’ sharing insights on cross-regional inter-firm collaboration and updates on legal and business developments in their home jurisdictions. Our delegates Frank JIANG and Jing XIE made informative speeches on the said topics and exchanged opinions with industry peers from other countries or regions.
With the backdrop of the increasing globalization, cross-regional inter-firm collaboration is an irreversible trend given clients’ expanding business needs and rapidly-growing scale of customer base. The global network of WLG enables all member firms to reach collaborations with compatible partners across the world; the active collaborations among member firms further promote the brand name of “WLG", indeed a win-win program for the global lawyers to work together and deliver comprehensive and one-stop service for our clients globally.
Picture 3: Speech by Frank JIANG
Picture 4: Speech by Jing XIE
Picture 5: Photo of Frank JIANG (The right), Jing XIE (The middle) and Eric Eunyong YANG (The left), a partner of the hosting firm of the Conference
With the continuous strengthening of global links and the rapid development of science and technologies, Zhong Lun Law Firm values the significance of cross-regional law firm collaborations as well as the legal services in the future legal market. It is our mission and honor to provide our clients with best and the most cutting-edge legal services at every moment of the stage. Taking a leading position in the field of AI, Zhong Lun Law Firm has provided legal services for various multinational companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Morgan Stanley, Tencent, Huawei, Lenovo, China Mobile, China Unicom, Samsung, Britain Telecom, Korea Telecom, TCL, Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Suning etc. in the areas of Industrial Internet of Things, Internet of Vehicles, Smart Driving, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet Data Center, Network Security and Data Protection.
